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

Top-ranking reply

Sridhar Ananthanarayanan Author

Level 1

83 points

Posted on May 5, 2020 12:22 AM

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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62 replies

dommy179

Level 1

30 points

May 24, 2020 11:39 PM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

Update to iOS 13.5, being a beta tester myself, I like it, go ahead and bite the bullet, it will fix it, I’m sure face

Unklemac

Level 1

4 points

May 5, 2020 12:33 AM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

Yes, you are right.

Theres a whole thread here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251265543?answerId=252443536022&page=7

And the consensus is that SIRI is one of the culprits. Turning off SIRI has made a huge difference to some.

Tonight I will test everything on (normal usage), but have SIRI off, to see if that does the trick.

Apr 9, 2020 1:01 AM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

Protect & Prolong life of your iPhone's Battery: About the battery usage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch ...

Try some of these options too.

Avoid Screen Mirroring
Put on Low Power Mode
Put Auto Lock On (1 min):- with low power mode it will be 30 Sec
Put Auto Answer Off
Disable Push notifications for apps you do not use often
Enable Auto Brightness:- Settings > General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations > Auto-Brightness [Enable]
Manually lower brightness from Control Center
If you Want to watch continuous Video. Stream it on TV or a Monitor
Don't force close apps; Apps which are not on frontend screen are paused by the system to save energy. Apps require more energy to re-launch. Apps which are open in the background use large memory is a myth and quitting them is counterproductive
Location services to be allowed only while using the app
Set your iPhone to fetch email and calendar data from internet less frequently
Turning off Background App Refresh
Charge before it drops below 20-30%
Try connecting to trusted Wifi where ever available in stead of Cellular
Enable Airplane mode in areas with bad cellular and wifi coverage. Your phone keeps trying for reconnection with the missing / weak network. This uses lot of energy
Switch off Wifi & Bluetooth while in Roaming or Not in Range
Enable "Wifi Assist" : Settings > Cellular or Settings > Mobile Data > Wi-Fi Assist [Enable]
Periodically Check your Battery Health (Settings > Battery > Battery Health)

iPhone Battery and Performance

Unklemac

Level 1

4 points

May 5, 2020 12:09 AM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

Hello again. Bluetooth helped, but didn’t do the trick.

100% to 85% in about 8 hours.

Mail is set manual receive once pr. hour (no PUSH)
No APPs are allowed background usage, while not opened (even Maps / GoogleMaps)
Location Services are at bare minimum
Auto screen turning on when activity or picking up the phone is shut off.
Phone is 1 meter from my router.

Comparison to my gf iphone 6s, which has everything turned on including bluetooth. It went from 100% to 97% during the same period. She is on iOS 13.3.1.

My iPhone SE 2nd Gen. iOS 13.4.1

My gf iphone 6s on iOS 13.3.1

May 13, 2020 9:10 PM in response to DibM

Was your mobile data turned on during that time?

Reset network settings is supposed to reset all Bluetooth connections too. When I tried it after the update, Bluetooth was untouched. So something is definitely not right.

Having said that, the battery life is much better over the last 3 days that I tested by leaving everything ON overnight like I always do. The battery drain is now roughly 1% per hour (consistent over the last 3 days of testing) compared to 3%-4% per hour observed right after 13.4.1.

The battery was at 97% when I went to sleep. Went down to 90% in about 7 hours.

May 14, 2020 9:17 PM in response to DibM

Quite possible. I never checked that. Over the last 4 days, I left everything (including Bluetooth) ON overnight, and the battery held up well (compared to the initial experience with 13.4.1). I checked that my phone is connected to the 2.4 GHz band. Tonight I will switch to the 5 GHz band and see how well the battery holds up.

I keep alternating between the two bands, however, I never used to have battery issues before 13.4.1.

Wildrams

Level 1

4 points

May 20, 2020 8:27 AM in response to Unklemac

Background update off, bluetooth off, most of the stuff off and this is what I’ve got with iOS 13.4.1. This behaviour started about 14 days ago. Before all was quite fine. Evidently, the system is doing something that is not reported.

May 22, 2020 7:21 AM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

It would be really nice if Apple would highlight the Bugs they fix. All of these suggestions were pretty bogus. I was having the same issues. Overnight I was losing sometimes 50% of the charge. I just updated to 13.5. I turned Siri back on and I only dropped about 5%. Things look much better.

May 24, 2020 1:03 AM in response to DibM

If you click on each bar, it will show you only those apps that were draining battery during that time period.

Good to know that 13.5 has solved the battery problems for you. I am still waiting for feedback from more users on their experience. I am still on 13.4.1 and my battery is holding on pretty well like before. It is no longer draining battery overnight even if I leave everything ON. So i am still thinking if I should proceed to 13.5. I didn't really have a problem with heating ever. Mine is an iPhone 7 Plus.

May 25, 2020 1:00 AM in response to dommy179

Already bit the bullet, and updated to 13.5 yesterday. There was a slight increase in battery drain last night @ about 1% per hour. I had everything ON (although Siri and FaceTime is always OFF for me) and connected to 5GHz band. But that I think is normal after each update as iOS would be reindexing files, rebuilding cache and doing other optimizations. Nothing alarming like it happened initially with 13.4.1. Lets hope this improves further with time.

May 9, 2020 8:33 AM in response to DibM

How did you turn off Bluetooth?

Settings or Control Panel?

DibM

Level 1

4 points

May 10, 2020 1:17 AM in response to Sridhar Ananthanarayanan

Settings as per suggestion.

Turned off background activities for all apps. Not leaving my usual apps open in background.

Holding my thumbs that next update will magically fix this drainage.

May 11, 2020 8:02 AM in response to FarhanAsrar

Glad to know it worked for you. I missed the reboot part. I had rebooted my phone too after clearing all apps from memory and doing a force restart.

Apr 9, 2020 1:14 AM in response to SravanKrA

Thank you for the general tips on maximising battery life. But none of that explains why an update would lead to a sudden change in phone behaviour. I haven’t changed any setting or installed a new app (battery stats don’t show any misbehaving app either).

If things go wrong just after an update (and everything was fine before the update), the problem has to be with the update. I have been using this phone since 2016 and this is the first time I am experiencing huge battery drain, and especially idle battery drain.

Also, I see a gain in storage space of over 5 GB. That’s a lot of gain, and points to something worrisome. I am yet to see/ identify if I have lost any of my files, but never seen that kind of a space gain either through all the updates since 2016.

Apr 10, 2020 6:57 PM in response to Whippleyu

I am having the exact same problem with my new iphone 11. I also had a temperature warming out of nowhere sitting in a 72°F house under normal usage. Has only happened since update. I had been able to go 1 1/2 days on charge, and it only lasted about 7 hours before low battery warning came on. No change a made in settings or usage.

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Excessive idle battery drain after 13.4.1 update