My battery indicator stays at 100% and then will die without warning. Has anyone had this issue? It started doing this within 2 weeks of receiving the watch, the update (6.1) did fix it temporarily and then a couple of days ago, it started again.
Apple Watch Series 5, watchOS 6
I had the same issue and had tried all of the usual suggested solutions. I then found a tip that I had not seen before and it worked for me (for a week now at least). I'll share it in hopes that it works for others as well.
Lo and behold, it worked! The battery went to 65% and ticked down in normal increments without shutting off. I have fully recharged every day since and it the battery continues to work normally. I can't explain why that worked, but I hope it works for others having the same problem.
Please try what I suggested in the post immediately before yours of today.
And be careful never to charge your watch over 100% or the problem will come back.
Mine has been working fine since I last did this restart from absolute zero. Wishing your watch luck!
I'm so glad to have found this thread. I bought an AW5 about a month ago and it's my first Apple Watch and to say this issue has been frustrating is an understatement. It will randomly shut off anytime day or night for no reason - sometimes it says it has a low battery when the indicator had read 60-90% minutes before (I've never gotten a low battery notification), other times it will claim to still be charged at 75% or more. The ONLY way to get it to wake up is to put it on the charger, which is beyond frustrating. I'll be following for any updates but also contacting Apple support because ... what the heck!? My friends who have had Apple Watches for years say they've never had this issue, so it doesn't seem like a software problem.
It is, as it just seems to be related to not shutting off the watch for weeks at a time. Having already replaced my watch and having the same issue appear, it is most likely an issue with the phone and how hardware is synced (if you scroll up enough, you will find my posts discussing this issue).
In the meantime, just shut your watch off every week or two for fifteen minutes. It will reset the battery and it will moderate the issue. Unfortunately, technology is complicated, so it is possible that a line of code introduced somewhere is causing all of this, but that does not make the entire watch the issue.
Lately I have been using the timer on my phone to keep track of how long the Series 5 watch is on the charger and trying to keep the total charge below 95%. It does not seem to matter.
I often take the watch off the charger, note the battery charge level, then turn off the watch for 15 minutes. When I power the watch back up I check the battery charge level again. Almost every time it is somewhere below where it was before being turned off.
For example, today it was at 97% when I turned it off; and at 94% fifteen minutes later when I turned it back on.
Hasn't worked for me. I started having this problem with with my S5 with watchOS 6.1.2. My watch sometimes gets stuck at 100%, sometimes doesn't (the charge, turn off trick seems to stop that), but it always turns off at a certain percent (right now, always at 66%; previously it was 48%). Attaching the charger boots it up, and it says it's at 66%. Use it for a min, and it shuts down again when it hits 66% again. When this first happened, Apple Support had me send my watch in to them in February to research the issue, and they sent me a new one. That new one shipped with 6.1.2, and I left it at 6.1.2 for a few weeks even after 6.1.3 was released. It worked fine. Then I upgraded to 6.1.3 and the issue came back again. I spent a couple weeks with a really good support guy, which ultimately ended up with me putting the 6.2 beta on it, so that I could send them in and they could downgrade it, in effect wiping it entirely including the firmware, from their own devices. They sent it back (same watch) with 6.1.3 and it worked perfectly again. I installed 6.2 myself, and it still worked, so I considered it fixed. I upgraded to 6.2.1, 6.2.5, 6.2.6, no problem, all worked fine. I installed 6.2.6 on June 1, and it WAS fine. But now three days ago - the problem came back again for no discernible reason. I've tried: unpairing/re-pairing; restoring from a backup; setting up as a new watch; completely wiping my iPhone and setting up as new, then pairing the watch; charing to 100%, turning off for 30 mins, charging up again; and probably other things I'm forgetting.
Thank you! These steps kinda worked for me with one small difference: after powering off my phone and watch for 15 minutes, I turned my watch back on first (letting it fully boot up) while leaving my phone off. Could just be a coincidence since I have no way to replicate this (yet), but, now my watch finally shows a non-100% charge and is ticking down. Phone is back on and things are still fine. Not sure if booting up the watch without a phone connection was the key. Also of note, my watch was out of wifi range when it booted up.
Same problem for me on my series 5. I have tried all the tricks listed above and the only thing that works is turning off the watch and phone for 20 minutes every day after the watch is fully charged, which is a complete pain in the bum. Come on Apple, this really isn’t good enough!
