Battery charge plunges after watchOS 9.5

newuser64 wrote:

I did restart it and it hasn't helped. Is this Apple trying to get us to upgrade?

Hardly. The vast majority of Apple Watch users are having no battery life issues at all. I'd recommend unpairing your watch from your iPhone and setting it up as a new watch (not from backup) and don't load any 3rd party apps on your watch and see how battery life is. Apps like Spotify, for example have been shown to eat up battery, even when they're not being used.

Hi Guys, I did the update on My wife’s watch 4 to 9.5.1 and it was working until ot actally stopped working and only had the logo on and off! I set up a Genius var to Saturday vut was able to reset the watch to factory! Then created a new profile without using the back up! It seems the release corrupted the software! It seems to be working so we will test for the next 2 days before the Genius bar appointment! Just as a note I have a 4 series as well and nothing happened other than battery getting lower 10% than usual at end of the day! I still think the release caused it as many people are impacted!

Since you are responding to the OP, have you updated to WatchOS 9.5.1, which was released 2 days ago? If no, update your watch, then restart your watch, wait a couple days for the data to reindex and I'm betting you'll likely be happier.

newuser64 wrote:

I did restart it and it hasn't helped. Is this Apple trying to get us to upgrade?

Apple would not trash battery life on an almost new device as a route to replacement. It would look seriously bad that a watch around 12 months old was having battery problems, and that is not the image they want in the world.

Your Me-Too comment with no indication of battery life or charge state gives us very little information to help you. However, as a guide I updated my AW7 about 10 days ago, and for the first 4-5 days battery life was much reduced. I think the first few days poor charge life is probably a lot of extra processor load internally while it rebuilds and optimizes in the background. In the last few days my watch has improved (a lot) and now it is about the best I have ever seen, but it needed almost a week before it started to recover..

The points I would check for your watch are probably obvious but I will list anyway because they will act as a checklist for you and others reading. Start by enabling screenshots in your settings because this makes it easy to keep a record or get screens to post here as evidence.

• On your Apple Watch go into Settings/Battery. Look at the graph, and it probably shows the last charging time and capacity. (Make a note or grab a screenshot).
• Scroll down slightly in the Battery screen and you might see Optimized Charging. If it is ON (green toggle) turn it off (dark) and test like that for a few days.
• Scroll down again and check the displayed value (%) for Battery Health.

Ideally the charged capacity in the first check should be 100%. If it is about 80% you probably had Optimized Charging enabled, or it was Operator Error and you pulled it off charging before it was ready.

Optimized Charging will stop the charge at 80% which is great for extending the overall lifespan of the battery but not so good if you are having problems keeping the battery charged.

For your almost new Apple Watch SE the Battery Health number should still be above 90% and probably more like 95%. Apple considers the battery is at end of life and should be replaced when this falls below 80%.

Don't be too worried about battery numbers on a single observation. Go for several days to get the overall picture and trends, but remember watch battery life can change a lot from day to day. Sometimes it seems you will get 2-3 days of life from one charger, then the next day it might be struggling to make 12 hours.

Finally, take a look at the main troubleshooting guide, Apple Watch uses a LOT of battery - Apple Community

My wife’s watch iwatch 4 is not holding a full day after the 9.5 update! I’ve unpaired and paired as a new watch and it ia bow holding for 7 hours and not 1 hour like before! I also removed the background app refresh! Apple just released 9.5.1! I am downloading and will test it after that!

Hello! Multiple factors could be affecting your Apple Watch's battery life, such as Bluetooth and how active you are. Read the 'Tips for Apple Watch' section in this article to find out how to preserve your watch's battery throughout the day: Batteries - Maximizing Performance - Apple.

As you mentioned, depending on when you bought your Apple Watch, its battery could be ageing. This makes the battery less capable of holding a charge. You can check your watch's battery health by following these steps:

1. On your watch, open Settings.
2. Tap Battery  > Battery Health.

If the maximum capacity is less than 80%, it's recommended that you get the battery replaced: https://getsupport.apple.com

Take care!

rachaelm30 wrote:

I have series 8. Ive updated to 9.5.2. I’ve unpaired and re-paired my watch several times. I’ve force restarted my iPhone and unpaired then re-paired the watch. Still no luck on my battery life. It’s still plunging and dead within 8 hours. My battery health is at 100%. I’m at a loss of what to do next. Apple support won’t help since battery life is at 100%. Is it possible there’s an app on my watch or phone that may be draining the battery??

A rogue app is possible but unlikely. I have a few suggestions,

. Check you have not enabled Optimized Charging and the charge gets stopped at 80%

. If you are using Always-On display, turn it off to save power while you troubleshoot. There have been a few reports that the display backlight has been failing to dim and soaking loads of power. (Seems unlikely after your reset and restarts).

. Take a look at Apple Watch uses a LOT of battery - Apple Community

Today, Apple released Watch O.S. 9.5.1 I am convinced part of the "fix" is in this Watch O. S. Update.

Can confirm that the reboot fixed it. This issue didn't start to affect me until about a week ago, so perhaps when 9.5.2 landed? Anyway, a reboot of my Watch 5 seems to have fixed the problem.

My son has a series 4 with no battery issues prior to this 9.5 update and I have a series 8 and experiencing the very same drain, so the watch has nothing to do with the issue, it’s strictly a software issue that needs to be resolved

I turned my watch off and on again. Now it's fine. Went down from 69% to 54% in 9 hours.

Thanks LD150, solved the issue. I choose to reboot both the watch and iphone. Clear instructions

Same here, v9.5 drains the battery quickly. AppleWatch 7.

Before update I could reach almost 2 days, now at the and of the day is has only a few % left.

I do not use any of the health monitoring and tracking apps so the problem must be elsewhere.

Work through these which contains an overnight test for "battery shot"

Apple Watch uses a LOT of battery - Apple Community