iPad battery drains after updating to 16.3.1

I found the same problem on my iPhone SE 3rd Gen. I just found my problem. Maybe it will help you. There is a new setting on my phone called “Clean Energy Charging” which is turned on by default.

Go into Settings, Battery, Battery Health & Charging. At the bottom is “Clean Energy Charging”. I turned this off and my battery stopped draining immediately. I don’t know how this setting finds clean energy to know when to charge, but maybe once it does find it the draining will stop. It’s a nice idea, but causing your battery to drain ridiculously fast seems counter productive and wasteful.

Good luck.

Hello kimnmi,

We have a great support article that might help with this. Please take a look at it here: Batteries - Maximizing Performance - Apple. Follow these tips for your iPhone and iPad:

"Update to the latest software.

Always make sure your device is using the latest version of iOS.

• If you are using iOS 5 or later, see if you need an update. Go to Settings > General > Software Update.
• If an update is available, you can plug your device into a power source and update wirelessly or plug it into your computer and update with the latest version of iTunes.

Learn more about updating iOS

Optimize your settings.

There are two simple ways you can preserve battery life — no matter how you use your device: adjust your screen brightness and use Wi‑Fi.

Dim the screen or turn on Auto-Brightness to extend battery life.

• To dim, open Control Center and drag the Brightness slider to the bottom.
• Auto-Brightness adjusts your screen to lighting conditions automatically. To activate it, go to Settings > Accessibility. Tap Display & Text Size, then turn on Auto-Brightness.

When you use your device to access data, a Wi‑Fi connection uses less power than a cellular network — so keep Wi‑Fi on at all times. To turn on Wi‑Fi, go to Settings > Wi‑Fi to access a Wi‑Fi network.

Enable Low Power Mode.

Introduced with iOS 9, Low Power Mode is an easy way to extend the battery life of your iPhone when it starts to get low. Your iPhone lets you know when your battery level goes down to 20%, and again at 10%, and lets you turn on Low Power Mode with one tap. Or you can enable it by going to Settings > Battery. Low Power Mode reduces display brightness, optimizes device performance, and minimizes system animations. Apps including Mail will not download content in the background, and features like AirDrop, iCloud sync, and Continuity will be disabled. You can still use key functions like making and receiving phone calls, email, and messages, accessing the Internet, and more. And when your phone charges up again, Low Power Mode automatically switches off.

View Battery Usage information

With iOS, you can easily manage your device’s battery life, because you can see the proportion of your battery used by each app (unless the device is charging). To view your usage, go to Settings > Battery.

Here are the messages you may see listed below the apps you’ve been using:

Background Activity. This indicates that the battery was used by the app while it was in the background — that is, while you were using another app.

• To improve battery life, you can turn off the feature that allows apps to refresh in the background. Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and select Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi & Cellular Data, or Off to turn off Background App Refresh entirely.
• If the Mail app lists Background Activity, you can choose to fetch data manually or increase the fetch interval. Go to Settings > Accounts & Passwords > Fetch New Data.

Location and Background Location. This indicates that the app is using location services.

• You can optimize your battery life by turning off Location Services for the app. Turn off in Settings > Privacy > Location Services.
• In Location Services, you can see each app listed with its permission setting. Apps that recently used location services have an indicator next to the on/off switch.

Home & Lock Screen. This indicates that the Home screen or Lock screen was displayed on your device. For example, the display was awakened by pressing the Home button or by a notification.

• If an app frequently wakes your display with notifications, you can turn off push notifications for the app in Settings > Notifications. Tap the app and set Allow Notifications to Off.

No Cell Coverage and Low Signal. This indicates either that you are in a poor cell coverage area and your iOS device is searching for a better signal or that you’ve used your device in low-signal conditions, which has affected your battery life.

• You can optimize your battery life by turning on Airplane mode. Open Control Center and tap the Airplane mode icon. Note that you cannot make or receive calls while in Airplane mode.

Plug in and power on your computer to charge your device.

Make sure your computer is plugged in and powered on when you’re using it to charge your iOS device via USB. If your device is connected to a computer that’s turned off or is in sleep or standby mode, your device’s battery may drain. Note that iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS cannot be charged with a FireWire power adapter or FireWire-based car charger."

