WatchOS 10 battery life

The battery life on my Apple Watch since upgrading to WatchOS 10 is horrendous. I’ve had my series 7 watch for about 17 months now. Prior to WatchOS 10, I could take my watch off the charger in the morning and still have 1/4 charge when heading to bed around 12 - 1 am.

I’ve done everything I can think of to improve battery life since upgrading to WatchOS10:

1) Power-cycled my watch (after the update) when I realized the battery life had decreased by approx 50%.

2) Regularly close apps not in use. (Double click the Digital Crown).

3) Reduce the number of apps that run/update in the background.

Still, I can’t get 5 hours without needing to charge my watch.

This needs addressed immediately.

My experience is roughly 10% battery usage per hour since watchOS 10, so I'm afraid you may have gotten a new watch but not a solved problem. And the very fact that Apple was willing to give you one strongly suggests that they don't yet understand the problem is with watchOS 10.

I wonder, has anyone tried resetting the watch to factory and reconnecting to your phone?

Within 20 minutes of pulling it off the charger, it had dropped 10%, and it kept dropping rapidly. I took it off the charger about 6:30 am and by 1 pm it was completely dead. I had it in low power and airplane mode. My problem started with the update just before 10, and it's gotten worse with 10.

FYI, this tip doesn't help at all, at least not for me. I switched to a watch face with only two complications, and no weather functions at all, and my battery usage now is even worse than it was before. In around 8 hours I am down to 40%. Since this is the level I used to see after 15-16 hours, I estimate that the watch is using roughly twice as much power now as it did before watchOS 10. So this the source of the problem, clearly. If anyone has spoken to Apple about this and had any answers from them, I would grateful if you could pass along what you've heard.

Yes, I really hope they fix this soon. I have background app refresh off and this is unexpected. I’ve started looking into other smart watches after I bought this one, bc some need to be charged every other day, I can live with having to charge Apple Watch every day (up to 24-36 hours) but to have to charge it 2-3x in a day to ensure it won’t run out of I have a longer day is really a bother

Yes, mine too… I updated my watchos 10 yesterday (September 18, 2023) and my watch battery drains in 2 to 3 hours. I charged it 100% again at 4pm and by 7pm it was 33% and that’s almost doing nothing most of the time. Before WatchOS 10 it use to be so normal and I had charge almost whole day.

It’s been 5 days since I updated on my Apple Watch 7, and battery life is still dismal. The watch was both rebooted and unpaired/repaired yesterday when I got my iPhone 15. No change on watch battery life.

shannonfromchambersburg wrote:

My watch was at 28% then all of the sudden if was at 10% then it dies. I’ve also noticed when it does die that you can send text messages it come up message failed

Your battery is faulty.

Try this

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

Aussiekraut wrote:

Why is Apple making us all jump through hoops, if the issue is clearly caused by a software update?

Apple, please fix the mess yourself.

Apple is not reading here in this user-to-user forum for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Dupre47 wrote:

I can literally watch the battery life go down as I’m watching it. Please, Apple, fix this asap!!!!!! I update my watch and all Apple devices immediately trusting things won’t go bad but 10.0.1 watch update is terrible for battery life!

You should be on 10.0.2 by now

This update includes bug fixes and important security updates for your Apple Watch.

For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website: Apple security releases - Apple Support

Same with my iwatch6

perfect before OS10 now the battery lasts 2 hours

• have tried unpairing twice
• have tried rebooting the watch
• been on to Apple support
• they ran a full diagnostic
• battery 86% health no faults with watch

i know it’s os10 as that is the only variant

No such luck… did a full reset too, got it charged up to 28%, in 45 minutes it’s down to 11%, and drops a percent every time I check it.

My battery got worse as well from two days to barely a day, and now I have to even use battery saving mode to last through the day uninstall all the apps and turn off background app refresh.

I don’t really want to use the product if I constantly have to think about its battery life, And not his usefulness. Voice to text recognition got much better, but nothing else practically for me. Kind of disappointing and discouraging to see that happen to a battery life.

SydSyd wrote:

A lot

of people who updated has this problem

And a lot of people, probably most, don't have this problem. That doesn't make your problem less real. But it may mean that you're wrong about the cause.

mmp1964a wrote:

How do you know that? My watch was fine until this update. It has nothing to do with a faulty battery.

I was NOT advising YOU.

Step changes in charge suggest a serious battery fault. Did you do the test I advocated?