Battery drain in WatchOS 8 on Apple Watch 6

Have resolved the issue with Apple support .

Backed up the phone via iTunes > recovered the phone to factory default (while phone connected to iTunes ,volume up then volume down then long press on shutdown till cable connected an pc was shown > select recovery and follow the process ) > restore from iTunes backup > pair the watch again .

Mine was terrible, only lasted a few hrs. Apple support via twitter were useless-saying battery issue (with service & battery needed 💰💰!!) but pointed me in the direction of on-line support. They told me 2 unpair watch & pair it again, which worked😁. I can only assume that the new update meant that the watch lost connection & was constantly trying to re-pair with phone, causing battery 2 drain!!?!

Go to:

Apple Watch app-tap all watches (top left corner) & unpair watch.

Takes a short time 2 unpair then (obvs) pair watch again, but worked 4 me.

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.

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.

This was the fix for my issue . The problem was with iOS on the phone . Had to reinstall iOS completely and then restored from backup . Only after that the watch started to work as designed without battery drain and without communication errors

Try to reset the watch before pairing . Simultaneous press on two buttons till watch restarts > as apple logo appears long press on rectangular button > Reset ( this will restore factory defaults of the watch)

Dears,

I just bought an Apple Watch and got surprised by the battery drain issue. Disabling the blood oxygen checks did a huge improvement. I have all the rest health and sports features enabled.

Bottom line is - first try to disable the Blood Oxygen Measurements.

Best, Mladen

finally, I fixed it!!!! 

have try many times (can check my previous reply), and now may be I find out the problem.

It must be the watchOS problem, and that should not be iOS issue (so, I don't think reinstall iOS is necessary )

Hopefully my experience can give some hint to Apple to make the bug fix for the next update..

From the beginning, my first try, my watch can only use 36% of battery, when it show 64% of battery left, it dead, and it take 4 hours of usage.

then I try unpair, pair, reinstall iOS, any method has mention in this discussion board I have try all of them.

then the result can only use 9% of battery, when it show 91% of battery left, it dead, and it take 2 hours. 

so, I try the method of holding both button of the watch to make a force restart, after a few times, it shows the red circle with big !, then the watch cannot start again. The watch really dead...

Try couple of days charge and dis-charge, the same, the watch cannot restart but just the red circle with ! 

(now comes the accidental fixed)

SO, I remove the watch out of the charger, and let it. Days later, I try to start it again, now it just show the Apple logo, and can't go into the system, just the logo..... I let it on the desk again (without charging)... around 12 or some hours later, the watch drain out of battery ( it shows up the watch need to charge snake like display), then I put it on the charger, and it start charge again. 

The next day, the watch has restart again, and the system on just like normal watch......

I unpair and re-pair, set up as a new watch..... then... it work fine, it works like a normal watch again, with more than 15hours of working time, can drain down to 1 % then dead....... so, it fixed!!!

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so, according to my experience, I doubt that is the new watchOS has a battery calibration software problem. (a big bug)

which may be the first time of my watch problem(use 34%, dead on 64%), my update of the OS while the watch is charged at around 64%, then OS updated, the “34%” has “display” as “100%”, but every time can only use that “34%” (around 4 hours usage, which make sense before update). so, when up to “64%”, the watch dead, it really out of battery, and that explain why I just charged 20 mins from a dead watch, wake up shows as 64%, and charge to full by 20mins only.

the second try is “down to 91%” then that “9%” only can use less then 2 hours ( which make sense too)and the watch dead，so that “9%” of battery, “display” as 100%, and every time I use the watch , my watch only contain “9%” of battery volume. Even though it shows up 100% charge, and dead on 91%, the OS loop that physical 9% battery. It charge from 0% to 9%, OS think the is fully charged, so stop charging (because it is 100% full in software system), and I can only use that 9% by 2 hours or less of using life.

the third time, which after the read circle with big !, the watch only can boot to “apple logo” and cannot go into OS.  I “accidentally” take it out from the  charger, so that the watch is in BIOS status (sorry, I don’t know how to describe ), and because that is not in watchOS status, it can use up all the battery to zero, and recharge to “real” 100%, a real full circle of charge., so that maybe “re-write” the status of the battery, then I re-install the watchOS, it back to normal (may be finally it record the real battery status, finally a correct calibration has recorded) 

so the fixed is “ you need to find a way to drain up the battery to make the watch record correct battery status” then the OS can work fine.

