Apple Ultra Watch 9.3 update battery drain (bleeding out)

For the full procedure see below

If it still discharges after all Watch resets it suggests it could be an incompatibility in the software in the Watch and the iPhone with the latest OS releases. What I would do is

-Unpair and erase the Watch

-Backup the iphone

-Restore iphone to factory settings

-Set up the iphone as new without restoring the backup. Install only your essential email accounts, no extra software, no social media

-Pair the Watch to the iphone

-Run them both like that for 24 hours and see how long the battery lasts.

Only when that test is over can you repeat the first three actions then set up the phone but restoring the backup this time. 

If the Watch lasts longer the first time than the second time then it proved it is software on the iPhone causing it. In that case you would have to export as much data as possible such as n-sync’d photos and documents out of the phone to a place of safety such as iCloud before repeating the restore and set up as new process.

Resources: (Allow a couple of hours)

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch – Apple Support (UK)

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support 

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings - Apple Support

No battery drain on my Ultra, but then after EVERY OS update, I routinely Force Restart my devices and have never had battery drain on any of them, when others sometimes do.

Force Restart your Apple Watch and see if battery use returns to normal.

Press and hold BOTH the digital crown and elongated power buttons at the SAME TIME. Keep holding them until the screen goes dark and keep holding them until the Apple Logo appears, then let go. Sign back in when prompted.

I did something that I saw in another thread about the same problem when the 9.2 update first came out.

It's a bit annoying, but I have unpaired my watch from my phone, erased everything and paired back as a new watch.

I did once re-pairing using the backup and It didn't work for me.

Pairing as a new watch fixed something that was draining the battery. I have been using the watch all day now and it's back to normal.

"...Not sure why some are having issues and others not - but any insight on a work around would be GREATLY Apreciated! ..."

Hopefully cellular is disabled.

Usually because of the software or other assets like sync'd photos, streaming, Live or photo shuffle watch faces, leaving walkie-talkie on etc

Another reason for all these workarounds to try...

Force restart your watch i.e. press and hold both the side button and Digital Crown for at least 10 seconds, then release both buttons when you see the Apple logo. 

Then Force Restart the paired iphone   Force restart iPhone – Apple Support (UK)

Try it for a day

Then make sure to turn off background app refresh and  check walkie talkie is not accidentally turned on. 

Try it for a couple of days especially if you sync photos to your Watch.

Then if still no better you can check for damaged or self-discharging battery... 

How to check your Apple Watch battery fo… - Apple Community

If it’s OK 

Unpair the watch and then pair it again. 

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch – Apple Support (UK) 

Set up your Apple Watch – Apple Support (UK) 

 If it still discharges unpair it and pair it again without restoring the backup. 

Check that the iPhone is not using any security apps or VPN that can affect apps on the Watch. You don't need any of them and they can be incompatible with iOS16 on the phone. 

see also 

Apple Watch - Battery - Apple (UK)

Batteries - Maximising Performance - Apple (UK)

This helped another user this week. Thet just need to find out what is wrong with their iphone setup because their series 7 ran for 18 hours afterwards

If it still discharges after all Watch resets it suggests it could be an incompatibility in the software in the Watch and the iPhone with the latest OS reeases. What I would do is

-Unpair and erase the Watch

-Backup the iphone

-Restore iphone to factory settings

-Set up the iphone as new without restoring the backup. Install only your essential email accounts, no extra software, no social media

-Pair the Watch to the iphone

-Run them both like that for 24 hours and see how long the battery lasts.

Only when that test is over can you repeat the first three actions then set up the phone but restoring the backup this time. 

If the Watch lasts longer the first time than the second time then it proves the iphone has bad software installed

Resources: (Allow a couple of hours)

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch – Apple Support (UK)

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support 

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings - Apple Support

Set up your Apple Watch – Apple Support (UK)

Ok I unpaired and reset the watch, put the phone in dfu mode and restored the os (Genius Bar advice) then set up as a new phone. It’s been 19hours and it’s at 71% and I think it only started with 95 or 98 so this is COMPLETELY different. The connection to phone icon has also not flickered red like it was constantly doing before.

I do wonder if restoring from iCloud would work as it could have been an OS thing but I guess I’ll just leave it and start reinstalling apps

thanks for the help here

try as described on the top … I have to wait until end of day to see if it helps :)

Press and hold BOTH the digital crown and elongated power buttons at the SAME TIME. Keep holding them until the screen goes dark and keep holding them until the Apple Logo appears, then let go. Sign back in when prompted.

I'm having exactly the same problem.

Usually i get at least 2 full days of use with at least 2 sports session each day, with streaming working from the watch connected to my airpods.

Since the update 2 days ago, it is lasting 1 morning, or less than 12 hours.

I have contacted the support and they performed a test ... the hardware is perfect, no problem with the battery itself.

They didn't say it is related to the update, but it is pretty clear to me.

They recommended a few processes like the reset mentioned above and the battery calibration: letting the battery drain out completely to then recharge to a 100%.

I don't think this will make any difference. This is clearly a software problem coming from the new OS

A long drawn process, but this appeared to do the trick so far:

Force reset both watch and phone

Unpair/re-pair watch

Charge to 100 and use it all the way till is dies

Charge to 100 and that should do it.

I was averaging 1.7% per hour before, which is 2.5 days.

Now it's 1.2% per hour - 3+ days

I bought the watch series 7 a year ago as new. Never have done some special battery saving settings on it, and charged the battery every morning when it was around 60-50 percent.

With this new update it did not last a working day anymore, had to charge it in the morning and again around 8pm to reach the next morning.

I have now tried just about everything listed as a solution in this topic, but nothing brings me back to the previous battery life. The only thing that helps me is to put the switch 'background app refresh' to off and now the watch gets me back to the next morning. It helps and leaves me with about 20 percent battery life.

Apple brought me a real bad update.

Just thought I’d give my last report on this issue in case it helps others.

my wife had the same issue so we followed mostly the same procedure as mine:

1) unpair and reset the watch

2) erase the phone

3) put in dfu mode

4) connect to Mac and restore the phone

after this however we actually restored her iCloud backup rather than setting it up as a new phone (which I had done). Happy to report everything is fine and she now has no battery drain on her series 8.

It seems to be an OS issue. Hopefully this will help others resolve it

I forced started the watch and it worked , did it yesterday afternoon and today morning it is still at 80% after I put it on low battery mode . Pressed crown and side buttons both until watch went dark then kept pressing until log reappears . Works

After force reboot, unpair and re-pairing with iphone, the issue seems resolved!

"...So I furthered my research turns out my face watch was the issue..,"

Were you using one of the astrological faces? These are known to use data and battery on iphone lock screens.

I don't know what to tell you. There are three people in my office with Apple Watch Ultra (including me) and all watches are updated to WatchOS 9.3 and not one of us are having any battery drain issues.

I typically update the software for people in my office and immediately after updating any device, I immediately Force Restart them.

Since the Force Restart didn't help you, I'd unpair the watch from your iPhone, which will create a backup, then pair it back, which will let you restore it from your backup. Perhaps for you, something went slightly wrong during the update.