Watch shuts down during exercise

I sent my watch back to Apple, it was under Apple Care expired by 1/2 year. Yes battery 89% of its life for Series 2. But Apple said nothing found wrong with watch. However, I do believe it IS a hard/software battery issue. The software says its depleted during the workout and shuts off though 60% charge remaining. This is an issue in App. The hardware is not setup for battery to support contact tracing on the Bluetooth nor cellular. In Singapore one of the 1st county to insist on contact tracing found the obedient population stop using because of the drain on their batteries. The FACT the watch performed admirably before the last 3 watch updates . . .leads me to believe that is where the problem lays.

Your results will be very interesting to me. I have finally had 2 consecutive pool swims. The first since March when Seattle went into a lock down. I swam with the WiFi off on the watch. The app recorded my 1 hour swim accurately and did not shut off, even when I paused. When I swim open water if I pause the app will shut off recording swim and report I don’t have enough battery (NOT TRUE) and shut off. I believe it is the GPS function trying to triangulate cell towers (though I don’t have cellular ability with Series 2 watch and the WiFi off.) This has to do with contact tracing software in the updates that began March. I have not installed the last update on watch or phone because this swim function is the reason I have this watch. Otherwise my $25 Timex works better because I don’t have to charge it.

IT HAS FINALLY BEEN ESCALATED.

I will reply with what they say!

I have been experiencing this issue over the past 10 months. Where my Series 2 Apple Watch would turn off mid workout and only restart when it was connected to my charger., and when it restarts, it will have plenty of charge.

I have been in contact with Apple support well I've 10 times about this issue and have troubleshooted in more ways than I can remember. But they all ended with the same result: "The battery was 100% healthy and it would need to be sent off to the engineers". However, that's when they told me that if there was any issue with the watch, they would charge me £300 for a replacement as it is out of warranty. But the fact other people report this issue happening with brand new watches, It became apparent that a replacement may not actually help me out. 

HOWEVER...

Today, the 11th April 2021, I contacted Apple support and found the best Apple support employee I have ever spoken to. She confirmed my assumptions that it was very unlikely to be a hardware issue due to the randomness of it happening and the fact it happens across other models. Her opinion is it might potentially be an error with Apple Watch Workout app (she is unsure about 3rd-party apps) which ultimately causes the whole Apple Watch to crash. 

So, after an hour on the phone explaining and documenting my issues, she has created a case which will be passed to the engineers. 

Hopefully by next week, I will have a response. And I will reply to this comment with what the engineers have said. 

What I would ask is that if anybody has time, and can bare contacting Apple support, then please do. Tell them you would like to escalate the issue to the engineers. If enough of us get this issue escalated, then they will have to sort it out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We're all due for some good news at some point soon! 

This problem is exactly what I am experiencing. I have a Series 4 watch which works great, except when I exercise, using either Apple Activity or Intervals Pro app. Battery is > 90% when I start, but after about 30 min of a workout, watch shuts down and then indicates "Power Reserve" when it restarts. Cannot use either of the apps to complete the workout. After resetting by pressing the crown and side buttons simultaneously, watch works normally, but I lose all my workout data. This happens a couple of days a week, not every time I workout. Have unpaired and re-paired several times, but no help. Any luck on your end?

Okay. This is what happened this week. First I did call Apple Support. Three calls later, after the problem was forwarded to engineering, Brendon convinced me to send the watch and I did. I received the watch back yesterday. I restored from my backup and tested the watch during a short swim. It shut down again. I re-read instructions that came back with the watch. And Apple recommend I precede as follows: 1. Set up Watch as new 2.Erase the data on the Watch 3. Restore from backup.

"Our technicians performed complete diagnostic test on your Apple specifications for performance, usability, and functionality. The symptoms you mentioned might have been resolved when our technicians performed their routine diagnostics, such as updating the internal software. Charging the battery, or restoring and RESETTING the watch. We are returning the Watch to you now. There's no cost for our diagnostic tests."

