watchOS 7 Battery Drain

@foxEone -- Very much appreciate the post re: unlock Mac.

It worked.

Note for others -- When I followed the instructions, I was still "unable to communicate with your watch" after first attempt.

Restarted watch, and it enabled in like ~1 second.

My series 5 watch running on os7 has had ONLY HORRIBLE battery life.

Apple needs to correct this OS quickly, this is extremely dissatisfying.

And don’t tell me to dim the brightness or turn off “always on” features. I should not have to offload functionality in order for the battery to perform at an acceptable level.

I’ve been experiencing the same issue on a series 4. Have tried the numerous ‘hack’ fixes people have suggested but still no improvements.

Looks as if battery performance was an issue in beta back in July

https://www.reddit.com/r/watchOSBeta/comments/hqf741/watchos_7_battery_life_fix/

we shouldn’t be looking at hacky fixes, their should either be a fix available or we should have the ability to roll back to the previous version.... but as standard Apple denies any culpability and his us the consumer/mugs are repeatedly eating a sh1te sandwich and are made to feel bad if we complain about the taste.

Lucky you @lindros. I just tried the whole Leeb instruction set again and restarted my AW4--no joy. But instead of taking 30-45 seconds to get the dialog box "Make sure your Apple Watch is unlocked and on wrist, and your iPhone is unlocked." it now pops up nearly instantly, not what I would call progress. The only thing left for me to try is to unpair/pair as new rather than from a backup. Maybe I'll wait to see if a WatchOS update to 7.0 comes along soon.

Sadly same problem here... I have a Watch Series 5. Before the update this was my usage:

I would wake up at 5:30 AM turn off, Theater Mode since I sleep with my watch and I ALWAYS have Always on Display on. (Battery 95%)

Go to work and listen to podcast on Spotify all day long while skipping 15 seconds ahead to avoid ads every so often, while answering texts every now and then. All this with Always on Display on. By the time I leave work around 3 PM my watch would usually have 40% battery or so.

Get home sit on my desk and put my watch to charge. (Battery 30-40%)

After updating to WatchOS 7, by 3 PM my battery is between 5-10%.

WTF Apple?

Me again--I fixed my problem with being unable in System Preferences>Security & Privacy to reconnect my AW4 to unlock my Macs after following @Gehard Lee's instruction set. In the Watch app, I went to General>Airplane Mode and toggled Bluetooh off and then back on, then went back and checkboxed my AW4 in System Prefere4nces>Security & Privacy--it finally worked!

Just tried to use my AW4 to unlock my MacBook Pro and found it is no longer found. I tried turning off the feature and restarting all devices but still doesn’t work. Same problem described by https://discussions.apple.com/profile/foxEone

Any suggestions on how to resolve? Didn’t realize how often I login each day until it stopped working. Help!!!!!

after doing the unpair/pair procedure. Watch is still draining battery. Mind you my AW4 is only 1 year old with 98% battery health. Before the update (watchOs7) I could wear my watch regularly with a hour to hour and half workout and be at 25-30% from 630am to 1130 pm. After the update and doing the unpaid/pair trick? 8am-730pm with 30 min workout, watch is dead.

This needs to be fixed! I shouldn’t have to turn off features I regularly use to keep my battery life optimized. We pay 350-500$ And 800+ for premium versions for these watches! Surely, Apple is aware of these issues!???

Un-pairing and re-pairing fixed my Apple Watch Series 5. Still sent feedback to Apple. We should not have to do this. Luckily, their backup/restore process is pretty straightforward. I would recommend the re-pairing process.

Yes same for me down to zero at 5pm S4 watch with watch os 7. Unpaired then pairing will reformat the watch from backup takes 20 min but phone can be used while watch is backing up.. now still 90% plus at lunchtime back to normal performance.

I too have unexpected battery drain on Series 4 after the OS7 upgrade. Battery drops to 0 around 7pm, when previously it was good to 11 pm with about 50 % . Will Apple fix this ? I turn off all the features that ios7 had turned on, or added. Turned off the hand washing timer too. Still, battery drops quickly.

I don’t think there is any need to turn anything off. Unpair and pair has worked for many. Simply switching off the phone then the watch. Wait 5 minutes. Switch the phone on, let it fire up and then switch the watch in. When I first did the unpairing process nothing improved but that second stage cured it. The first day it lasted all day again including being used for exercise. Battery life is now after a couple of days normal.

Of course Apple should tell us this will happen and even advise us to switch off and on again as above. That modicum of communication would help. Better would be a fix that enables the update but does not intrude.

I usually, out of habit, switch a device off and then on again after an update. This time I forgot and suffered!

This - I did an unpaid/repair twice with backup and not only did my battery start draining at 1% a minute (it was even draining when turned off) but it corrupted the charge function. When I unpaired a third time and restored as new the charge function returned and my battery is more or less normal. Still not fantastic (it’s a 4) but it never really was. I always had to charge st least once during the day. But after the OS 7 update charging had to be done up to six times daily. Oh and even though I restored as new all my previous fitness data was retained.

Seems I’m having a similar problem with my series 5. Since the OS7 update my battery life has diminished by at least 70%. After a full charge my battery is completely used up in about 4 hours. It usually last a full day with battery left over. I did turn off many but not all of my background refresh with little to no change.

After upgraded to watchOS7, I have exactly the same problem on my cellular series 5. Fully charged in the morning, just before my 1 hour workout 6pm, the battery drain to 30% level. I actually finished my workout but soon after that my watch went dead!!! Looked into this forum, I have found solution!!!! On my iphone at watch app, I went to general>usage. I see each particular app using much of the energy and I have found the podcast use a lot of power to download episode. Then I came out and turned off from automatic download. Then I switch off some unnecessary notifications e.g. mail etc. Only keep the ones which I definitely needed to receive notification. After I did all of these last night. I left my watch charged overnight. I waring it in the morning at about 7 am and continue my routine as normal. Before my workout this evening my watch have 79 percent charged and after my 1 hour workout it is now 49 percent. To night I will have it fully charged and waring it during my sleep tonight. I will see how it perform in the morning. Anyway I'm more comfortable now otherwise I have to buy another one!!!