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.
My wife and I are having the same issue. I updated and now drained 30% in 3 hours, whereas previously, my watch would last 40 odd hours ie. two weeks ago (I have an apple watch SE). Please fix this apple.
Yesterday, my Apple Watch SE was charged 100% and left to shop at approx. 18:10.
By 20:15 it was down to 43%!
I had not used it for navigation, music or podcasts. That's 57% used just being on standby!
I then used the countdown timer for 15 minutes. Once completed, the battery was down to 17%!
Apple must release a patch update to address this severe issue as soon as possible!
Here’s my situation today:
I have updated my phone OS also.
Before this update, my watch lasted until 12 am-1 am, which included a minimum 2 hours of workout tracking and many activations.
this is an utter joke. Nobody can use a watch that can’t last 10 hours even when it’s not tracking anything.
Same issue here - S4, lasted whole day before (at around 25% at 10pm).
Since sunday (1.10.23) at around lunchtime, my battery is being wasted by the watch.
Monday my battery was at zero around 5pm. Yesterday it lasted from 6.30am to 12pm.
Today I started at 6.30 am at 100% and now (7.11 am) I am at 75% - just sitting, drinking coffee and getting more and more angry about this situation.
I already uninstalled the 3rd party apps on my watch and restarted the watch - nothing helped so far.
I would like to go back to watchOS 9 - or at least have a fix, that gets the watchOS background processes under control!
I won‘t take my watch charging things with me all the time - I need a working watch throughout the day (tracking of sport and health parameters). And if this isn‘t to be fixed, I can‘t help me to get the strange feeling, that this might be intended to push people to buy a new apple watch - which I won‘t do. I think, I then will switch to Garmin…
Btw. while writing this, my watch dropped to 66% (7.20am) - great work, apple!!!
I have read that disconnecting and reconnecting a watch could fix the issue.
So I took the time today, discoupled and coupled my watch with my iPhone again.
No effect, unfortunately, besides 1h wasted time…
What‘s even more annoying than the Energy drain of the watches of so many, is Apples silence in regard of any soon to come fix for this issue.
It would really help to know, if they even identified these energy drains as a problem worth analyzing and fixing. Without any communication, I feel left alone with a problem someone else caused on my equipment…
Same issue! I chatted with Apple help for an hour about my series 6 watch. They diagnosed my watch remotely and said I needed a new battery. I told them it was fine until the day after updating to 10.0. So the issue has to be 1) the process of updating itself caused the battery problem or 2) the update has cause background activity to run the battery down faster. Apple- we’re waiting to hear.
My SE 2 started only getting 6-8 hours on a charge. I was told to reset to new by support and it didn't work. So I took it to Apple to be sent back. Support had told me they would return the watch to the previous version. I just got a message that they couldn't duplicate the problem so they were returning it? They didn't have it long enough to test it. It was 2 days out of warranty if that means anything.
@ Engilaird:
Maybe that worked for you, in which case you’re lucky.
I’ve rebooted both my Apple watch 7 (OS 10.0.1) and my iPhone 12 (OS 17.0.3).
I’ve unpaired and re-paired them.
My watch still won’t charge more than 75%.
By mid-day my watch is down to 15% charged. I then put it on the charger for an hour or so to get it back up to 75%.
By about 8:00 PM it is back down to about 15% charged, and I have to put it back on the charger.
It’s almost like it spends more time on the charger than it does on my wrist. This behavior started when I “upgraded” my watch OS to 10.0.1. (I had already updated my phone to OS 17.0.3.)
Or did you mean an actual hard reset, as in “reset to factory settings,” rather than a reboot, which is what you described?
Same issue here and now I'm having an issue with it going into bedtime mode, but it doesn't give me the option to turn it off. I disabled sleep tracking for now as a workaround. I also tried to disable the extra mirroring to my phone to see if that would help save some battery. Hope there is an update to fix soon!
After chatting for two days with apple technical support, they deemed the best course of action is to send it in for evaluation where techs will inspect the battery. I assume it's to downgrade the software however, they were unable to send me a packing slip to send my watch in for repair. They claim the reason being their "sending service is under any damage... like hardware issues only" Since my battery issue is due to a software issue he was unable to find a packing slip for me to ship at no charge. I went to the apple store yesterday and the technician who helped me said that is incorrect and it could have easily been handled online by Tech Support. So now my watch is with Apple and they will be in touch with their findings. I am hoping they downgrade the software and fix my issue.
Just to be clear, don't go looking for a way to make a backup your Apple Watch, or to restore it to "factory" watchOS, because you won't find either one. Backups are done automatically to your phone, so if you unpair and then re-pair the watch (old or new one) to your phone it copies back most of settings from the backup. Excluded from the backup is (among other things) Apple Pay credit cards and the passcode, so you will need to set these up again. You can also erase the watch from the Settings app on your watch or in the Watch app on your phone, but it seems unpairing it from your phone does the same thing. I'm not sure if either method has any advantages since both restore your watch from the backup on you phone.
Have been having the same battery drain issues as everyone else on the thread. Just checked and 10.1 is available to me (in Canada). Am installing as I write this so will see if that fixes the issue (no mention of this problem being fixed in the notes with 10.1 however).
Series 7 here. 10.1 killed it. Battery drains in a few hours. Did a reboot but that still its draining fast. Shut off background refresh but it doesn’t seem to have helped. Guess I’m going to have to wait for the next update, leave it on the charger. It’s useless right now.
Well, about a week ago, had a battery drain on a series 7 with the early version of 10.1 and 17.1 that made that watch useless. Upgraded to Series 9, same deal on a brand new watch. Did all troubleshooting imaginable and suggested. Returned that series 9. Had all programming deleted from phone, including picks. Could not restore, however, until official version of 17.1 was released. Decided to try another new Series 9 and was relieved that 10.1 was not downloaded in it. Used watch and phone with older version, and watch was amazing for a week. Downloaded the official release of the newest versions last night, and I’m back to square one all over again. Plus, even paired, new watch and watch app on phone no longer communicate, at least on faces. New watch faces make it to app, but never the actual watch, even when I tap the set as watch face button on the app. Can someone explain why Apple would create an amazing piece of tech, then turn it into nothing but an overly expensive paper weight by creating a software upload this bad? Thinking of leaving Apple a dissatisfied customer. And if I do, I’ll never come back because my faith in Apple to deliver a reliable product worth owning is close to being permanently extinguished.
My watch (an SE) updated to 10.1 and now doesn’t hold a charge for longer than 2 hours. I have restarted multiple times and closed the apps. Before the new update I would get 18 hours per charge minimum. Can I go back to 10.0?
Apple Watch Battery Drain Issues after Update