Will see and report. I empathize with everyone on this thread.

A fellow swimmer with Series 5 Watch also turns off WiFi so that watch at least will record the amount of time she is in the water. I will try that this afternoon. Airplane mode disables cellular and not WiFi necessarily.

I have done all the things described on this thread, including sending the watch back to Apple HQ. Nothing “broken” with the watch. It is the IOS update. And yes, they do not care that you are experience failure in the app. Apparently many people do not use the app (workout) in this time of Covid, so they are not experiencing any failure. As I mention it is under multiple Watch series. My $25 Timex Tri watch is able to record my swim, run and does not need recharging. Let that sink in.

Did update today which is supposed to address battery drain issue. One short run, everything on (cellular, pulse, etc.) and it didn’t crash. I’m not getting my hopes up yet, but promising.

Will report again tomorrow after I run on a trail that always kills it.

Yes Watch OS7.02, series 3 US version with LTE.

Update: Ran today and no crash. Everything on; cellular, wi-fi, heart rate monitor, no power save (switched off). Haven't been able to do that since the infamous springtime update. Even made a call on LTE to push it.

Starting to think 7.02 might have fixed it. Will try it again in a couple of days on a run through the woods where there is no wi-fi and limited cellular.

Has anyone else on 7.02 had any success or failure?

I have the same/ a very similar problem: I start a running exercise with my watch's battery at 70 to 80% and after less then 5 minutes/ 1km the battery level plummets down to 10% and the watch restarts ( a real pita as it takes up to 5 minutes) and than I can continue running for an hour and just keep the watch on for the rest of the day, the battery doesn't go down any further, it just stays at 10%. If I come home and put the watch on the charger it immediately goes from 10% battery back to 60 or 70%. I normally run without my iPhone, only the apple watch 4 and my AirPods Pro with some (locally stored tunes).

I didn't used to have this problem last spring when I also went for a daily run during the lockdown instead of swimming. When the swimming pools opened up again, I went swimming instead, no problems.

Now we're in a second lockdown, the pools have closed and I started running again at the end of October.

Since I first encountered this problem I have updated the software of my iPhone and Apple Watch and last week I even got a new iPhone 12 pro max, still the problem persists, it even seems to get more frequent. Today I went for a run with my iPhone for tunes instead of the watch and with my aging Apple Watch 2, same problem!

I feel like I have gone over all the variables but one: covid tracking. Today I have uninstalled the sciensano (Belgium) app and turned off exposure logging in the settings. I really hope this helps because it's getting extremely frustrating!

Is anyone at apple at least monitoring this problem? Seems I'm not the only one...

Just for the record, my issue started with a series 4 cellular, replaced with a brand new series 5 cellular and the issue reappeared within a few weeks of owning the new series 5. Replaced the series 5 cellular with the series 6 cellular and to date, try as I might, I haven’t been able to replicate the issue and the series 6 works fine. I wondered whether it was an upgrade to the workout app for the series 6, but using Strava works fine as well so I figure it’s not app dependant. So I’m assuming that it has zero to do with the battery life or amount of charges given my series 5 did it within weeks of owning it. But for whatever reason, the series 6 doesn’t seem to have this bug (so far).

So the engineer has finally viewed the logs that I needed to capture. Only to tell me he could not find the shutdown event as there were too many logs. Even when I gave them the exact date and time of the shutdown.

Firstly, they theorised that it could be temperature related. Which I find hard to believe as the watch works perfectly fine in both -3°C and 10°C conditions and also shutdown in minus degrees and average temperatures.

Then, they also theorised it could be the battery that is the issue. But I have been though diagnostics before and after the engineers response, both of which showed the battery and watch is completely healthy.

It seems as though nobody has any idea as to why this is happening and the only solution they keep presenting me is to buy a new watch. But I certainly won't be doing such a thing while nobody can tell me why it is randomly shutting down!

I really wish apple could sort themselves out, it's all about the money for them.