Watch 3 battery suddenly draining very fast after OS8 update

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Level 1

21 points

Watch 3 battery suddenly draining very fast after OS8 update

Since the recent update of my phone (iPhone 11) to iOS15 and my Watch series 3 (cellular but no service activated) my watch is running out of battery by late afternoon.

Previous to updates, the battery would be at ~45% at the end of the day (22:00) but now it is down below 20% before 17:00.

I am also noticing increase in battery usage on the phone, but nowhere as severe.

Is this a known problem, possibly relayed to OS8 or iOS15 or both?

I know watch series 3 is old, but it still being sold by Apple and is supported using OS8.

Apple Watch

Posted on Sep 30, 2021 1:06 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

javaliga

Level 10

120,179 points

Sep 30, 2021 11:07 AM in response to PhantomFrank

Congratulations on getting your series 3 watch updated to watchOS 8. A lot of people have problems with that.

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.

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Answer 2

PhantomFrank Author

Level 1

21 points

Sep 30, 2021 8:37 PM in response to javaliga

doing a 'Erase all Content & Settings' on the watch and then re-pairing and doing restore from backup seems to have resolved my problem.

I put watch on with 100% battery at 06:00 and now at 13:00 it still has 88%, so it's back to what it was previously.

I am now running OS8.1 PB2 and all good.

Same result with my wife's series 3, running production release OS8.

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Answer 3

JeffXY26

Level 1

13 points

Sep 30, 2021 8:08 PM in response to PhantomFrank

same problem erasing / unpairing / soft reset doesn’t work nothing's working its very frustrating

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Watch 3 battery suddenly draining very fast after OS8 update

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