Apple Watch battery draining fast

Yes. The only thing that really works is to erase, unpair then pair again.

Troublesome but the only method that works.

My series 9 watch was charged to 100% at midnight, by 6am it woke me up alerting me it was at 10%. Back to 100% by 9:30am. Once again at 2:30pm I’m back to 10%.

I do see a pending update for watchOS 10.4 that I will try to install when I get home and hope it fixes it

I’ve solved this at the moment by.

Turning off the auto update to the watches software in the watch app

Watch app > General > Software update > Automatic Updates off

Then switching off the phone and restarting and the watch and restarting it.

overnight is used the usual 10-15% battery unlike the night before where it was 100% drained. So it looks like it’s the process of updating which is draining it

I’ve also logged this with Apple support and gave them this thread to check to see it wasn’t just me.

previously I’d done the erasing and re-pairing but had then tried to do the update again.

hopefully they fix the updating bug on the iOS or watch iOS soon

my Battery lasted for the whole day for the last 6 months. Today, it has drained twice already. What is going on

FYI in case helpful; I downloaded 10.4 which took longer than usual, but does seem to have addressed the issue for now; it’s dropped around 15% over the course of 5/6 hours. Will keep an eye to ensure the ‘fix’ has worked

I’m honestly glad I came here. It’s good to not be alone! I’ve worn an Apple Watch for the last 6 years and never had this problem before. I have a series 8 and yesterday it drained from 78% to absolutely dead while I was sitting at my desk working for 3 hours. In the time it took me to read a few posts here, sign in and begin this comment, it’s drained from 11% to 8%.

FIXED! OK Apple Watchers! I have been right there with you experiencing staggering battery drain on my Ultra 2 since the Watch OS 10.4 update.  My wife has the exact same watch with very similar setup. We updated both watches at the same time. Her watch did not experience any battery drain issues. Who knows why some of us took such a huge performance hit after this update while others did not?  Considering the vast resources at their disposal, Apple can and should do a better job than this of scrutinizing all updates before release. While community beta testing feedback is certainly valuable, if it is being relied on too heavily, Apple has got to dedicate more resources to taking ownership of every update and every issue it might introduce to us. Enough about that already!  Now for the fix! A couple of posts have mentioned a hard reset fix for this issue. I am extremely relieved to report that it works if done correctly!! First off, make certain that you know how to perform a hard reset on your watch and your iPhone. You have to do both! (Normal power off and on have no effect on this issue. Nor did any number of battery consumption reducing settings changes)  

     On the Ultra 2 watch a hard reset requires pressing the digital crown and the side button simultaneously and holding until the Apple logo appears. On newer iPhones, quickly press and release volume up then volume down  and then press and hold the side button until Apple logo appears. I hard reset the phone first and then hard reset the watch while the phone was starting up. I wanted the phone to be up and running when the watch finished resetting and started searching for the phone. I hard reset both twice back to back. Maybe once would have done it but I am just reporting exactly what I did to get my watch back. I cannot express how frustrated and angry I have been (not without getting my post removed that is) about the battery performance loss on my Apple Watch Ultra 2 after updating to Watch OS 10.4  The watch is the most prized gadget I have ever owned and ever since I purchased it I have been overwhelmed by the technology and innovation that went into it’s design. That is why the hit I took after the update pushed me over the edge. That and the fact that I know Apple can do better. There needs to be a reckoning, perhaps a complete overhaul of the entire update development process. Please Apple: Don’t do this to me again.

It seems to happen intermittently. Somehow something seems to suddenly send it into burning through the battery. Last night I noticed that the watch was taking way longer to charge and felt hot. I’ve had a cell plan with it since I purchased it last autumn so I don’t think it’s that. I’m still worried this will be damaging the battery and I hope Apple is able to resolve it soon.

I ended doing the Apple Support chat and then the phone call BUT my watch seems back to normal and I was finally able to finish the watch update. Some of the things they had me do:

1.) Reset the Network Settings on my phone to refresh the wifi

2.) Hard factory reset my phone and my watch (holding the buttons until the apple appears, turning on the watch first so it was awake when the phone turned on)

3.) Open the update screen on both my phone and watch

4.) And sadly just sit and wait

In total it took about 2-2 1/2 hours for the whole thing once I started talking to the support chat and probably 3 or so hours from what I tried before contacting support. But eventually the bar moved after leaving the phone awake on the update screen.

I’m not the only one. This has happened several times over the past few months. When I notice it’s draining, I reset the watch holding the two same side buttons down. It reboots and seems fine for a few weeks. One time, that didn’t help and the battery drained to 0. A few minutes later, while on the charger, the apple appeared, and it rebooted and charged.

Hopefully, it’s an OS error that will be corrected soon.

I just got done talking with support. They said it’s not the new update as updates only help not hinder, but they also couldn’t help me with diagnostic either. 🤷🏼‍♀️ it’s definitely the update and they’re not going to admit it.

Where’s the typical Apple tech specialist chiming in? Someone with actual knowledge of what’s going on? They usually pop in to the larger threads to help. And nothing but crickets on their end now 🦗🦗🦗🦗

I had the same problem. Four-month-old Series 9 that died mid-afternoon with no apps running to speak of. here is how I fixed it.

1) I went into the Watch App and did the following:

General -> Reset -> Erase Apple Watch Content and Settings

If you have cellular you will be given the option to keep that. Keep the cellular settings.

2) While the watch was doing its thing, I fully shut off my phone (volume and side buttons) and restarted it.

3) Then I "re-paired" the watch (bad pun intended). When I did this, I set it up as a "new" watch (I did not restore it from a backup).

I noticed an improvement immediately and within a day my Series 9 was back to its old (functioning) self. I used it with a golf GPS app over the weekend and it was just fine. Before it would die halfway through the round (which is how I noticed the problem in the first place).

Good luck.

Same, please someone help. Now, my watch battery lasts no more than 3 to 4 hours

Having the same issue with my series 9. When tracking workouts it drops from 100% to 0% in less than 4 hours. Totally useless.