Mine did this last year. Sent it back to Apple and replaced. Then started again a bit later. Sent it back and they couldn’t replicate the issue. But it worked fine...until now.
Back to the problem. Stays at 100% or around there and then dead. Seems like lots of people with this issue. No resolution yet?
This is Catscanner, who first started this thread. It's both reassuring to keep seeing comments on this issue and disheartening, since it means that all the updates since I first wrote about it have had little effect. For me, I haven't had the problem in awhile. I did the thing of turning the phone off for 20 minutes when it seemed like it was stuck at 100%. I haven't had the problem is a few months, ever since I read about someone doing that. I put my watch on the charger when I get up and then for maybe 30 min before I get in bed at night. So when I go to bed it's usually between 75-95 and when I get up it's down to 75 again and then I charge it to 100. If anything, the battery seems to run out faster than it used to. I have a Series 5. I've had all the versions. Didn't start for me until I'd had the Series 5 a couple months. I got the 5 right when it first came out. It's been helpful to read that sending it in for repair, as well as just getting an new one, didn't really work out for people. My Apple store wouldn't let me use Applecare to replace the watch, since the repair place couldn't replicate the issue. Even though they only had it for 24 hours. But when I got it back, it worked great for awhile, even though they didn't do anything. But I guess it was turned off for awhile. Thanks to everyone who has commented. Maybe someone at Apple is finally noticing. For sure, no one at the Genius Bar in my local store or the support staff in Cupertino, had ever heard of it, at the time. (I have the Joint Venture support (a business deal), plus I went to the Genius Bar here a few times.
Two days ago, mine just randomly decided to not have the problem anymore, and has been working fine since. Considering this has happened 3 times now with 2 different S5 watches, I'm sure you'll see a post from me again at some point saying it's come back. I just did an update though after the problem went away on it's own, and thought I'd try something different. The Senior Apple Support person I talked to last suspected it may have something to do with either my iPhone (or iPhone model) or something with my iCloud account, so I turned my phone off entirely and kept it off, then downloaded the update on the watch itself and performed the update on the watch itself, with the phone still off. the problem did not re-occur after the update. Not saying that's the fix - may just have been a fluke, but I'll keep updating that way until it doesn't work.
Funny mine started literally two days ago after not after having the problem in a long time. Worse part was I was doing a little bicycle tour and was 600 miles from my house in the middle of literally nowhere. Look down and watch is dead. I mean I was in the country in North Florida. I guess it’s not happening to enough people for them to care. They must know. They are far from stupid. If they can tell me my heart rate and an app can tell me how long I slept, believe me they know.
Can someone else upgrade to watchOS7? I did so the other week and tried to reset the battery after shutting off the watch for fifteen minutes and nothing changed. I want to see if they have fixed it, so it someone else can confirm that the issue has gone away, that might help all of us.
About a month after I purchased my Series 5 watch I had the same problem. I contacted an Apple tech who tested my battery which was fine. He walked me through a bunch of steps nothing worked. But then after unpairing and shutting everything down it’s been months and I have had no issues. What was mind boggling though was that the tech acted as though he had not heard anything about this problem. 🤪 ??
So, after dealing with this for a few weeks and trying all the suggestions, I got on a chat and they immediately said I could send it for them to look at. I got the message it was delivered to the tech center and less than 8 hours later got a message that the problem couldn't be replicated and they were sending it back. I immediately got on a chat with them and said how can that be, you didn't even have it long enough to run tests, etc. etc. but the insisted. Well, when I got "my" watch back, I discovered it was not my watch. I'd put a screen protector on it, which was gone, so I checked the serial numbers and they were nowhere close. They replaced it. (Which is totally fine, but why be weird about it? Just say they've had a few with this weird problem and so sorry, they are replacing it.) So, clearly they know there is a problem and they do not know how to fix it. The other I've had for over 2 months without a hint of a problem.
I had the same issue with their tech support. The issue is with our phones pairing and sending bad data. I have since upgraded to their latest beta software for the phone and watch and the problem seems to be fixed. If you are comfortable upgrading, please do because I want to confirm that I am not the only one who no longer has this problem.
Battery Indicator stuck at 100% All day
