iPhone 14 Pro Battery Draining Fast

Update: The battery is fine. It’s the particular Astronomy Lock Screen and always on display that was killing battery. I guess because the globe rendering is live 3D, the battery drain is higher when combined with always on display. A regular static image doesn’t drain the battery like this.

I figured out what was causing my particular battery problem, and it was kind of a strange phenomenon:

Looking at the battery chart in settings, I noticed that the excessive battery drain (3-5% per hour) always occurred between 8:30 AM and 6 PM, and only on days when I was at the office. I assumed it must probably be caused by a weak signal at work or something related to the building itself, and I just had to deal with it.

By accident (or dumb luck), I found out what it really was: with my 12 Pro Max, I was using a wireless charging stand on my desk, where I also put my 14 Pro into every morning, simply out of routine. Charging never worked though, probably because the case I have on my phone (UAG Plyo) is too thick. I never cared about it not charging anyway, it just looked neat sitting there.

The other day I left the office to grab lunch at noon. When I came back, I forgot the phone in my jacket. When I looked at the battery graph that evening, surprise, it stopped dropping exactly at noon, and that's when it hit me that that charging stand might have been the problem all the time.

The next day I just laid the phone on the desk, et voilà: everything was fine - it only used up 4-5% of charge throughout the whole day. Now my battery is still at 90-95% every day after being off the charger for 15 hours.

I own iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. Battery life on both are nothing short of amazing. For example it is now going on noon. My 14 Pro Max has been off its MafSafe Charger, since 7:30 AM this morning and my remaining battery is 98% at this very moment.

If your battery is draining faster than you expect, you need to see what is using the battery.

Go to Settings > Battery and wait for the categories to populate. You likely have something running in the background you need to stop running.

You can also Force Restart your iPhone (something you should do routinely anyway) by following the procedure in this support document --> Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

This is pretty strange. I’ve noticed my iPhone 14 Pro Max draining quite a bit faster than before the iOS 16.3 update, but it’s still exhibiting the best battery life I’ve ever had in an iPhone - as it should be, and as it’s marketed. The always-on display should have negligible effect on the battery life, as it is significantly dimmed and uses only a 1 hz refresh rate (which means it literally refreshes once per second which is almost nothing).

Now, while I haven’t experienced the horrible drain that most of the users in this post are describing, I can offer a few tips that have greatly helped me in the past with older iPhones that didn’t have such great battery life (looking at you iPhone 12 Pro). It will be a bit of a long post but hopefully helpful to many of the users here.

1. Turn off background app refresh. While this feature can help apps to be a little quicker when you first open them because they’ve updated some of their content in the background, it also causes a bit of battery drain. It doesn’t affect apps like Messages or Mail however, so you’ll still get important alerts on time. You’ll notice a difference, if only an extra 10% battery at the end of the day, with this off. Alternatively, if you have apps like OneDrive, AllMyBatteries, etc., you can manually toggle background app refresh off for all apps except ones like these so that they can still do the heavy lifting in the background without you having to keep the app open.
2. Use Wi-Fi when possible, and don’t force 5G usage. Cellular drains battery much faster than Wi-Fi because it’s constantly searching for the best signal. 5G, while faster than LTE, uses even more power, so set it to “Smart Data Mode” in Settings > Cellular. This will let your iPhone choose when to use LTE (in every case possible) vs 5G (when you’re gaming, downloading audiobooks on the go, or if LTE is just too slow right then).
3. Don’t force close your apps when you’re done using them. iOS is good at managing its system resources, and unlike Android, does not run out of available RAM or suck battery life if you don’t force close your apps. (This is even more so on the Pro models which have more RAM.) On the contrary, force closing apps clears away the little bits of memory your iPhone uses to remember where you were at, so when you reopen the app, it uses more power loading everything again.
4. Use low power mode when your battery is draining fast. It disables all background activities, slightly dims the display, and temporarily turns off a lot of little bells and whistles that are nice to have but not necessary for operation. It also cuts some of the power to the CPU, so this solution might not work for avid gamers, but everyday users surfing the web or messaging/calling won’t notice a slowdown. Yes, this is an unsatisfactory solution, but we know that much of the battery drain is related to the latest updates so there’s a very good chance Apple will tackle the issue promptly. It’s not a forever thing.
5. If you have a HomePod mini(s) or HomePod, turn off Transfer to HomePod in Settings > General > Airplay and Handoff. This is the feature that lets you hold your iPhone near the HomePod and transfer music between the two. While cool and handy if you use it a lot, most people don’t, and the downside is the devices’ Bluetooth are constantly hunting for each other every time the iPhone’s U1 chip detects you’re even remotely near - ie, in the same room - as the HomePod. It can significantly drain battery; if you don’t use it, turn it off.
6. Finally, a bit of an almost-cliche tip: backup and reset your iPhone (aka “wipe and reload”.) Some people aren’t going to want to go to the trouble of doing this, but I still have to mention it because it’s worked so many times for me. Sometimes, especially after getting a new iPhone and transferring the data from the old, bogus data and system files or caches can accumulate and slow down the phone or drain battery life, and the extra load can even cause it to heat up. While I’m not sure why this happens so often, I can say that resetting can make a world of difference in both the responsiveness and battery life. And if you do a backup first, it’s not too big a hassle to go through this process.

