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.
I think it's great that removing third party apps such as the Moby Fox app is helping some. I have never had any third party apps or watch faces and still experiencing battery drain. I did eliminate my weather app and it helped, but what's the point of having a watch that needs to be with only the bare minimum of apps so it can operate properly? That's not why we purchased this expensive watch, a simple Timex could also just tell time.
So after updating to 10.1 my battery life on both my Ultra and Series 5 plummeted. My Series 5 went from 100% charge to 5% in 3 hours. My Ultra would not charge fully Friday, and Saturday I tried a hard restart and it’s became a brick. Stuck at the Apple logo… I have tried a hard restart several times and it just goes back to the logo. I have tried charging for a few hours and hard restart and same result.
My Apple Watch 8 would last all day, even with GPS, remote functions, and more going on. Now, with this latest watch OS release, optimized charging drains it so much faster, even given the 80% max charge. There better be a change coming because this is extremely annoying. I bought mine back in September 2022 for reference.
I have an Apple Watch Series 9 that I’ve had for about a month now. I’ve had all sorts of issues since I got it. Weird white blocks on the screen, the screen going completely blank except for the background, and the screen constantly flashing every few seconds to just name a few. Never had an issue with battery life until it updated to 10.1 Thursday night. Took the watch off the charger to put it on Friday morning and it was crazy hot. Made it a couple hours into the day and the battery died. Been that way since the update. I closed every app and put it on low battery mode and I’m lucky if I get 2 hours before it dies. Talked to support today and they ran a diagnostic on it and they say nothing is wrong with it and it’s in perfect working condition and that if I want to replace it I’ll have to pay out of pocket even though I have apple care+. Not sure how a 2 hour battery life can be considered perfect working condition but ok. Apple needs to figure this out and soon. Had to charge my watch 4 times today to make it through the day.
I have an Apple Watch SE running 10.1 and charged my watch one hour ago to 100% and now it is at 53%. The only thing running is the stop watch. This is the second time I’ve charged to 100% in one day! Before the update I could get by charging every day and one half. This is crazy and needs to be fixed pronto! I was thinking of upgrading my watch to a newer one but won’t even stay with Apple if it won’t hold a charge!
@geapgr There was no need to comment on those things because I didn’t do any of them. None of them seemed to be an effective approach to what clearly — at least to me and others with IT experience — seems to be a software problem; that is, it’s a problem that Apple introduced in OS 10.0.1. Changing the hardware — the watch — while using the same software — the OS — will not produce a fix. It’s not necessary to slam others for their choices with words like “sheer madness.” Your posts come off as condescending (oh, just stow your phone away! What you chose to do was sheer madness) and unhelpful.
i don’t think Apple will send you a update if your device doesn’t support it. What do you consider old? I have a series 6 that was draining batterie and getting so hot that I could not use it. I took off Moby Face and it was okay. Was it a fix? NO! We should be able to use apps we get at the Apple Store. In my case, the problem didn’t come fro Apple but a 3rd party software.
2 weeks everything was fine. Its charge stopped at 80% after update and it was hot. Never had heating issues. I unpaired from phone and reset it. It goes to 100% now. Well… I take a 10 min shower and it drops to 92%. By noon I’m done: 0%. This happen all week. I’m not wearing it anymore. What’s the point of wearing a brick on my wrist. Apple fix this.
I have had to have Apple reprogram the watch twice to the previous version 10.0.1 (21R360) instead of 10.1 I had no external apps everyone keeps talking about. My view is it's something in the code for the new 10.1 update which has affected the charging and battery use so that when I put the phone on the charger it uncharged and then the one time I got the battery charged to 80% the charge went to zero in a third of the time it used to. I won't update the phone to the latest 10.1 update until I hear Apple has fixed the issue. I will say this whole experience has been just terrible and Apple should have never put this latest update out. Just horrible business practice to treat loyal customers so horribly.
I did the update last night, and had only 80% charge this morning. Then the battery plunged to 17% within about an hour with little usage. Closed all apps, restarted multiple times, set to Airplane Mode and it would not charge past 35%. Now it’s back down to 17% in Low Power Mode. I have a Series 8 that is less than 6 mos old. For anyone saying this is normal, sorry but nope! I may not be able to get it charged sufficiently to even reset it…
This just started in the last couple of days after the latest update. My full charge on my Apple Watch 10 in the morning is now depleted by 2pm. This used to last me all day, thru the face Always On and thru daily workouts. I’d go to bed at 11pm and still have 1/4 of the full charge leftover. I changed the face to only on with wrist lift but I’m still getting messages that I have 5% battery left by afternoon.
Apple are you going to fix this?! 🙏🏻
@lazar06 That’s because it’s not a hardware — watch — issue. The problem is the OS that’s on the watch. You could try 10 watches of various series, and if they all have OS 10.0.1, more than likely, based on experiences that people are reporting here, you’ll have the same battery issues on each watch.
Also having similar issues. (Since the update)
Watch now needs to be charged twice daily even if I’m not going anywhere. During a workout it’ll drop 5% in minutes.
Totally drained the remaining battery over 20 mins of “Yoga” yesterday.
Checked my wake duration and have turned it off and on again. I’ll let you know if today goes any better.
@zeliot swatch! Not funny but funny 🙂
But seriously all this talk about 3rd-party apps … nope, it’s the OS. There are way too many of us who don’t have any 3rd-party apps on our watches, and never did, but do have batteries that suddenly started draining very quickly as soon as we installed the 10.0.1 OS update. Not a coincidence.
And even if it were the 3rd-party apps, what’s the point of having an expensive smart watch that you can’t load and use 3rd-party apps on if you want to?
charged tp 100 after latest update went for a walk turned on my tracker walked 30 minutes and dropped to 63%. Used to just leave the tracker on and my charge would last pretty much all day. I don’t think the update repaired the issues. As for charging to%100. I think turning off the optimum charging feature allowed the charge to reach %100.
Apple Watch Battery Drain Issues after Update