==========

I suggest Apple engineer may be can release a urgent fix code that helps all the user who face this problem can “drain up the battery correctly”, then let all user un-re-pair the watch, so that the OS can work fine.

After that they can study why the OS8.x has this stupid problem (from the sea of code)

Lastly, thanks everyone read to this line by my lousy English (because that is my first language ), I am not any IT people, I am just a cook of a fast-food shop. If my story doesn’t make any sense, that is normal….. I just hope my sharing can inspire someone can find out the source of the problem and release a final fix…. as I fixed my watch by luck after 2 months of angry and disappointment. 

I read your full post. You are correct it is not hardware. Drainage started after OS 8 that was released in October. OS 8 added continuous monitoring of rhythmic activities for health alerts, and the workout app will automatically detect strenuous activity and log that as exercise. This constant monitoring may be overworking older batteries. Since upgrading my devices to brand new, I’ve had no issues. I think anyone having relatively new drainage issues should turn off any activity apps or stand alone watch features that require constant monitoring of the heart, pulse, or noise. These have all been either added or enhanced for greater accuracy. (GPS has always been monitored so it is not new to OS 8, so I do not suggest turning that off.)

After an OS 8.2 sudden collapse of battery function ( rapid drain) I recovers some functional battery performance with a hard reset re-pairing and set up as a new watch… but it was quite my previous “all day” performance. OS8.3 has made my watch like new with 58% at 12 hours post charge using watch for messaging and heart rate and phone calls. Hope others find success with 8.3.

BTW an Apple Employee friend told me before 8.3 he thought this would fix issues

Try changing watch face. Apparently all the watch faces are changed in the update so the old ones might be causing the battery issue. If it doesn’t help, reseting the watch will do. It fixed mine too!

Ok, so it appears my watch (Series 3 GPS) is acting normal now. The battery drain is now 3% every hour and I'm even able to use Wake on Wrist Raise.

This is what I did:

I saw that some of y'all were talking about disabling location features for the watch -- by going onto my iPhone, then into settings, to privacy and into location services. From there, find Apple Watch Faces and Apple Watch Workout and selecting NEVER for allowing location services to be active on your watch.

I notice that by doing this it reduced the battery drain (not by a lot) but you could tell something was happening for the better.

I also looked into Heart Rate and Fitness Tracking and found a few articles that said that both of these features need to be on. I kept only the Fitness Tracker on but not the Heart Rate, which apparently will drain your watch battery. So I turned on the Heart Rate and made sure Fitness Tracking was on as well.

I then went to General, Reset and pressed Reset Sync Data. I don't know if anything happen because (of me) it never gave me an alert that anything had been reset. I'm just going to assume that the sync got reset. Also, I DIDN'T UNPAIR and all that mess. I've done it 100 times and I don't believe this really does anything.

Afterwards, I rebooted both the Watch and iPhone at the same time. Both turned off (went black at the same time) and then I turned both devices back on at the same time.

Since Sunday night, it appears that the draining has slowed down. It still isn't at where it was when I got the watch back in November 2020, as I could go two days without charging the Watch, but again it seems that my Watch is now following the Apple standard of 12 to 18 hours of daily use. For the past four months I was barely making it past 10 hours and everything was disabled on the watch. Basically a brick Watch.

After four months of calling Apple, looking up articles, reading everyones comments on here and other sites.... it appears this might be the fix everyone needs for their Watches.

Let me know if this helps.

Try setting it up as a new watch. This is what fixed my series 6. Nothing else was fixing the issue for me.

I’m talking about setting it up as a new watch. That’s different than unpairing.

I have a series 6 and it worked. i don’t use the workout app and that seems to be an issue for some.