watchOS 7 Battery Drain

Same issue! Horrible battery life now!! After 18 hours I used to have 45% left. Now it went into battery saving mode at 10% before the day was even over. This is a horrible upgrade. I wonder if its sucking power listening for me to wash my hands.

UPDATE -> I just turned off all music, podcasts, and photo (mirroring) and disabled sleep. To contradict my comments below.. I am going to reset/repair, and will report back in 1-2 days (obviously doing sooner wouldn't have enough data).

Again I have a S4 Nike LTE, with cellular off, purchased 11/2019 (although it was kind of a new/old stock situation)

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I'm leery to unpair/repair (I've done this a ton of times with S2, S3, S4, and now S5) and it rarely solves *battery* issues.

Especially for "well established" watches.

I often lose watch faces, complications go haywire, settings reset, or it loves to reinstall Nike and/or other crapware I don't use.

So... here's holding out hope for 7.0.1... or... most likely, Apple is doing this on purpose to drive "planned obsolescence"

final comment -> thinking of buying a Watch SE, then comparing its battery life (with a backup) to my S4 to see how close it is. In that case, it's malicious.

FOUND IT (I think - sorry if I'm wrong).

Both my iPhone 11 Pro Max ***AND*** Watch enabled "optimized battery charging" upon update to iOS 14 and watchOS 7.

This would make sense - worse daily battery life is absolutely a result of the stupid optimized charging feature (i.e. iPhone dropped to 80% when it previously wasn't below 92%). And the battery life of my Watch shows 100% (of new), which also makes sense, since I don't use it a lot.

Also - after resetting, I was prompted for - and agreed to - reduce motion. I think this also could have a positive effect.

Hi,

My Apple Watch S4 battery has been a joke since WatchOS7 install.

I have followed advice of others on hear, I have un-paired the watch. Then setup as a new device.

I was loosing over 10% battery per hour before the un-pair. Since completing the fix I have lost 10% in 3 hours. So fingers crossed it’s worked.

You should not have to do this, Apple need to resolve before release. But I hope this helps everyone having issues.

It took about 30min to complete the fix. 👍

Sounds like some people believe the excessive battery drain is tied to handwashing reminders. Maybe it's constantly turning on the GPS. I'm going to toggle mine off and see if the atrocious battery life improves.

https://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-fix-watchos-7-battery-life-drain-on-your-apple-watch/

@stefg, the handwashing thing was never on for me and I double checked and turned it on and off again to be sure. Also turned off background app refresh. Nothing is doing the trick. and my watch died 10% after a 25 min walk to a CVS. Don’t want to unpair and repair until Apple hopefully has something to say

Same issue for me on my Watch Series 4, which I‘ve updated today. Usually after 24h I am on somewhere between 50-60% also while doing sleep tracking (AutoSleep App). Since this morning 9am where the Watch was on 100%, it was already down to 27% at 7pm and had to recharge to bring it through the upcoming night.

Please get this fixed ASAP! My new series 6 watch arrives in about a week.

I also experience this battery drain on my series 4. I usually could do about 1,5 days without charging. Some days 3I could even make it 2 days. But since watchOS7 it is terrible. I don’t even make it through one whole day and that is without a workout. When I use a workout like a run or a walk, I can not even make it through half a day.

Same here, I have a Series 4 and went for a 1.5 hour walk. At start I had 98% battery and then it dropped to 46%. The odd thing is that it charged back to 100% in less than 20 minutes (which seems too fast). I did not have these battery issues before the software update so I am not convinced it is a hardware issue with the battery.

Not sure if this will be noticed. The issue has been escalated to Apple and they are aware of the issues.

Immediately following an OS version update, there is a lot of system processes and caches which need updating. This can have an effect on battery life.

I would advise waiting 48 hours and restarting the watch. If this fails, escalate to support using the ‘chat’ or ‘call’ options.

I've "... escalated many issues to Apple"... including keyboard, battery, and now AirPods... and they've "been aware".... but don't do anything until the press (or firms) catch wind and take action.

True.

Especially if it's forcing planned obsolescence of old devices.

True.

@JFlindell - by whom?

Who owns the issue?

If I purchase a brand new Watch SE (nee: Watch 4) with 100% remaining battery life, and restore from backup, will the battery behaviour match those on this thread?

Or operate in a slower, more linear fashion, as previously on watchOS 5 and 6?

The battery issue, pertaining to Apple Watches which have recently updated to OS7, has been escalated to Apple; so they are aware of the many cases of people having issues.

If you were to bug a brand new Watch, series 6 or SE, it would have OS7 pre-installed and been extensively tested.

As previously said, following an OS update, there are many background processes which need to be run, and these may have a temporary adverse reaction on expected battery life.

The actions I have been presented with, so far, are to wait a day or two, and see if it improves.

It has been over 72 hours for me and I have restarted multiple times. I am on a chat session with them now so there is a data point. Not really expecting a resolution today, but maybe if we all contact Apple there will be sufficient numbers for an OS revision.

Same here series 4. I have always had to charge overnight but since watchOS 7 update my watch has died after a <1hr run in the afternoon...

something fundamental has changed, needs fixed ASAP or my watch is useless if it can’t last a normal day.