How to back up your iPhone or iPad with iCloud - Apple Support

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

I hope this helps.

Did you do what was recommended above and go to Settings > Battery > And see whats using the most battery? When you set up the phone, you may have brought something over which is corrupt. You can back up your phone on your computer and restore the phone from backup (again, using your computer). These are some things you can and should do.

No one I know with iPhone Pro (including the two I own) are having any battery drain issues.

If you try the above actions and none help, then schedule an appointment at your Apple Store Genius Bar for evaluation.

I have the same issue, but I upgraded from the 12 pro max. I feel like the battery life is the same. And I don't use the always-on-screen display function (I don't find it necessary).

Check your battery usage. Go to Settings > Battery, then look at your last 10 days of battery usage. You will see the section below the graph that says "Battery Usage By App" where it will show you the apps that use the most of your battery (as a percentage). You can click on that and it will switch to the number of hours.

For instance, if you are using the Facebook App, that is notoriously terrible on battery life. I just looked at mine, and over the last 10 days, it used 30% of my battery life (the highest of all my apps), yet it was only accounting for 12 hours. For comparison, TikTok was 20 hours and only accounted for 20%. Podcast app was 22 hours, yet only used 10% of my battery (again, all across the last 10 days). Facebook has notoriously been terrible with app usage and battery drain (I have always noticed differences on days when I do not open the app at all versus when I do use it). The only solution in my situation is to delete the Facebook app and use it through safari.

That's the best way to monitor where the battery is being used. It might also help to turn off background activity, limit location access to 'while using the app', and turn notifications off for most of the unnecessary apps. I also turned off the 'raise to wake' function, so if I want to wake my phone, I have to press the side button.

No applications were listed this was precisely my issue!

But my problem has been solved thanks to Apple Support so to all my battery issues fellows out there please read the below steps :

• When I received my phone, I restored it from my iPhone 11 and this was apparently the issue
• I had to completely reset my iPhone 14 Pro after syncing all its data to iCloud
• I then did the setup again but WITHOUT restoring an iCloud save (I set up the phone without connecting my Apple ID)
• Once the phone was set up I then connected to my Apple ID and synced all the data
• Had to download all the messages, download all the apps from the App Store (they are stored on your profile to find them easily)
• Finally MAGIC HAPPENED !! Left my phone overnight on my stand table and lost about 5-6% of battery
• I had heavy usage of the phone while restoring the data and the battery didn't drain nor did the phone overheat while charging

So the issue was apparently coming from my iPhone 11. You'll find below the screenshot of my battery usage overnight and can clearly see the difference with my previous screenshot!

Dear Lawrence, I'm sorry but YOU CAN leave your phone without charging overnight and you actually should if your battery is not below 20% as you will use one more charge cycle than necessary and then shorten your battery life :)

Friends, please now enjoy the "stellar performances" of your brand new iPhone 14 Pro !

I just had the exact same thing happening with my iPhone 14 Pro two weeks ago. I went to the Apple store and they ran a diagnostic on it. They found two things:

The always on display. So we turned that off.

They also found an issue with the camera. Even though it was working fine, taking pictures, the diagnostic scan showed a defect. My phone was still under warranty so they replaced the camera. Haven’t had any problems with the battery draining since then.

Look at what is using your battery most in settings. Could still be indexing depending on how much you had on your device. Could be an errant app. Check to make sure you don’t have available app updates. If you do then let them install. My iPhone 14 Pro Max battery life is excellent and that’s with me using it a lot. Of course I realize you are asking about the pro but everything I mentioned could still be the cause. As far as the always on display…doesn’t seem to be using lot of power but you could always see how your battery behaves turning it off after a full charge to see if there is a significant distance for you.

Thanks to you all for trying to help.

Feel a bit of an idiot as it was me leaving the wifi on whilst away from home that was the drain.

After a very polite call from apple support, we discovered the cause, my VPN always trying to connect.

