Is anyone else experiencing battery drain from the recent update? I have a new watch and this recent update, in under an hour (53 minutes to be exact), had my battery go from 55% to 39%.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Apple Watch SE
EBeth0001 wrote:
I did charge it to 100%. It’s been 16 minutes and it’s at 82%. I’ll let it drain to 50% and then power it down until I decide what to do with it.
My advice is to keep using the watch if possible. Put it back on the charger if necessary, but keep its alive and let it sort out its post-update tasks instead of shutting down and having to start over, and over, and over...
You won't do any real harm to the battery by leaving it on the charger for a day or so. The charging system on Apple Watch is intelligent, and it will just stop the charge to prevent over charging, and continue to use the charger power to run the watch.
I and many other users have noticed that battery usage is often much heavier than normal for a few days after a software update. We believe this is because the internal storage gets reindexed after the update is installed, and there is probably a lot of processor work to do this and clear all the remains of the previous version. Usually this clears after a few days and everything is back to normal. However, you need to let the software do its job and not keep making it go back to the start line by shutting down.
Saem for me! My series 4 batteries are draining at least 40% faster and can’t hold for the whole day of use as used to before this last update. Terrible!!!
same here
I spoke too soon. My watch was fully charged at 6:30 this morning and now it’s at 36%. So frustrating.
15.5.1(c) is an iPhone software update. I would not expect that to change the battery performance for your watch. I expect a Watch update soon and I expect that to have a substantial change on watch battery life for everyone.
Watch face??? Did I “miss a meeting” somewhere?
Especially with the power usage pattern of only turning the watch on for a few hours between full charges, having the battery indicator do wonky things doesn’t surprise me. Lithium ion polymer batteries have quirks that are based on the physics of the underlying technology.
The next rabbit I’d pull from my bag of tricks would be to power cycle the watch from 100% charge down to automatic shutdown at least three times. Charge it completely, run it down to no charge, rinse and repeat at least two more times.
The first power cycle ought to be quite short, only a few hours based on your experience. The second power cycle may not be much longer or different. If my hunch is right, the third cycle ought to allow much improved battery life.
If the battery life improves, it still won’t be as good as it will get. More full power cycles will stretch the battery life a bit longer, just like regular exercise helps improve your physical performance. If the power cycle doesn’t improve the battery life, that will give us a nudge towards a different approach.
YetAnotherSQL wrote:
The next rabbit I’d pull from my bag of tricks would be to power cycle the watch from 100% charge down to automatic shutdown at least three times. Charge it completely, run it down to no charge, rinse and repeat at least two more times.
This is potentially damaging advice. Deep discharge of Lithium rechargeable batteries is not recommended by any of the major manufacturers. It used to be valid about 30 years ago when we all used NiCd, but never for Lithium.
Worst case, if you manage to discharge to 0% (zero) the battery might go into a safety lock-out and refuse to recharge. At that point the battery is useless and can never be charged again.
The recommended approach for Lithium batteries is to try and maintain them in the range between 20-80% charged, and my preference is to plan for recharge at 30%, which leaves me another 10% reserve for unexpected emergency use. Try to avoid going below 10% unless it is an emergency.
Re: Watch face. I thought the battery is not replaceable and that they replace the watch face as one unit. Caveat: My SME in Apple Watch repair is strictly from Google so that’s not worth much. :-)
I will take your advice on fully charging and then letting the battery drain to 0% a few time and will capture the metrics.
Yea. I’m bummed the new update didn’t resolve this edge case but thought it was worth a try.
Hey everyone,
is this regarding 20T571 update?
Battery drain on my Apple Watch after watchOS 9.5.2 update
