watchOS 9 battery drain

I’m also getting serious battery drain during workouts since the upgrade to 9.1. Today my battery went from 77% at the beginning of a run to dead within 10 minutes. Last week I could’ve run a half-marathon on that charge.

My battery health is at 81%. This is not a battery issue.

What if all this draining is actually a designed battery calibration process?

It was reported during the WatchOS 9 beta that it will calibrate the battery. We have seen the battery health % change during this issue.

So are we actually seeing a number of battery test cycles which during normal use drains the battery fast? And if you are tracking and listening to music, it will mess the remaining battery % and shut down the watch.

For me, things got back to normal after unpair / re-pair with battery health changing from 88% to 86%. But maybe it was just that the recalibration process was done.

Just a theory :)

@AScottGoodwin - the other thing I have seen is that periodically restarting the watch seems to make the wifi selection "stick" for a longer time. My watch does not have the cellular option, so I just keep an eye on the wifi connection and if I see it drop a couple of time (after reconnecting manually), I restart the watch and reselect the common SSID.

Make sure you leave direct feedback to Apple to get a fix and give them more information to work on this issue:

Feedback - Watch - Apple

No, this is a watchOS 9 issue. With the same battery health I was getting 50% battery before going to bed and I was usually doing at least workout / walk a day. Now even without working out the watch is draining the battery so fast that I have to recharge it twice a day. Something is not working here :)

I use the same setup. Series 5, workoutdoors. I just got back from my first run after factory resetting the watch. It started at 67% and was dead by the end of the second mile. Just like before the factory reset. I also changed the face to chronograph pro as mentioned above.

I will try again tomorrow with cellular turned off and not listening to music via bluetooth. And I’ll use the native fitness app instead of workoutdoors. Hopefully I’ll find something that works and will post updates.

Of course these are all just workarounds. Apple is obligated to fix this to retain me as a customer. I was so close to buying an Ultra, but now I find myself checking out Black Friday deals on Garmin Fenixes.

I had a fully functioning watch 2 weeks ago. Then Apple forced an update and now it’s useless. This feels like theft.

I finally got in touch with an escalation engineer regarding the issue. Their development team is aware of the issue and it’s actively being investigated. Despite others writing to the contrary, there is no troubleshooting solution. I tried the various suggestions just to humor them, but of course, they did not resolve the issue.  

[Edited by Moderator]

After leaving it dead the last few weeks, I charged and updated to 9.3 last night, unpaired and re-paired this AM, treating as a new watch.

womp womp.

The same net effect - dropped from 100 to 93% in the first half-hour of usage. At 37% by mid-morning and shut off wi-fi based on some of the notes here that make it seem as though the watch is burning battery trying to connect/reconnect to wifi networks. By 2-3PM, it was dead. I'm not giving up hope, but gradually accepting I may live without a watch again until I find a better alternative; not necessarily Apple, since I'm disappointed by their lack of support here.

Dude, you aren’t ”listening “. This is happening immediately after updating to WatchOS 9.2. There is a serious issue with that update. Has nothing to do with the health of the battery.

Hi Guys,

I'm facing similar drainage issues recently.... I have a iWatch 6 with a battery healt of 99% . Yesterday nightI fully charged it .. i set it to sleep mode and the battery DRAINED IN 8 hrs!! the OS 9.0 was updated when it was reliased .. this battery issue just appreared out of the blue. FYI - I have NOT installed any new app since.

I'm looking for your advice/help.

Appreciate it, Thanks, Tamas

This is terrible, is happening to me since last week, out of the blue and without any change on my watch (the only change was the new OS).

I have tried everything: unpairing, pairing, setting up as new... nothing have worked so far.

I'm very disappointed.

3rd watch was good for 3 days and now the issue is BACK AGAIN!.. Every trick and things to shut off are turned off and this piece of junk still loses 10-15% per HOUR. Doesnt matter if bluetooth is on/off on my phone. Repairing seems to fix for a few days. Apple support just told me to put in a lower power mode. LOL I didnt buy an $800 watch to put in low power mode after I just charged it.

I have tried every workaround I could think of, as well as every workaround Apple told me to do. After trying all the problem-solving on my own, and with Apple on the phone, the watch went into Apple for repair, and they don’t know what the problem is. The battery drain was documented at the Apple store with a diagnostic they ran. They are sending me back a defective watch that drains within a few hours. It’s an SE, so the always on is not even an issue. I called Apple and asked to speak to a manager. I requested that my watch be replaced because they didn’t fix it. He said they don’t replace a watch unless it is a hardware issue. So, they sell you a watch with a warranty that only works for the hardware. It seems like they should be responsible for the software you have to install to use the watch as well. It was an absolutely insane comment. I will be going down to pick up my watch at the Apple store today or tomorrow and will talk to a manager there. As it stands, I have a $250 piece of junk that I’ve owned for six months. Perhaps someone in the store will replace it, but I’m not very helpful. I have filed a Better Business Bureau complaint.

[Edited by Moderator]

Well my watch is off charge for just over 9hrs, set to Always On, and on the Utility face, and it’s at 72% still??

it seems the issue has resolved itself, and the only thing I can think of that I did different was that I used the watch with ‘Always On’ off for a day, and then turned it back on. Which doesn’t make any sense to me, but that’s the result.

if the issue comes back, I’ll update here, but for now anyway, it seems fixed for me

@pacf1952 - I changed from Infograph to Chronograph Pro. Made no difference - 100% at 4:00 PM, dead by 9:00 PM. I've turned off all non-Apple apps, have set it up as new multiple times - nothing seems to work. Hopefully, someone at Apple is looking at this. I am ****** that I bought a new Series 8 because my older Series 4 was draining (after WatchOS 9) and Apple repair returned it twice saying that there was nothing wrong😡