Excessive idle battery drain after 13.4.1 update

Question

Excessive idle battery drain after 13.4.1 update

I updated my iPhone 7 Plus to 13.4.1 earlier this week. Ever since, I am noticing that my battery drains excessively overnight. Here is a screenshot from yesterday night:

As can be seen, the battery was fully charged at 2:22 a.m and the phone was unused until 11:20 a.m. In these 9 hours, battery drained from 100% to 78% with absolutely no use. Even the battery stats don't show any misbehaving apps.

Also, I was checking the settings to understand why it happened, and my battery dropped from 78% to 69% in less than 10 minutes.

All these problems have started after the 13.4.1 update.

Phone: iPhone 7 Plus

Battery capacity: 85%

Anyone else facing this issue?

iPhone 7 Plus, iOS 13

Posted on Apr 8, 2020 11:45 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Sridhar Ananthanarayanan Author

Level 1

83 points

May 5, 2020 12:22 AM in response to Unklemac

It is definitely a software bug. Until 13.4, everything was fine on my phone (iPhone 7 Plus), and there was no problem with battery (Battery health is at 85% for over 6 months now). I always leave everything ON (Bluetooth, mobile data, WiFi, location, etc.) and the battery graph would be flat overnight.

This problem started with 13.4.1, which bought fixes for Bluetooth and FaceTime (ironically I didn't have any problems with either before the update). You can do the following:

1. Turn OFF both Bluetooth and FaceTime from Settings before going to sleep.

2. If the above doesn't help, turn on airplane mode before going to sleep.

In my case, I haven't turned off or tweaked any other setting to save battery. I mean background refresh is allowed for essential apps, location is ON and allowed for essential apps ('always' for Google Photos and 'when using the app' for maps, etc.).

The only thing I do before going to sleep is turn OFF Bluetooth from settings (WiFi stays ON). And my battery holds on well (flat battery graph) until I wake up the phone in the morning.

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Answer 2

DibM

Level 1

4 points

May 13, 2020 1:55 PM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

It turned out that the culprit on my 6s was WIFI..

With wifi turned off battery only drains 1-2 % over night in powersave mode.

Tries this:

"

Tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings. This also resets Wi-Fi networks and passwords, cellular settings, and VPN and APN settings that you've used before."

Could be a big pain for those who have a lot of saved connections..

/D

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Answer 3

haMz22

Level 1

8 points

May 15, 2020 12:25 AM in response to DibM

Hi guys. Just last week I bought the new iPhone SE and without giving it a second thought updated to iOS 13.4.1 during the setup stage and I have noticed battery drain during idle has been utterly awful. at least 3% per hour if not more. I can confirm today though, that turning OFF Bluetooth (in settings, not control centre) has resolved the problem and battery drain is now around what I expect from a typical iPhone. Around 1% or less. I hope Apple is on the case and gets a fix out soon. I need Bluetooth enabled when I'm out and about for my Apple Watch to work properly, and a battery drain of more than 3% during idle is just plain unacceptable.

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Answer 4

Apr 15, 2020 11:25 PM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

iOS 13.4.1 release note shows only two bug fixes - those related to FaceTime and Bluetooth.

I had earlier turned off FaceTime to see if that helps. It didn’t.

Yesterday night, I turned off Bluetooth (from Settings, not Control Center) and the result is pleasantly surprising:

As can be seen, the battery graph was absolutely flat and the total drain was just 1% in 11 hours. That is how it is supposed to be.

I will test it over the next few days by turning off Bluetooth from Settings, then turning it off from Control Center and then leaving everything ON again like I always do.

If the battery begins to drain again when keeping Bluetooth ON, it is clearly a bug introduced by iOS 13.4.1. That’s because I leave everything ON all the time and never had such issues previously.

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Answer 5

Apr 17, 2020 9:07 PM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

Bluetooth indeed is causing the battery drain in iOS 13.4.1.

If I turn it off completely under Settings, there is almost no battery drain overnight (there was only a 1% drop in 11 hours, and 0% drop in 6 hours).

If Bluetooth is turned off from Control Center, battery continues to drain heavily since the control center only disconnects Bluetooth and doesn’t turn it off completely.

