iPhone SE 2020 battery drain

For those interested, I have solved my battery life on SE 2020. I first had big battery drains overnight and sometimes also at daytime (received mine may 11). Last week I installed iOS 13.6 public beta 2, and so far so good 😊 I lose about 7-8 percent at night, and daytime battery life with light use can now last 2 days. I have also changed my email settings on iCloud mail to 15 minutes refresh instead of push for new data.

Hope this helps for other people too.

Additionally as it was said before, the first days of use often consume more battery because the iPhone has more background activity, like indexing etc. This settles down quickly after 1 week or so.

But finally iOS 13.6 seems to fix all problems.

Hi Payton44,

The replacement is performing better than the first. The consumption is far more aligned with what I expect from a new phone. I’ve re-enabled all of the functionality that I disabled and I’m getting happy about the phone. I saw an add on the TV today for the new iPhone SE and in the add they stated better battery-life while this guy was playing a racing game. I can tell you that wouldn’t have been an option on the first I got.

At the store, the guy told me that he’d had a similar case like mine. Perhaps Apple have had a batch of defective batteries. I am convinced this had a defective battery and I’m happy that I managed to get it replaced.

Performance on the phone is good and it’s got some good features too. I honestly think it’s a shame to read about so many users describing the same symptoms. Again I would encourage you to insist on the help and hope you’re able to get it replaced - for me the first and the second are too different experiences.

I’ve had the phone from the first release. Been through a slew of tests etc, customer support forums, the whole thing. And as I’ve said before, the phone is great - love it. But the battery is underpowered for this unit. That’s it. Heavy use will see fast battery consumption, you’ll be charging by lunchtime roughly. Lite use will get you through the day - perhaps a top up early evening? I manage at that level, lite use, occasional top up early evening. You can work through all your apps but I doubt it’ll change anything substantially.: great phone. Small battery. You can live with that or get a different phone.

Been having same problem - Ive just turned off all the Siri’s, deleted like 8 or 10 apps I’m not going to use including face time replaced by Watsapp - Turned off all the tracking gizmo’s like locations and find me - (There are certain apps which can’t be deleted, but are shelved) The phone is updated to 14. Wot ever it is and I have it on battery saving mode = 3 hours into today and I’m still on 100% and 6 1/2 hours into today I’m 98%

Firstly find out which app is draining using the Settings, Battery app chart.

Then check the Battery Health is above 80% capacity.

Finally never leave your phone off charge overnight. They are designed to charge overnight, every night.

If it did run flat at midnight you may find the phone is dead and unstartable by breakfast.

If you charge to only 80% and stop using at 40% then you only have 40% useful capacity .

It’s no good bring proud of a 100% health if you are happy to use only 40% of it.

There are a lot of old myths regarding batteries.

Here is the advice again

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-9732

Charge it all night every night with optimised charging turned on and run it down to 5%.

I deleted about 10 apps I knew I wasn’t going to use, turned of location services, turned of siri by going through all the apps and I think deleting the app and use power saving mode - I notice Youtube app drains the battery too - Anyway, I can get a day out of it now with heavy usage, and two days light usage - It is a very good phone

Instagram and Facebook are two of the biggest battery hogs on the iPhone.

Check to see what is using the most battery power under Settings -> Battery.

Just been on to Apple Support about this - their recommendation was to deactivate the background app refresh!

Great.

I have decided to keep the new iPhone SE2020 despite it's battery. It's just too much hassle to send it back and go back to my old iPhone SE ( which was on iOS 9.3 something and whose battery STILL last for 2 days with multiple use).

I had a long helpful conversation with a really smart clued up Apple Tech person ( I luckily got through to one of the senior ones, dont know how - who really knew his stuff) and he said ( without being one of those types that is just trotting out the company line) that I should give it a while until the iPhone settles down a bit and 'learns' the usual usage. So I have the following points to make regarding the current battery performance:

1/ It has indeed settled down quite a bit and I can usually get through most of the day if in the morning it is 100% by later afternoon it is still 40% - 50%... but that is really minimal usage as follows:

• some texts

• reading the Guardian newspaper quite a bit online

• whatsapp - work group a few texts

• texts between family members

• some photos, some bits of video perhaps - minimal

• some Voice Memos ( I use this app a lot)

• some Facebook

• less than half a dozen very short phone calls.. maybe one longish conversation

• use Voice dictation to text a lot for emails and texts

• one a week Strava bike ride - couple of hours

• I check my Instragram, Twitter accounts very sparely.. maybe one a day at most

All of this usage is being at home here in London, under lock down, not doing any travelling but working from home. Not needing to use the phone for any Siri, gaming, watching videos, facetime or any other stuff that drains the battery.

