Since updating to WatchOS 10.0.1, the watch battery charges only to 80% overnight and the battery drains more quickly than before the update. I also updated my iPhone 14 pro to iOS 17 around the same time. Would this impact the watch battery?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
As many here I was affected by the constant battery drain of approx. 5% per hour and I think I found what was causing this for me.
When I checked the Watch App on my phone ==> General ==> About it showed that it synced 15 photos even though I have not selected any photos or albums to sync.
Opening the photos app on the watch confirmed that and showed that there are no photos on the watch.
I then selected an album with one picture to sync and the photo count went up to 16. Next I created a photo watch face and set it to dynamic and suddenly the watch showed random pictures that I never selected to sync. I searched for these photos on my iPhone and deleted them from there until the watch only showed 1 picture being synced, which was the one from the album. I then changed the watch face back from dynamic to album and left the face on the watch.
I did this on Tuesday. Yesterday, on Wednesday my watch was at 37% after wearing it without additional charging for almost 17 hours. Usually it would have been dead after 14 hours max. Today I took the watch off the charger at 7:30, at 8:41 it jumped to 99% where it would have been at 94% or even less before and now at 12:30 it is still at 87% which is 2.6%/hour.
I think the constant photo sync would be a good explanation for this issue as the watch would constantly download new pictured from the phone and would index them. In addition to that it would also explain why not everyone is affected by this since this would not apply to people having their photo sync configured to sync specific albums rather than the watch syncing random photos when nothing is selected for the photo sync. And it would also explain why resetting the watch doesn't help to fix this issue since the watch would start randomly syncing photos again after the reset.
Might be worth to check/try for others.
Well @GerryGarcia7, I’m happy that that worked for you. However, I’ve never had any 3rd-party app of any kind on my Apple Watch 7, and I’m having the same quickly draining battery problem that everyone is reporting, and it started when I installed the 10.0.1 OS update. I obviously can’t “fix” it by removing apps that were never on my phone. The only truly common denominator seems to be OS 10.0.1, and Apple needs to fix it.
I did at least manage to get my watch to charge to 100% again, where since the update it was only charging to 75%. If I shut the watch down completely and then put it on the charger, it will charge to 100% again.
Apple needs to fix whatever they screwed up in the OS ASAP. This is ludicrous that this has been going on for so long, with so many users reporting the same problem.
I didn’t have this problem until I updated to 10.1, so that wasn’t an option for me.
Also, there is one advantage the “blunderbuss” approach has over your suggestion: you get back full use of your watch immediately after removing non-Apple apps and restarting without having to wait until you go through each app, which leaves you wearing an expensive bracelet until you determine the culprit(s) and, By reinstalling the deleted apps one at a time it may be easier to figure out which is (are) causing the problem.
I called today Apple support reguarding the problem with quick battery draining.
On the phone run the Diagnostics and Apple support agent said my battery health is 74% and that Apple considers that under 80% should have battery replaced.
The cost of this replacement is 99£.
The agent wasn’t able to answer my question reguarding the quick battery drain.
I lost 26% of health battery but how was possible that the same watch was able to work for a full day and now after the update can hold only 3 hours and a half.
Something is wrong and I believe is a software issue.
The agent said through Diagnostics cannot tell me if an app is guilty of the quick draining of the battery.
Should I unpair the watch and set it as new watch?
Could that help?
Thank you
If you have AppleCare + you can bring it into an apple store and ask them to reprogram the older update 10.0.1 instead of 10.1 that is what got my watch back to normal charging and regular battery usage. They will likely have to send it off for 3 days but it worked when I got it back. Until they fix the issue on the software side it is not worth updating to 10.1.
I've done the update, but even before I did it. I literally did a full reboot of my watch. Basically cleared all data, re-paired it as a brand new watch with no previous apps on it. Now, even before the 10.1.1 update, my watch charges fine now and battery life is just fine now, but now if I use a schedule widget in the middle in like say Modulo or something to show what my next appt is, nothing comes up. It shows if I scroll or if I click into it. But nothing shows on the watch screen itself. And yes, I've re-synced multiple times.
When a update is offered this is what I do.
Restart Apple Watch – Apple Support (UK)
thank you .. i tried this too ... but it did not help. Than i ...
8.set of nearly all unnecessary mirroring iPhone notifications in "My watch" - "Notifications" (only allowed banking apps, health, home notification mirroring from iPhone)
9.works ... lose now 3-4% battery of my Watch 4 every hour. Before this was 10% a hour.
They have another update. 17.0.3
So it’s stop depleting so fast now. I went and set the newest face with the globe on the background. Haven’t tried to switch back to any other
Public beta channel on iphone
Why are you on 10.0.1? 10.0.3 is out... 10.1 will be released today (should be) and it will hopefully help.
Updated to the official 10.1 release last night , full charge lasts 2.5 hours .
Normally lasts 38 to 30 .
Bad apple :-(
Trying an unpair , charge to full and reset to see if this resolves.
I reset the watch and erased. When it was setting up there was an option to restore to a backup point that was the previous OS
If you have a watch face app call Moby Fox it is been causing issues
Make sure you remove those 3rd party watch apps and then reset the watch. Should fix some of the issues
Apple Watch Battery Drain Issues after Update
