New iPhone SE powering down with 10 to 20% battery remaining

Question

Level 1

10 points

New iPhone SE powering down with 10 to 20% battery remaining

Hi,

I bought the new iPhone SE (2nd gen) at the beginning of September. On the whole, it's an improvement on my old SE (1st gen), with longer battery life, although that's probably true of any new phone. But while I need to worry less about charging it, it has powered off for me a few times when there is still somewhere between 10 and 20% power there. This afternoon, for example, it hadn't reached the automatic point of switching to low power mode at 20%, but powered off completely. It otherwise moved down in a fairly steady way. You can see in this image, taken just after turning it back on, how it had been progressing.

Is there some setting stopping the phone running on low power that I can switch off? Thanks for any help you might be able to offer.

iPhone SE, 14

Posted on Oct 30, 2020 8:35 AM

Reply

Answer 1

raina_b22

Community Specialist

Nov 7, 2020 8:42 AM in response to quillw

quillw,

We appreciate the further information about this issue. From the details you mentioned and with the maximum capacity being at 100%, the next step to take is to see if the issue is with the current software/data on the iPhone. You'll first want to back up your iPhone: How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Once that is done, please set your iPhone up as new temporarily to test if this issue continues: Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings

Have a great weekend!

Reply

Answer 2

chuck_3rd

Community Specialist

Nov 3, 2020 1:13 PM in response to quillw

quillw,

Thanks for those additional details. To ensure the batter health is okay for your iPhone and not causing these shut downs, you can check the battery health in Settings > Battery > Battery Health which you can read more about that here: iPhone Battery and Performance Having your installed apps up to date is a good step to take as well: Update apps or use automatic downloads

Also, do you notice if it shuts down when using a particular app or feature of your iPhone? This can help us isolate to see if something is causing this if the battery health and performance is okay.

Have a great day.

Reply

Answer 3

chuck_3rd

Community Specialist

Nov 3, 2020 1:13 PM in response to quillw

quillw,

Thanks for those additional details. To ensure the batter health is okay for your iPhone and not causing these shut downs, you can check the battery health in Settings > Battery > Battery Health which you can read more about that here: iPhone Battery and Performance Having your installed apps up to date is a good step to take as well: Update apps or use automatic downloads

Also, do you notice if it shuts down when using a particular app or feature of your iPhone? This can help us isolate to see if something is causing this if the battery health and performance is okay.

Have a great day.

Reply

Answer 4

Jeff_W.

Community Specialist

Nov 3, 2020 11:38 AM in response to quillw

Hey there, quillw.

After reviewing your post, it sounds like your iPhone SE will turn off between 10% to 20% of battery life left.

To confirm, your iPhone will shut down to where you need to turn it on again or does it restart itself and show either the Apple logo or a spinning gear? If its a restart, then you'll want to check out the following article: If your iOS or iPadOS device restarts or displays the Apple logo or a spinning gear unexpectedly

Let use know if that helps or if its a shut down. Take care.

Reply

Answer 5

quillw Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 10, 2020 3:03 AM in response to raina_b22

Hi Raina, and thank you for your advice. I did this yesterday morning, restoring my phone to factory settings, and then restoring the contents from a backup. Unfortunately, the very same thing happened to me. It got down to about 20% and then powered off. It was at 11% when I plugged it in again, as it did before, and didn't go to low power mode. I wonder does it have a bug where instead of going to low power, it powers off. For what it's worth, I had updated over the weekend to iOS 14.2, and had updated all apps this morning.

Any other ideas would be welcome, but I might just have to return it to the retailer for a checkup.

Reply

Answer 6

quillw Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 3, 2020 11:41 AM in response to Jeff_W.

Hi, thank you for your response. It shuts off, and won’t start again without being plugged in to charge, even though there’s 12% or so when it turns on, not the 4% you’d expect if it had lost outer.

Reply

Answer 7

quillw Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 5, 2020 2:50 AM in response to chuck_3rd

Thanks chuck_3rd,

This happened to me again this morning, with this time about 27% left. I remember checking it in the morning just before, as I wondered whether I needed to charge it in the morning, or if I could wait till I got into work. It powered off, but had 11% when I plugged it in. After it had charged it to 22%, I unplugged it, thought that might be enough this time, was listening to a podcast on PocketCasts, and it powered off again. It previously happened when using Outlook, but I don't think there are any particularly unusual apps that I'm using.

My battery health is at 100%, which is what I'd expect, as I bought the phone less than two months ago. I also keep my apps up to date regularly. There were 5 apps to update afterwards when I checked it after this in the morning, but that's not an unusual number.

If this were an older phone, I might understand, but for a new one, it is surprising.

Reply

Answer 8

karina184

Community Specialist

Nov 10, 2020 7:20 AM in response to quillw

quillw,

You're welcome. Thank you for trying that step for us. You'll want to ensure that your iPhone is being used in acceptable temperatures: Keeping iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch within acceptable operating temperatures A device can shut down at a high percentage if its turning off to protect the internal hardware because of temperature.

If you continue to encounter this issue, you can contact Apple Support for further assistance here: Contact Apple Support

Best regards.

Reply

New iPhone SE powering down with 10 to 20% battery remaining

Similar questions