iPhone 12 battery draining fast

It seems that the issue is mostly in Europe and other regions but not so much in the US?

Otherwise I would expect some reviewers on YouTube to find this problem.

Could this be related to the fact that the US version has a mmWave antenna for 5G and the European version doesn’t? Does anyone knows if both versions share the same modem?

Hi All,

Just spent 1 hour on the phone with Apple support and let them take full diagnostics data from my Iphone 12.

I explicitly mentioned to them about this thread and that we speak about global problem here, that none of level 1 tricks would fix. They seemed to understand.

Let's hope they really look into it.

More people are welcomed to report!

I noticed that my iPhone didnt loose a single percent of battery power in about two hours while I was in my job place where I also have the same signal strength of 2 out of 4 like at home. Might it be that only some cellular towers cause the drain while others dont. Did anyone of you also see different behavior based on location?

Is there anyone here who has contacted their carriers on this issue ? Is there any coordination between them on this issue ? As we have already noted this problem can be traced in the European region, as there were no complaints from users from the U.S., this means that carriers in the U.S. were ready for their stations to work with new modems, right I understand ? Well, on the other hand, many people have everything stable and with our operators ... ...means a hardware failure... 🤷‍♂️

It looks as though some journalists are starting to document this which is good

https://insiderpaper.com/iphone-12-battery-drain-issue-idle-standby/

https://piunikaweb.com/2020/11/24/iphone-12-series-excessive-battery-drain-issue-in-standby-mode-comes-to-light/

That's it, I'm done - I've tried everything suggested on here and everything else I can think of, and my 12 mini is still losing 4% an hour whatever I do. Return requested, and I'll be dropping it off with UPS in ten minutes or so.

I wasn't offered a replacement, for some reason - I could just order a new phone, of course, but on thinking about it, I can't see the point until I know this problem is fixed, and given Apple's total silence on the subject to date, I don't see that happening any time in the near future. This might (hopefully) be something fixable in software, but it also might be a dodgy initial batch of modem chips, or even a fundamental hardware limitation in Qualcomm's new modem chipset which causes constant drain in certain signal situations or on certain networks. All I know is that I'm not prepared to live with it, given the inconvenience as well as the long-term effects on the battery of daily charging.

Back to my venerable 2016 iPhone SE, a phone which easily gets 2 or 3 days to a charge - I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see when/if a solution is found.

Incidentally, the person at Apple I spoke to while arranging the repair said he had personally arranged the return of one other 12 mini for continuous battery drain in the last few days, but he couldn't say whether or not Apple were actually investigating this as a known problem .

So after two consecutive days/nights of observing my new 12 Pro Max, it’s been doing perfectly good. Here’s a graph of the battery performance. Yesterday as you can see, I fully charged it 1:09PM and I didn’t use it that much just to observe the battery on idle. Just some few texts here and there. I just woke up now at 5:40AM and it’s at 95%. Is it safe to conclude now that my new unit doesn’t have the battery drain issue?

Its really disappointing, i have brand new iPhone 12, my background refresh is off , i dont use 5g, i dont use fast charger , i use orginal apple charger, also no running apps in the background still sucking my battery in idle mode , I usually lose 10 percent on an average overnight for no usage at all. I remember using iPhone 7- iPhone 8 , they never behaved like this when they were brand new , also its been years apple have been fixing battery draining problems with new updates but nothing helps instead gets worse. Never expected with the new phone this year , either they are purposely doing it so next year i might purchase a new battery or they have no fix for this bug.

I just observed a night on my 12 pro Max...it was most weird...after resetting for a third time (as my replacement device which was supposed to arrive yesterday got delayed and now won’t arrive for another week) the battery went from 78% down to 74% in 6-8 hours...that’s not too bad I thought! I used it for about 20 minutes, it dropped to 71%...then I left it idle for only 4 hours...now it’s at 62%. W T F?

Absolutely nothing to show for it in the battery settings, it just lost nearly 10% in 4 hours for nothing...and it can’t be the signal to blame either as the phone was in the exact same place it was in when it lost only 4% in 6-8 hours...only for some reason known only to the apple gods it lost 10% in just 4 hours this morning!

I have same problem iPhone 12 battery draining 10%-20% over night. Everything is Off (wifi, bluetooth, data background app refresh) and that's completely off not just until tomorrow thingy. But I think draining was not that bad when I had no SIM installed. Tonight I will leave phone without SIM card and check how much battery it drained.

I definitely agree about there is anything we can do about it. I know some people were lucky enough to exchange the device and the new one works fine. This is not my case. It is my 3rd iPhone in less than a month and all of them had this issue.

If it is a software problem, it will get fixed with a firmware update, if it is a hardware problem, devices will need to either be repaired or replaced.

If apple hasn't made any statement yet, is either they have no clue what is causing the issue or the problem is bigger than expected.

It really ****** me off those seniors advisors threat us like fools saying our devices are working fine when it is clear is not.

Agree, I would be very happy to have those results. Mine so far

iPhone 12 Pro Max

Activated/ install 22nd Nov

Battery levels

24/11/20 batt at when sleeping 81%

25/11/20 batt in the morning    61%

25/11/20 batt at when sleeping 100%

26/11/20 batt in the morning     80%

26/11/20 batt at when sleeping  93%

27/11/20 batt in the morning     80%

27/11/20 batt at when sleeping  87%

28/11/20 batt in the morning     62%

28/11/20 batt at when sleeping  89%

29/11/20 batt in the morning     60%

I am puzzled. My drain seems to have got much better I inly lost 4% last night in 8 hours..... I’m exchanging for a new phone tomorrow which is on order. This issue is very inconsistent it seems you get good days and bad days, good nights and bad nights. I’m puzzled in all honesty

https://www.gottabemobile.com/5-things-to-know-about-the-ios-14-3-update/

this link suggests (and I have read elsewhere) that 14.3 will include an update to enable 5g in dual sim mode. I am hoping that this could improve the drain as the update will link to the modem. Who know.... hoping it’s out before my 14 day period is up to swap handsets again....

the same , It is obvious that the 5G modem has an impact on our networks that leads to battery drain ! Perhaps it will be possible to disconnect exercise power consumption from LTE ! What do you think ?