I have the Apple Watch Series 8. The battery would last about 3 days prior to the update to 10.5. Now it lasts about 18 hours. I have checked for things that may have changed in the settings causing the drain and I cannot seem to identify any changes. Looking for suggestions on how to fix this issue.
I experienced the same thing. I’m using series 5 and would normally last the whole day with always on display turned on. But after 10.5 updates it only lasted 2-3 hours. I unpaired/paired and it does the same thing. I’m waiting for the next update to get away with this cuz it’s a bug! It’s frustrating to wear a watch thats off and drained battery.
I experienced the same thing. I’m using series 5 and would normally last the whole day with always on display turned on. But after 10.5 updates it only lasted 2-3 hours. I unpaired/paired and it does the same thing. I’m waiting for the next update to get away with this cuz it’s a bug! It’s frustrating to wear a watch thats off and drained battery.
Do a forced restart of your Apple Watch. If you’re unfamiliar with how to do a forced restart please review the Apple Support article I linked below. After the forced restart the battery usage should return to former levels in 24 to 72 hours. After an update the Watch performs indexing of data in the background and this can consume a lot of battery power.
If high battery usage persists after 72 hours please unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone, restart both devices and then pair them again.
If your Apple Watch is stuck on the Apple logo - Apple Support
Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support
I followed Jeff Donald's advice of a "Forced Restart" yesterday and it appears to have fixed the problem (if you were following my notes on the above post, it is now 4:30pm and my watch is at 21% today). This clearly does something different than just powering it off and back on again.
Forced Restart: hold down side button and crown at the same time for about 10 seconds until the apple logo appears.
Do a forced restart of your Apple Watch. If you’re unfamiliar with how to do a forced restart please review the Apple Support article I linked below. After the forced restart the battery usage should return to former levels in 24 to 72 hours. After an update the Watch performs indexing of data in the background and this can consume a lot of battery power.
If high battery usage persists after 72 hours please unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone, restart both devices and then pair them again.
If your Apple Watch is stuck on the Apple logo - Apple Support
Did the what Jeff Donald recommended above and after unpairing and pairing, it is now retaining the charge like it use to. This has happened to me after the last two updates, so this will be a standard update procedure going forward.
I am having the same issue. I have the 45mm series 7 watch, and iphone 14 pro max I did do a force restart, and reset the phone. This helped for about 1 week, then yesterday, the battery drain happened again. As of this morning at 6am, it was fully charged, by 9 am was down to 10%. Prior to updating to 10.5 I was at 50% from 6am - 11:30pm. Now I can't go more then 3 hours . Plus the watch gets very warm. Very frustrating. This feel like the days when being forced into a buying a new device after updates.
I also:
Any info/ advice is greaty appreciated.
I think I can no longer even make a full day after this latest update (Watch 8, OS 10.5)
Series 7, recently updated to 10.5 - has a noticeably faster battery drain for me. I use always-on and wear it to bed for sleep tracking. Previously I could always get a full day out of the watch. I will charge every evening around 5pm, at which point it would “end” the day with 30% charge. The last few months on v10.4 it would be down to 10-20% but almost always make it through the day (could be from that update or age). Then after this update it keeps hitting 10% around 2pm and I have to go into low power mode.
I originally had not changed anything during the update process. Since updating to 10.5 I have turned off background refresh on a number of apps, restarted the watch multiple times, turned the brightness down to the lowest option, and 2 days ago turned off hand-off which I discovered could be a problem after some digging. None of these have seemingly made much improvement, which is why I’m wondering if there is a bug, or other new feature introduced that is causing this faster power consumption.
Just saw watch go from 71% to 57% in 1 hour. Nothing running but heart
monitor. About ready to go back to my Garmin. At this rate wont be able to monitor sleep as it will lose charge in 7 hours!! Watch 8. OS 10.5
Hi Jeff - I haven't tried your advice yet, but it seems like people are having good success with it. I've been experiencing the same issue with my Series 7 watch. I was able to have watch fully charged before bedtime and then was typically putting it on the charger around 4PM-5PM the following day. Now, I'm watching the battery life drop dramatically (about 10-12% each hour) and the moment I perform any activity, the battery is draining really fast which is not normal. Before finding this thread, I did unpair and repair my watch. It seemed to be better for about 24 hours but then battery life started dropping again. Maybe I didn't perform the unpairing and pairing properly?
The other issue I'm noticing is that the "find my" features from both the watch and the phone are delayed. It's random. Typically, I could press the button on my watch to find my phone and get the immediate ping on the phone in my house to know where it is. This feature now only works intermittently. Sometimes it's immediate. Sometimes it's delayed by 15-30 seconds. And then sometimes, the phone never pings. The same in reverse from my phone. If I press the button on my phone control center to "find my watch", it might be immediate, delayed, or never happen. This was NEVER the case before. It makes me wonder if there's some issue with the bluetooth connectivity between the watch and the phone? And is that making the battery life on the watch drain faster as maybe it's not connected to the phone properly?
Thanks for your help!
Do a forced restart of your Apple Watch. If you’re unfamiliar with how to do a forced restart please review the Apple Support article I linked below. After the forced restart the battery usage should return to former levels in 24 to 72 hours. After an update the Watch performs indexing and syncing of apps and data in the background and this can consume a lot of battery power.
If high battery usage persists after 72 hours please unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone, restart both devices and then pair them again.
If your Apple Watch is stuck on the Apple logo - Apple Support
You’re welcome! I hope you have a great day.
lmckillo wrote:
I’ve tried pairing , deleting the app, forced reset , complete reset . I’ve tried it all and still the battery drains extremely fast. Frustrating as I’d get two days out of my series 4 watch
I never got 2 days out of my Series 4, which I am wearing now. I do get a full day, with an hour of either walk or cycling exercise each day.
When I upgraded to watchOS 10.5 the first 24 hours had high battery usage. I power cycled twice, and did one middle of the day recharge.
After 24 hours, my Series 4 was back to normal.
If you have 3rd party apps and complications, they could be an issue.
If you have a lot of contacts that need to be synced, that could be an issue.
Try Apple Watch iPhone App > General > Reset > Reset Sync Data
The MacObserver.com
How To Fix WatchOS 10.3 Battery Drain Issue on Apple Watch
https://www.macobserver.com/tips/how-to/fix-apple-watch-battery-drain-issue-after-watchos-10-3-update/
Also see:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250007078
For some steps that are not in the MacObserver article.
lmckillo wrote:
... I’d get two days out of my series 4 watch
You should not try to run your Series 4 for 2 days before charging. Chances are you are taking your battery dangerously low, which is a very good way to destroy a Li-Ion battery.
Li-Ion batteries DO NOT like being drained to zero, or near zero.
In an emergency, sure, put the Apple Watch in Low Power mode, and stretch it out until you can get to a charger.
But it is good practice to recharge your Series 4 every night while you are sleeping.
Thank you, Jeff Donald! My AW9 suddenly went from lasting crazy long hours to losing power rapidly. I didn't notice until it told me at 10%. By the time I started charging, it was down to 7% and wasn't increasing. After I did the forced restart and unpair-pairing, it's charging normally, and I'll keep a close "watch" over it the next 72 hours. Thanks for taking the time and energy to help people like me! Much respect to you!!!
Apple Watch Battery Drain after updating to 10.5
