Apple Watch battery drain after Update

Some things that I have noticed after experiencing the battery drain on my Apple Watch Ultra:

1.Because of the battery optimization feature where the battery doesn’t charge fully beyond 82%, unless you tap the charging ring when charging to select “charge fully” (or whatever the verbiage is) - if I only allow the watch to charge to the 82% my battery drains amazingly quick. Barely 12 hours from the watch.

This happens even with the Optimized Charge Limit turned off

my battery health maximum capacity is still at 100%

2.If I force the watch to charge to 100%, I can get a full day and a half before it drops below 80%

even after a full charge, once the battery drops below 80% it goes quickly as experienced when using battery optimization.

I’m not sure what this means for those of us experiencing battery drains. But I thought I’d post my observations out here.

Go back to putting it on charge all night every night, the battery will thank you for its extra longevity.

All the time it is running down while you sleep is wasted discharge, and ageing depends on full recharge cycles.

My series 8 is doing the same thing since the latest update. I change before bed, wear for sleep monitoring., workout before work, charge while showering and wear it to work all day where it is connected to my work wifi and then come home and charge before bed again. Since the update I am charging it 3 times a day. If I wear it to bed now, it is down to 35 or 40% when I get up 8 hours later. I can't wear it to workout then because it will die in the middle of my run. I change it as soon as I am done my workout, until I leave for work and it is at 92-95% when I go to work at 7:30 am. It dies by around 3 pm. I do get notifications for text messages while I am at work and also weather but that is it. I have unpaired and repaired to my watch and also chatted with apple support who told me there was nothing wrong with the battery. Before the latest update it would be at 95 or 96% in the morning and it still had a charge before I went to bed. I would charge it to 100% before bed, but now it dies before dinner time. I have not changed my sleep monitoring or my workouts. I have disabled most notifications and app refresh too. I have stopped wearing it to bed so that it is charged for my early morning workout. If I can't use it for what I need, why have it? If apple can't fix it soon, I am considering another watch. Might try Garmin......

I had that on before the update to 10. So the battery drain seems to be something else. I fixed the update before by powering off my phone. And turning it back on. Then powering off the watch and leaving the watch off for 24 hours.

Just try this first

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

then take it to a Genius Bar

I agree with LD150. You need to schedule an appointment at your Apple Store Genius Bar for evaluation and options. There is clearly something going on with your watch.

That two speed drain should show up on the battery graph if you want to post a screenshot.

Settings, battery, battery health then turn off optimized charging.

Then

Apple Watch uses a LOT of battery - Apple Community

This update is hammering my usability as a watch, which now only lasts 8 hours on a full charge, as opposed to the 24 hours I am used to.

Apple, take responsibility here, and suggest a fix - an update or provide some guidance.

I have restarted it - no change.

As a Series 1, 4 and now 7 watch user, this update is impactful

Yes several times i tried restart, since i updated a day ago. Still no change. This only started happening right after this annoying update, everything was working fine prior.

from having to charge once day to having to charge 2-3 times to day, has rendered the watch pretty much a liability to use.

I have an Apple Watch Series 6 GPS and cellular (A2294). Started having battery issues with 9.5.1. I could make it through the day (worn 20 hours from 10p to 6p) but the battery would be under 10% when it would hit the charger. With 9.5.2 I started running out of battery power much more quickly, as well as having the watch reboot unexpectedly during the day. This morning I went on a 50 minute walk as I do daily, listening to podcasts as I walked. The watch crashed and rebooted about 20 minutes into the walk. When it was booted up the battery power was below 10%. The circumstances lead me to think that there is something in the recent Watch OS releases that is causing problems. I haven't tried the unpairing/repairing rebooting solution yet. Is that the official fix? Is a software solution coming? Could this be related to issues with Podcast software? I have had issues with Podcast that predate my battery drain issues. I have no problems with downloaded podcasts but anything that relies on cellular is an issue. Any thoughts?

yes , since the update there is a problem for sure

my wife's watch and my sons watch are all experiencing the same thing.

One of my posts was removed, not sure why. But apparently there are very strict rules here on what we are allowed to say.

I believe there is a software problem, and I hope apple will address it

I have been wearing my watch for 1hour this morning and already down to 83% battery.

this only started happening as of the recent software update.

I agree. I was born in the 1950's and I'm not going back to banging steel studs in my boots and radios with 90volt zinc carbon batteries that ran for 5 hours then were thrown away. Cars in my country did 15 to the gallon and lasted 7 years then rusted through, TV's lasted 3 years then the CRT went.

My wifes iphone 7 and ipad mini 4 are both 5 years old with original batteries.

I use my 3 yr old iphone all day on this forum and my watch has 50% battery left at bed time. Watch battery health is 96% after 10 months, phone still 87% battery health.

Plenty of things to try above to reduce battery usage.

leda1298 if your phone battery seems to run down quickly or the phone runs hot this user tip contains a number of ideas ...

The last update killed my battery! - Apple Community

and for Watch...

Apple Watch uses a LOT of battery - Apple Community

Not entirely sure if my problem is related. I suddenly had a massive drain issue. I have a Series 4 and it's almost 5 years old. I noticed the usual drop in battery life but now it's dropping about 20% per hour. I go to the gym for 1.5 hours and it used 40%+. I tried setting it to low power mode today and it still only lasted 10 hours.

The thing is, I didn't update the phone to the new update, iOS 10, until I was having this problem a couple of days ago. I've tried the unpair and re-pair and restarting the watch and phone with no success. Battery health is 74% which I understand is bad, but as I said I struggled to finish a day but suddenly as of a few days ago it won't even last half a day.

You are basically telling people to completely set up their devices as new, which is a MASSIVE undertaking for an issue that is not their fault. People have set up their phones with years of customization and data and your solution is to erase all of that in order to “fix” their mistake. Thats unfair and is a massive step to try and solve something that is on apple’s end. Something that very clearly came to light once the current software released to the general public and not only impacted older Apple Watches, but the newest Ultra 2.

so to have people literally raze their devices when they’ve told you that their battery health is perfect and they're not running an “old device”, a factor you disregarded multiple times, is something you have not acknowledged.

as for my deleted post, should you even be mentioning that, then? I was trying to offer a suggestion as a fix. I did not go into any detail about anything, only to offer a solution to people that were desperate and did not want to ruin their battery health unnecessarily. Because at the end of the day, this kind of drain would seriously impact and and damage their battery life in perpetuity.

Apple would not, and has not in the past, provided compensation in situations like this. So people are destroying their battery health by simply using their devices. I wanted to offer a potential solution.

and again, you have continued to not even acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, there’s an issue in the code. You’re continuing to skirt the issue of the countless reports of people once the 10.1 software went live that hey, what’s going on with my battery usage?

your only argument is “did you wipe years of setup on your phone?”

when, as I’ve seen, when others did that and reported back their answer was “it didn’t help”

i don’t think it’s helpful to go back to day 1 when it’s now shown very clearly that the problem is not on their end. I think that is a bridge too far.