Battery Indicator Incorrect on Series 5 Apple Watch

I’ve had this problem for awhile, created a support ticket and they sent me through the standard steps that don’t resolve the issue. I keep hoping that an update will fix, but to no avail. I notice if I do multiple hard resets the battery life will change on each reset most of the time. It will go from 100% to Zero...Zero to 70%....70% to 30%...and sometimes it will stay the same. It’s frustrating for sure. I had a Series 3 and never had any issues.

I’ve had the same issue for the past couple months. I’ve been to the Apple Store twice and had my watch (Series 5) shipped in for “repair.” Since they couldn’t replicate the issue, I’m receiving my same watch back. Incredibly frustrating. I appreciate that I’m not the only one.

I had the same problem back in early November. At first my Watch started shutting down with no warning between 25% and 35%, just every single time it dropped into that range. One time, it even shut down at a few minutes into a swimming session started with more than 50% battery. In another instance, I went on an 8-hour hike, and my Watch would still showed 100% at the end of the day. Then, after charging the Watch during the drive home, the charge indicator started dropping faster than normal, until the Watch shut down once again around the 30% mark.

In total, I spent about 2 months trying to troubleshoot this, first at the Apple Store, then with Tim Cook’s Executive Office, Senior Engineers, etc. During those 2 months, I sent the Watch back to the Apple Store 3 times, who could never reproduce it, and spent upwards of 15 hours on the phone and in chat with Apple. Setting up my Watch as new (multiple times) did nothing.

The phone calls I had with Apple were, as they always are with Apple, completely unproductive, with no one having the slightest idea what could be causing the issue. They also (repeatedly) refused to send me a replacement Watch, and dismissed the idea out of hand that it might be a battery-calibration issue (“I don’t see how that could be the issue here”—Seriously?).

At one point, the engineer I was working with looked at my Battery panel in Settings (via Screen Sharing) and saw that I used Safari a lot (on my iPhone). He concluded that my high Safari usage (again, on my iPhone) was causing my Watch to shut down, and that I should stop using Safari so much. Unreal.

Once I managed to convince him that he was looking at my iPhone usage, he tried to blame it on Watch apps I’d been using forever, for inane reasons, like not having received an update in a month. While he was ultimately wrong (of course), it did give me an idea. It seemed the random shutdowns started happening around the same time I installed the Apple Research App in late October (for the hearing study).

So on my final wipe-and-setup-as-new attempt, I reinstalled all my third-party apps EXCEPT the Apple Research App. That’s when my Watch stopped shutting down randomly.

I can’t imagine how this app could be the only reason so many people have been experiencing this issue (I can’t imagine so many people using it in the first place), but my Series 5 has now been working flawlessly for more than 7 months.

Yesterday, it showed 100% throughout most of the day, then dropped to 51% in the evening, but it did make it through the day. Typically when I put it in the charger at night, when it works correctly, it would be between 30% and 45%.

This morning after wearing it for a few hours, it still showed 100%. I did I force restart and when it powered back on, it showed 10% charge, and wanted to go into power saving mode. Did another force restart, this time when it powered on it was back to 100%. It died around 5:30 PM, with about 50% of a charge showing. At least that was what it showed while on the charger as soon as it had enough charge to come back on.

Finally a suggestion that seemed to work. I have had the watch cure itself of the stay on 100% most all day and return to normal operation for a week or so and then go back to the same problem. But I tried as suggested by Ashcon, tuning the watch off for an hour or so and turning it back on and Its been operating normally now for 4 days or so. Easy fix to try.

Glad it worked for you too Yogibear! Just know you might have to do it again eventually... but fingers crossed if you just turn it off preemptively every so often you might be able to avoid it happening again like I have!

You're not alone. My wife and I each have a Series 5 and one or the other has the same problem. None of the troubleshooting steps work (just hard reset it and paired/unpaired it for the 6th time today). Just one day it starts working right again. A search online for this issue shows that it has been a problem for years. Personal opinion: there is a long standing software issue that Apple can't identify.

I have the exact same problem. It seems to resolve after the last software upgrade (June/July 2020) and then has gone back to the same. Problem now is it only lasts 4 hours after having charged for 1+ hour.

Exactly what happened to me. Same issue, plus more My watch shows 99% charged and doesn't change, and then will suddenly shut off. I put it on the charger and it turns back on. Sometimes it will show it still mostly charged and other times mostly discharged. Yesterday, It wouldn't charge and kept showing 99% but would shut down after less than an hour.

Usually, It will not shut down if I push the side buttons.

I keep checking to see if there will be another software update.

As mentioned above, the issue seems to be solved in watchOS 7. The public beta is now out, so you could always give that a try (usual precautions about beta software apply). For example: https://www.theverge.com/21361788/new-watchos-7-public-beta-software-apple-watch-series-3-4-5-install

I struggled with this same issue for two months while the watch progressively shut off at higher percentages. No amount of unpairing and resetting helped, not even pairing with a new phone. The beta watchOS 7 fixed the issue!

Mine was getting progressively worse. Got to the point where it would show 100% for about 2 hours, drop to 88% then die. Put in in there charger and as soon as it has enough charge to come on, it showed 88%. Since I had tried everything, gave up and put in a repair request. The woman I spoke to at Apple was absolute clueless, but she did have me send my watch back. New replacement cam today. Turn around time tells me they did not even look at my old watch, which is interesting. See how long this one last.

My wife has a series 4, and it has started doing the same thing about 2 weeks ago. However, hers is out of warranty, so I know it won't get replaced.

My 2 month old series 5 watch Started doing the 100% charge Thing until 5 pm or so. As long as I charge it every night it operates normally otherwise. Then on its own it started behaving right after a week or so. Then it started doing it again for a while until i read a suggestion from someone on this forum who had success with just turning off the watch completely for a half hour or so (i did it for an hour)when I turned it back on everything has been working fine since. Worth a try....

I got it fixed by mistake after all the steps from google failed.

Basically I stopped iphone-watch sync when my iphone restore failed and I restarted my watch.

After the restore i had iphone on ios 13 and the watch on ios 7 beta and the battery indicator worked fine.

after updating the iphone to ios 14 beta and pairing the watch anew the problem did not appear again

I am having the same issue. I charged at lunchtime today and now 10 hours later still showing as 99% when it gets to around 30% just switches off no warning. Watch is 2 weeks old and have had this problem since purchased. I bought it to replace a fit bit as had issues with them breaking, but since this series 5 Apple Watch has to be charged so often and powers down at around 30%, I’m seriously doubting my decision now. It’s a lot of money For me to spend on a watch for it not to work! And as it’s randomly powering down without warning I’m missing on loads of activity recording. Not impressed.