watchOS 9 battery drain

@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.

Since I posted this a week ago, I followed others' troubleshooting guidance and turned off the wifi (I have a wifi+cellular Series 4). That seems to have done the trick.

For more detail, I also had deleted a few apps that I wasn't using in case one of them was driving the drain, and I turned off cellular data for all but a handful of the apps. For the first time in over a month, I was able to use my watch all day again, where during the glitch period beginning with the release of 9.2, the battery would be dead within about 4 hours.

Since then, I've turned cellular data back on for most and continue to get a full day's use out of the watch and features. It's now been on my wrist for 16 hours and I'm at a 48% charge. Tomorrow, I'll turn the wifi back on and report my results at the end of the day.

My watch is still doing it. I finished a 10 mile run and my watch immediately died as soon as I stopped the workout despite having battery left (not sure how much was left, it died before I could see). I put it on the charger and it immediately showed 50% on the charging status.

Notably, I forgot to shut off cellular which I have been doing as my workaround. So I guess I’ll keep turning off cellular on my runs. Kind of defeats the purpose of a watch with a cellular plan though…

I think I've finally found a solution that seems to work (at least in my case). Prior to taking the steps below, my watch would need to be charged at least twice a day.

After trying 3 different watches, setting the watch up from scratch multiple times. resetting the network settings on my iPhone, trying low power mode etc., I finally took the drastic step of completely erasing the phone and setting it up as new (did not restore from backup). So far (it's day 3), my watch has had about 65% battery at the end of the day (off charger around 5:30 AM, on charger 9:30 PM). I have an iPhone SE (2020) and AppleWatch Series 8 (non-cellular). I had the same issue with my AppleWatch Series 4 after upgrading to WatchOS 9 (that watch was traded in - which I feel silly about now).

I took screenshots of my iPhone setup before I wiped it. That made the process somewhat easier but I still missed some items/settings and am tweaking them as I find out. My phone was enrolled in my work device management but given the size of the organization (thousands of employees), if this was caused by the MDM software, there would have been other complaints. However, when I reset the phone, I did not re-enroll it, so I am not sure if that had any impact.

The one issue that I still seem to have is that the watch will sometimes not reconnect to my wifi network. I have disabled private network on both my watch and my phone but it has happened after that a couple of times. It also seems to happen if I leave and am out of range from my wifi network - the watch will sometimes not reconnect when I return and I have to connect it manually. I have now been checking if the watch is connected to wifi first thing in the morning, when I come back home or when the watch fails to unlock my Mac (get a message wifi signal too weak).

After 3 different watches, many trips to the Apple Store and multiple phone calls with Apple Support (escalated to 3 levels up), I was ready to give up on the watch. Jury is still out, but hopefully, this may have solved the issue. Hope this helps someone.

Same issue since upgrading to Watch OS 9.1 (and iPhone to 16.4.1). With similar use, starting the day at 100%, I get 20% or less at the end of the day instead of over 50% previously. Battery health is 80%, but it was also 80% a few days ago.

I also had to switch to developer mode to be able to download from Xcode. Could it be a cause of problem ?

I switch to low consumption mode and will see what happens tomorrow… So something has changed.

Hi all,

I have almost the same experience. While I was on 8.x soft. AW7 lasts for 1 1/2 after which I have to charge them again. This was like magic. With new soft 9.x i see that battery life time goes down. 4-5% per hour :( tried to reset AW7 several times .. but still no luck :(

I find out that if I turn off localization services battery life will be back 1 1/2 day. but this will turn off localization on Iphone as well and no weather widge avaliable.

Another finding is that if I turn off Wi-Fi and just use the 5G lifetime keeps 1 1/2 .. or drain is not so dramaticall as while on wifi.

All services I have turned of on my AW7

As much I liked AW7 with such short battery lifetime I start to hate :(

J.

I experienced something similar with My Watch 5 (OS 9.1 I think). Health state: 81%.

I used to end the day at 50%, then suddenly after OS 9.4 upgrade, It ended at 20%.

I tried Economy mode, it improved slightly (ended 35-40%).

I turned off developer mode, no change.

And then, after a few days, situation has returned to normal by itself.

Was the watch busy for a few days after upgrade for some background tasks ?

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

My typical day… so sad. It WAS an amazing watch… FIX IT APPLE

No calls and 4 texts sent wake on wrist raise ON, always on display OFF, brightness 50%

Check your battery's health and it's maximum capacity,if this number is at 80% or near then it is recommended to replace the battery.

Looks like it's time for a new battery.

I'm experiencing the same issue, my Apple Watch 7 drains much faster after the upgrade to watchOS 9.0. Same with my iPhone after upgrading to ios 16. This seems to be a widespread issue.

I'm seeing this too, Watch 7 with battery health at 96%

Guess we wait for a fix...

Battery health is fine APPLE just needs to fix their update to not drain the battery needlessly