Please also note that even though you can use the device immediately after an update, battery life and performance may be impacted temporarily as background update activities and tasks complete. That should not persist past 72 hours.

We hope this helps. Let us know if we can assist with anything else at all. Take care.

After trying many ways, turning off everything relating to Siri works for me and I didn’t see battery drained quickly anymore.

You don’t say if the battery is original or replaced?

My suggestion would be the same as before - escalate the issue to the Apple support desk as it goes beyond the simple case of excessive battery drain.

I’m speculating here but if the battery is original it could be in need of replacement. Batteries sometimes can maintain a terminal voltage but then be unable to deliver any current draw. This type of fault could explain what you are experiencing.

The way iOS reports the state of charge of a battery seems suspect anyway.

Maybe wait a few days. I was told the problem happens at first and then goes away. That happened to me on the upgrade to 16.6.1. After a few days, it settled in, and the battery is now running fine. Of course, I don't yet know what will happen when I go up to 17.

Hi Greybeard,

My problem is basically sorted now. I took I-Pad Pro back to Omni and they put another replacement battery in my device. Perhaps the 2nd replacement wasn’t sitting on the shelf too long, who knows. Tested it by running only You-Tube app videos. Well over 8 hours on varying videos.

Wow !!!

When I use Google chrome screen and search for news items and say Twitter on Google, it does suck a lot of power, but really it’s a big win overall. This will get me thru to mid 2024 when I’ll buy the OLED screen Pads.

Thanks for all your help and help to others on the forum.

Cheers Ak, NZ.

Same! My iPad Pro 12.9 (4th gen) went from only having to charge every other day if that, to battery drains completely in a day with 0 use. Have done several resets and restores with no change. Talked with 3 Apple reps over the phone and even went to the Apple Store and no one can figure it out. They tell me my battery health life is 96% with only about 170 charge cycles that’s been completed, yet it won’t hold charge. Even created a new Apple ID after one of the factory resets and the only apps on it now are the basic ones Apple puts on them new. Tried low power mode, turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off, no background app refresh, or shared data, still the battery just ticks on down. Absolutely no problem at all with it until the last update to 16.3.1. But the Apple reps are telling me it must be a hardware issue that they cannot detect and I would have to have it sent off for further inspection/repair at a cost of $700 to ship it to them. Of course warranty and Apple Care have both expired and I told them that was not an option when I know the thing worked just fine before the update, literally started same day after updating. So then was told to just wait for the next update and hopefully that would resolve the issue.🙄

Go into Settings, Battery, Battery Health & Charging. At the bottom is “Clean Energy Charging”. Turn this off.

I contacted Apple who ran a diagnostic on my 5th generation and apparently I’m only getting 20% battery usage. Aaaaand . . . there’s nothing they can do to correct the battery drain problem caused by the iOS 13.6.1 installation. I ordered a new battery 4 weeks ago and it still hasn’t come in. Best Buy’s s Geek Squad said they could probably fix it if they could get the parts but it’d be cheaper to buy a new iPad. So I bought a Samsung.

I am now on 17.0.3 on my iPad Pro, two updates within a couple weeks, and battery is performing better. Not the significant drain within a few hours as before. Haven’t calculated time drain as yet, but noticeably different as not having to recharge so often. Still noting it takes a long time to recharge especially if down to less than 20%.

Do you have the “Clean Energy Charging” option on your iPad as described in my previous post? If you do turn it off.

This issue started overnight with the recent iOS update, so battery maintenance and running in low power mode—which I’ve been doing since it became available years ago—isn’t the solution.

Again: this started IMMEDIATELY after the iOS update…like when Bluetooth turns on automagically without use and kills your device in an hour because its looking for a device constantly.

Didn’t Apple get sued over issues like this not too long ago?!

Mines exactly the same. Updated firmware and overnight my battery (iPhone 14 pro max) has been destroyed.

phone now dies by afternoon everyday, it was perfect before this update… really annoying, what is going on?!

This issue is persisting now past a couple weeks since upgrade.

Before 16.3.1 I only took my battery charger if I knew I was going to be away for an extended period of time, now I don’t leave home without it.

Even in battery save mode I’m still dropping about 15-20% per hour.