When turned off from Settings (0% drain in 6 hours):

When turned off from Control Center (15% drain in 6 hours):

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Answer 6

Apr 25, 2020 11:42 PM in response to Kémaël

I was expecting to see over 90% battery remaining at the end of 52 hours of sleep, so slightly disappointed to see it at 73% (although even that was a huge improvement compared to what I would have seen if my Bluetooth was On. I’m pretty sure my phone battery would have drained completely if Bluetooth wasn’t turned OFF from Settings).

There could be a range of factors contributing to battery behaviour. But I have noticed that the battery holds up pretty well (and consistently) with Bluetooth turned OFF from Settings.

Here is the graph from yesterday night. Absolutely flat with 0% drain over 10.5 hours of sleep (this has been observed quite consistently).

I left my phone at 97% before sleeping (Bluetooth OFF from Settings). Woke up and checked the phone 10.5 hours later. It was still at 97%.

I have sent the feedback to Apple. Hopefully they will address this problem in the next update.

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Answer 7

DibM

Level 1

4 points

May 14, 2020 11:14 AM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

WIFI 5 GHz is what is draining my battery.

Reset Network settings had no effect.

Only switching off wifi or using 2.4GHz stops the battery from losing 50% during 8 hour in power save mode.

I will check how much i lose on 2.4 during the night but i notice it is way better during the day.

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Answer 8

May 4, 2020 1:43 AM in response to Unklemac

Try turning OFF Bluetooth from Settings (NOT Control Center) and see if that helps.

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Answer 9

Kémaël

Level 1

18 points

Apr 25, 2020 2:18 AM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

Thank you for your reporting. These 52 hours really give us more accurate data and they corroborate the data I recently obtained too of a ratio of 0.5% per hour with Bluetooth turned off completely.

I used my phone from 100% to 87% and then went to bed. The phone remained completely idle and untouched for the duration of my sleep, which is a total of 8 hours.

When I woke up, I immediately checked the battery and it was at 83%. This is a huge improvement over the 30%+ I was losing with bluetooth turned on.

It is still not the 1-2% I was expecting to lose like before the 13.4.1 patch, but an improvement nonetheless.

The ratio is therefore also of

87 - 83 = 4%

4% / 8 hours = 0.5%/ hour

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Answer 10

DibM

Level 1

4 points

May 20, 2020 11:15 PM in response to Wildrams

After update to 13.5 i left wi-fi on and went to sleep. That is some real difference and i have done absolutely nothing apart from updating:

There is a tendency among bad technicians to always blame the user instead of blaming the software.

I think my before and after 13.5 pictures puts the blame where it belongs..

/🖖🏻

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Answer 11

May 11, 2020 7:58 AM in response to dick_avalanche

Thanks now my issue solved after switching off Bluetooth from setting n siri also but it effect after restart my phone. After 10 hrs battery was 100% to 98% in sleep mode

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Answer 12

May 22, 2020 1:29 PM in response to AwaisTalha

Upgrade to 13.5. That fixed my problem.

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Answer 13

May 5, 2020 1:12 AM in response to Unklemac

Siri was already OFF on my phone, so that wasn't causing the battery drain in my case.

As far as I understand, Siri was causing the battery drain during normal use as well. In my case, I didn't notice any drastic difference in battery drain during normal use, probably that's because Siri was already OFF.

Turning OFF Bluetooth from Settings before sleep has helped with battery drain for a few of us.

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Answer 14

May 12, 2020 8:49 PM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

For the last couple of days, my battery has been holding on pretty well overnight, with everything (except Siri) turned ON. The Siri on my phone was always off, and still is.

I don’t know what did the trick, but I can tell you what I did (although I am not sure if this is what did the trick).

From Settings, turn off:

i. Bluetooth

ii. Facetime

iii. Siri

iv. Camera access (turn it off for all apps under Settings/ Privacy/ Camera)

2.Clear all apps from memory (from the recents screen).

3.Force restart your device.

4.Turn all settings back on.

On another discussion, I had said this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251265543?answerId=252625683022#252625683022

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Answer 15

May 9, 2020 2:56 AM in response to FarhanAsrar

In another thread, many users have reported turning OFF Siri has helped, especially during active use.

So turn OFF both Siri and Bluetooth from Settings.

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Excessive idle battery drain after 13.4.1 update

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