Battery drain in WatchOS 8 on Apple Watch 6

Same here. I have the Apple Watch 6 Before I could keep the display always on and still have battery at 11pm.

Now it’s over 1/2 drained by noon and I put the display back to display off.

I tried to do what was suggested and using a previous backup. It got worse.

I just did it again but set it up as a new watch. Will see what happens.

This is rather frustrating and Apple isn’t addressing this issue after several updates.

If the battery drains too fast after an update, see all the replies to:

Battery Drain since watchos 7.4 - Apple Community

WatchOS 7.5 battery drain - Apple Community

FWIW, in some cases, unpairing the watch, completely erasing it, then pairing and restoring the backup will resolve the battery draining issue after an update. (Simply unpairing and pairing again may not work.)

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Also, some people have found that simply waiting a few days after an update resolves the battery draining problem.

Congratulations!!!! To those who got fixed or improvement…

After few days, and I decide to follow the method “reset iPhone to factory, restore from backup, then unpair and pair”

and this is my result…..

speechless :(

Ok I’m not sure what happened, since I haven’t updated any iOS or watchOS but the battery has been back to what it was (graph as per attached). Apps that got auto-updated yesterday was Truecaller, Slack, Soundhound, Messenger & Carousell. Hope this info helps.

I didn’t do any resetting, nor unpairing/pairing it to my iPhone

But this started already on my watch 4, under OS 7-something, which had no continuous monitoring of blood oxygen (and the model doesn't have this feature). Also the battery was in pretty good shape for a 3-year old watch (I'm trying to remember, but at the Apple Store it was ruled out from the beginning). I made no changes to what was monitored before it started. To make sure, I even deleted all gym apps to really rule out their interference and I didn't even install them back.

Also, it doesn't explain why the problem migrated to the NEW watch 7 (factory reseted, not restored from back up), with shiny new battery. Even worse, why only 2 days ago if I've had the watch for over a month now?

I basically have what I've had since ages: regular heartbeat, detect when I'm doing a workout if I forget to start one, GPS. All these things worked perfectly fine on the old watch series 4 until mid-2021. Batteries don't go kaputt overnight.

Anyway, I've set up the newly restored watch (again) to reduce a lot of battery consumption, even if it means reducing things I never had to and it's already down to 92% after a full charge 4:30h ago. That's not how it worked until a few days ago.

I had the same problem that everyone has here.

I've tried to un pair and pair again but it didn't solve the issue.

So I tried to investigate what was the issue and I noticed that the watch is continuously polling the Iphone for the localization.

I've blocked the permission to use the localization in the privacy setting of the Iphone and now the duration of the battery is back to normal, as it was before the last update.

I hope that is help everyone who has the same problem.

Here what I set.

I’m definitely not confident in reaching the end of a sedentary day with the watch battery at 63%. Not with a 1-month old series 7. And I had to turn off several settings that were never an issue with the battery in all watches I had since the 1: generation.

Same issue with Series 5 after Watch OS8. I’ve unpaired, erased and reset it 3 times but it makes no difference. Battery lasted to midnight even with daily heavy workout usage before OS8; next day after update and ever since it only makes it to mid afternoon, with absolutely linear drop regardless of the usage, so it must be OS-caused rather than usage. Battery health still 83%. Online Apple Support said it was a mystery and I should take it to an Apple Shop. Took it to Apple Shop Genius Bar where they said it was a mystery and too young a watch for that, but my only option was to buy a new one. Deeply disappointing and frustrating. Before OS8 it was fantastic and totally reliable. Afterwards virtually useless. Any help appreciated.

Series 3 owner here with same issue. Was having to charge watch twice a day to keep it going. A restore-from-backup done last night that seems to have fixed it….

like you, I also am seeing odd issues with the activity rings. The app itself on the watch has gotten very sluggish

My watch series 3 is now draining after os8 update, too! I’m suddenly only getting 10 hours of daily battery life with a battery health of 85%. I’ve done unpair repair and restored from backup with no improvement. I also noticed every possible watch app was installed on my watch (about 50 apps) and i’ve never installed all those. These installs either occurred automatically during updates or when I got my new iphone 12. So I uninstalled all but 7 watch apps. With background refresh on, I was sure this was the culprit to draining battery. However, nothing has improved this brand new battery drain issue. This is an OS issue that needs fixed.

I trued to unpair and restore for 2 times the battery working well in the first day to going to the same problem and quickly battery down to very quick like first day after update but not as normal before update I think  have to quickly update the software to cover this big problem and sure i can use my watch for 3 hours only every day and contenting it to charger!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree. Apple support only helped by walking me through a full reset and installing the watch as a new one. It seemed to work better the first day after that, but now the draining is happening again. I noticed it drained after I used the workout app on the third time in a day. I only use the workout app for 40 minutes each time so three times should not drain it. This is DEFINITELY an IOS issue. I am confident it will be corrected in a patch release. The support person did say there is no known issue, but now that I called, it is now on their record as an issue. These Forum threads are only conversations and do not become documented issues unless people call in and work with Apple.

Yes, i tried both ways, pairing and full resetting to a new watch while also using Apple support for guidance. Now the battery is only lasting 4 hours in a day. I am convinced the culprit is the workout app since I used that app for 3 hours in the day that the battery died at 4 hours. Will report this to Apple.

I was about to try the suggestions, but did not get around to it. After about 5 days or so of the short battery, it fixed itself. Two days now of normal battery life without resetting anything.

I seem to remember other apple updates to things that consumed batteries for the first few days as well. maybe they should put that as a note on updates?