Battery charge plunges after watchOS 9.5

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!

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

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.

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

Paul Sitahal wrote:

Apparently LD150 you don’t seem to have a problem with battery drainage after the update or updates, but many do including myself and I believe that G10Bud is reacting under utter frustration that Apple have not addressed this Discussion forum to date about this immense problem that is affecting many. So be gentle!

Come back when you have tried every line of this.

Apple Watch uses a LOT of battery - Apple Community

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

It’s the software for sure. If anyone has to disable all the Applewatch features to get half the promised battery life…”I don’t think so”.

it’s a software bug. We should all escalate it to apple.

This is not the best in class Apple design.

Never settle.

Earlier today I tweeted to @Applesupport, but no response. I guess they have realised it's a software glitch and hopefully they are working on a fix.

Within 60 minutes of a workout, the battery % drops by 24-25%!!!

And I also checked, this Apple watch 7 was purchased by me last May 2022 and within 12 months the battery health has reduced to 93%

I’ve been following this post for a week now and I appreciate all that you have posted to try and help people. It appears to have worked for some, but I have tried everything you have posted multiple times and my watch is still not holding a charge. It is 100% a software issue and Apple needs to fix it ASAP. Bottom line: I had a fully functioning watch that held a charge for 24+ hrs with normal use, then I performed the update and now I’m lucky to get 6-8 hrs on a full charge. Please keep posting anything you guys find and hopefully Apple will put out a fix!

Ditto, Dubie. The update is the only thing that has changed since my watch battery became a 1/2 day battery. I have an old watch, but I just paid Apple $80 to replace the battery a few months ago.

Let's get this fixed!

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!

Thanks, great point. I guess based on all the posts I’ve seen that they have to already know, but the more squeaky wheels there are the better. I will submit something to Apple feedback immediately and would encourage everyone else that is reading this and having similar problems do the same! I’ll eventually reach out to customer service or go into a store, but here’s to hoping they just fix it quickly with another update.

I updated watch today and it doesn’t appear to have helped mine at all. I have an Apple Watch 4 with battery still at 88% health, have tried all the fixes and still draining like crazy compared to a week ago where it would last 18 hours, including a 45 minute workout. Maybe it’s a phone update that is needed?

Hi Folks, I’ve had my Apple Watch Ultra for 1 week. I’m a stats kind of guy. My battery usage was phenomenal. 10% charge equaled 6 hours. I was getting 36 hours with 40% charge remaining. Today I updated to 9.5.1. Now 20% equals 6 hours. So, I’ve lost half my regular usage after update. Also today was a lighter than normal usage day for me. Tried hard restart on both devices and the other suggestions. Haven’t done the unpair and wipe yet and I won’t be impressed if I have to regularly do that after updates.

Just sharing. Wish everyone the best with this.