As a ex android user and totally new to iPhone it didn't realise the problem.

learning new things every day

Gdskcdhg wrote:

Also according to the Genius Bar, watching reels or similar things is not considered “normal” use despite the specs for the phone saying up to “23 hours of video playback” apparently not reels.

Watching video playback means watching videos that are already on your phone. It does not mean streaming data over the Internet, which requires a lot of energy just to download the video while it is streaming. You are correct that sending and receiving data over data connections uses a huge amount of energy. That isn’t a defect in the phone; it is simple physics. And the Facebook app itself also uses a large amount of energy as it continuously uploads everything you do on Facebook so Meta can sell your personal choices and interests to advertisers.

Cellular data is the largest energy hog, and it varies with signal strength. A 1 bar signal uses 10 times as much energy as a 4 bar signal. And it’s also inefficient; to send 1 watt of data requires 4 watts of energy from the battery. (just an example; the phone never sends as much as 1 watt, but sending and receiving cellular data is 25-30% efficient). Actual numbers: 4 bars, about 50 mw; 1 bar, about 600 mw, corresponding to 150 mw from the battery to 1.8 w from the battery for 1 bar. But the good news is that this energy is only used when actually sending data from the phone. Receiving uses very little energy, but when receiving your phone sends an “acknowledgement” for each packet received, so it is still sending something even when you are downloading videos or other content.

Wi-Fi doesn’t use as much as cellular, but it uses it continuously, as long as the screen is unlocked, so it can add up, and its why iOS turns off Wi-Fi when the screen locks. Actual numbers: Wi-Fi uses 30 mw continuously, corresponding to 90 mw from the battery.

The battery itself has a capacity of around 3500 milliwatt-hours for most models. Some a little more, some a little less, but that’s a good figure to go with; note that you should never drain the battery completely, so use 3000 mwh. Based on your usage you can calculate your battery life between charges.

Losing 20% overnight is in the normal range; smartphones are always doing something, such as receiving texts and email, update app content (News, weather, stocks, etc), processing notifications. However, you should be charging the phone overnight.

The absolute best way to get maximum use on a charge, as well as slow the decline of battery capacity long term is to enable Optimized Battery Charging (Settings/Battery/Battery Health) and charge the device overnight, every night. The battery will fast charge to 80%, then pause. During the nighttime pause the phone will use mains power instead of battery power, allowing the battery to “rest”, and thus reducing the need to charge the battery quite as often. The phone will resume charging to reach 100% when you are ready to use your phone; it will “learn” your usage pattern. If you enable iCloud Backup (Settings/[your name]/iCloud - iCloud Backup) the phone will back up overnight also, assuring that you can never lose more than the current day’s updates. Here's more information→About Optimized Battery Charging on your iPhone - Apple Support

honandre wrote:

There’s a lot of Apple pros on here telling consumers that there are no battery life issues. Guess what? There are. It depends on certain variables unfortunately, including where you live. I live in Chicago and Apple Store reps confirmed they’ve seen a lot of issues surrounding battery and signal drops (which I have) depending on your carrier. Mine is Verizon which ***** the battery due to esim/5G tower issues. My advisor told me he was having so many issues with the iPhone 14 pro he returned it and went back to his 12 pro. Don’t let armchair quarterbacks tell you you’re crazy. The 14 pro has something going on with it that hopefully is addressed in future software updates.

Guess what? The ONLY thing that uses energy on any smart phone is apps. So if your phone is using too much energy in your opinion figure out which app it is.

My iPhone 14 Pro with iOS 16.1 (and earlier versions of 16) has the best battery life of any phone I have ever used. Yesterday, for example, I charged the phone overnight. By the end of the day my state of charge was still 75%, in spite of using the phone heavily throughout the day. And that is typical; my phone ends up the day above 60% every day no matter what I had used it for.

The answer is to go to Settings/Battery and track which apps use the most energy. If you have Facebook that wins hands down every time.

The other heavy energy user can be 5G, so go to Settings/Cellular/Cellular Data Options and change the setting to 5G Auto and read the note under the setting.

I was having this battery drain issue overnight, where my battery would charge to 100% from 11 PM to about 2 AM, and then it would start draining to almost 80% despite still being on the charger. The battery section of Settings showed absolutely nothing was using the battery during that time.

Someone on here mentioned their wireless charger, and I realized I was using a qi MagSafe charger, not an Apple brand one though. So last night I tried charging using a different MagSafe charger and my problem went away! It charged up to 100%, still using adaptive charging, and stayed there all the way until I woke up. So if you were having us battery drain issue while using any sort of Qi charger, make sure you don’t have a defective one like me, and either use a lightning charger or a different one.