Apple watch Battery drain after 7.3.1 update

After 7.3.1, with a fully charged watch, I could only swim 45 minutes until power reserve notice on so I could not see my laps. Used to be over 50% after an hour swim. Charged watch shortly before bed but 88% within an hour and power reserve 10% was on 7 hours later using AutoSleep. Normally more than 50% charged overnight after even 8 hours sleep.

I have the series 5 as well and serious battery drain after the update, like 35% an hour. I’ve tried unpairing, resetting, and even back to factory settings but nothing has fixed it. Support couldn’t help either so I have to send it in. Not happy.

I took mine off the charger this morning and during my run (that was within an hour of taking it off the charger) it acted like it shut off due to battery then came back on and said it was at 10% and then stayed at 10% for the next hour. Then when I put it on the charger in my car within 10 minutes was back up to 51%. Whatever was in that update has definitely screwed with the battery life on the watch.

that's so true....but the situation here is that everything that was running prior to the update was exactly what was still running after the update. And the watch battery drain was only AFTER the update. I just did the latest update today and hopefully that will address the problem. There seem to be multiple occurrences with the draining watch battery since the prior update....all over the web...

Mine too, apple watch 5 and only 6 months old.... Major battery drain since the last update. I am on 7.3.3. at the moment.... went hiking several weeks ago (do not remember the software version then) .... over 9 hours of hiking apple workout app.

last week (after update) only 5 hours and some minutes, same route, so watch died practically that workout and it went into 10% power reserve....

so after reading all possible advices: unpair, reinstall (new install not from back up)...no other app installed... disable wi-fi disable bluetooth etc. all possible other tweaks that it didnt need several weeks ago...today after 5 hours only 15 % left....guys, thats a serious software glitch, really disappointed.... if it continues that way I will switch to garmin....

It's happening with the series 4 watch as well. Watch battery is draining superfast after OS 7.3.1 update. Problem reported to Apple. Seems this has been a known issue for at least the past week. Please fix this Apple!!!

Exactly the same here. Started happening this week (late Apr ‘21) and has occurred three times. Two of them were on runs and happened at almost exactly the same location, about 20 minutes in.

Doesn’t help solve the problem but should be reassuring for all that “it’s not just me!”

Same here with my S5. About a year old, running 7.4.1 and I was getting about 30 hours charge out of it before 7.4, then boom...maybe 6 hours with no change to the set up of the watch. Tried all the recommended fixes with no luck. Is the S7 release imminent and Apple is trying to push us to upgrade? There are a lot of reports of thi. I hope they're working on a fix.

I just saw that 7.3.2 was released late yesterday as well...shame my watch is now getting serviced...

Like I already mentioned in the previous post: The issue was fixed by WatchOS 7.5 B1. Yesterday the WatchOS 7.5 B2 was published, but I'm afraid to do the update. Any body tested it already?

I've tried to do this and it hasn't helped. Are you saying that you need to have the watch powered on and then when you force the restart on the iPhone and see the Apple logo that you then do the restart on the Apple Watch? I thought I did this correctly, but it hasn't helped battery life. I don't want to lose my Activity data, so I'm trying to avoid unpairing and setting it all back up.

Quick update after doing a full unpair and restore (from backup) and doing the force restart, etc. I had a 100% charge at 6:45pm and it's now 10:52pm and I'm at 32%. That's almost a 70% loss of battery in 4 hours. I didn't do any workouts, didn't use the map, have turned off push notifications, sleep detection, basically anything that could possibly drain the battery. This is not normal. The only thing I haven't done is unpairing and setting up as a new watch. Is that the only thing I can do? I read a lot of threads where the unpair/restore from backup seems to solve the problem, but that is not working for me. Any suggestions? This is really frustrating.

Apple: this can't happen with Apple.

This happens with the cheap Android based phones...but their cost is 150$....not 400$ minimum like Apple.

Please, release the Beta version that corrects this (and which also helps to unblock the phone with face mask...which is a good novelty...but maybe 1 year late...).

A bit upset Apple...!!!

Completely unhelpful. Battery drain was just fine before OS update to 7.4.1...after which the excessive battery drain started. Dropping by > 25% within an hour. What the heck is wrong with your OS updates Apple?