3/ I have always been super streamlined in my use of the iPhone in the following ways

• hunted through youtube videos how to reduce power settings on iphone

• apart from Text/iMessage and WhatsApp I have ALL notifications of any kind SWITCHED OFF

• I have all background use of apps SWITCHED OFF ( there are masses of menus with background this and that .. all rubbish, all unnecessary draining of the power

• I have all analytics and stuff like that SWITCHED OFF

• I have Mail set to FETCH - ie there are no Push notifications at all. When want mail I do the equivalent of walking down the garden path and checking in the post box

• I NEVER USE SIRI for any purpose whatsover .. it is not something I need, SIRI on my phone is entirely switched off and disabled and I dont give it access to any apps. You can do this and still DICTATE text .. which I find very useful and intuitive and quicker than using the phone keyboard

• I never play GAMES, dont have an Apple Watch, or watch youtube videos or films on the phone

* * * *

It is only with the above set up that I get some sort of vaguely 3/4 day out of this iPhone SE2020... I cant imagein what it is like if you are in an office or travelling or using your phone full time during a working day...

The most important thing to me about a phone is the time you can go without charging it... in this area the iPhone 2020 SE has a MAJOR DESIGN FLAW

... also it is not that much faster than my old iPhone SE for all the activities I describe above. I dont regret getting it because I would have been obliged to at some point.. and the camera is noticeably superior.. but if Apple could sort out the battery. It would be really worth buying and keeping for more people.

here's how it went for me: the SE 2020 ran its battery down real quick upon first use. i ran facetime and it got so hot i could not hold it in my hand. the battery tumbled down at a rate of 1 - 2 % every minute or slightly less. i uninstalled facetime. i contacted customer Support. they were real quick getting back and took an analysis of the phone by remote help. i took notes of when how the battery drained for a few days and then they got back to me and took the results. they said that yes, the battery was running down too quick and that my report would be sent up the line quickly because of it. i never heard from them again. in the meantime i did my own research: so now, when the day is done, i charge my battery overnight, from bedtime to getting up. apparently the battery is OK with that. about mid afternoon each day i recharge it to 80% only. max battery life is achieved between 40% - 80%. full charges stress the battery. you can switch on 'optimise battery' in battery settings. this will read how you use your battery and when you charge it it will only charge to 80% until you need a full charge. as of yet ive NOT seen this happening to my phone - and i dont know why? the phone itself is great. i love the SE 2020. i came from android huawei - what a piece of **it that was: dead in two years, less actually. the truth of the matter is this SE 2020 is under-powered. that is a fact. full stop. not retractable. the end. the moment i start to 'use' my 2020 the battery essentially runs off like a coward! and thats only on light use. but there we are. the phone itself is great. and im glad ive moved to Apple - hope never to return to that second-hand car market of phones - the bargain bin Android. if its possible to say, the battery life has settled down now, i can see what stresses it so i am aware of that: it goes on charge overnight and it gets a top up - not past 80%, mid afternoon. i have not reinstalled FaceTime, i use Signal, it still warms up a little (not hot) and runs off the battery a little quick, but apparently video calling does that - it hits the battery of any phone hard. so follow the correct procedure for your battery maintenance and charging. it is under-powered. fact. even my bargain bin Android out-ran this one by a good few healthy yards! the best thing to do is to contact Customer Support and report you complaint and findings as i did. hopefully that might nudge them to do something more. i think things were tightened up a little in the last OS update? but the SE 2020 needs a two-charge day and maybe more if you're working heavy with it. cheers. drew.

I mentioned Facetime in my last post. I wasn’t explicit about how it affected the battery. It did and rapidly. About 1% every 1-2 minutes. It fried the battery like toast - heated up the phone a lot too. But I haven’t reinstalled it again. I’m wary. Though apparently video calling is super-heavy on the battery anyway - that’s any battery any phone. I did a lot of switching apps off etc. Not sure if it really made any difference. And just uninstalled any I didn’t want. My advice for what it’s worth is: follow charging rules strictly - don’t keep over charging too. Update to latest iOS. Don’t leave apps running if you don’t need to. The usual stuff we all know and do and don’t do. And let the phone get used to how you work. Sounds a bit creepy but it’s probably true! Post back here with any other advice. Cheers, drew.

Hi crgtmp, it looks like your battery has a hardware defect. A battery for a new iPhone will usually stay at 100% healthy for at least the first months in my experience. So 86% after one month is not normal. I would suggest to contact Apple reps and ask for replacement.

You have to follow charging rules. Switch on battery optimiser. Uninstall apps you don’t use. Switch off background apps. Update to latest iOS.

my battery issues have kind of sorted themselves out. It’s not perfect - I’d like to see another 10 - 15% on top. 10% is realistic by mid afternoon as I’m not a heavy user. I really like the phone, it does what I need and I like iOS coming from android. The battery is a slight issue but generally it’s ok now. I just charge twice a day, morning and mid afternoon. The battery has to get used to how YOU use the phone too. Give it time.

I was having similar issues along with the battery heating up to high levels for the first two weeks. Apple support was very helpful in my case. My rep ran a number of exercises and kept running them until my device was in about the same condition as yours. He was very empathetic and never left me with a corporate phrase like "working as intended". He made it clear I was now on an official record as having the problem to insure I would receive updates and/or I could replace any hardware under warranty. Couple of other things I did was stop charging carte blanche overnight to 100% every day. and limit screen brightness. I now wait to charge my phone when at less than 20% regardless of the time of day and only up to 80%. The phone charges relatively quickly and this practice has seemed to provide much improved results.