Apple Watch Battery Drain Issues after Update

I've just spent four frustrating days with various Apple Support people ranging from chat agents to Senior Support people. I asked several of them if this was a known problem (battery drain after WatchOS 10.0) and all of them said they had not heard of it before me. They have run several remote hardware tests, including a battery test, which the watch passed. They had me unpair the watch and then re-pair and set up as a new watch (not a restore from backup). That didn't help. Now, they want me to call back and speak to a Support Engineer, but only after we have kept a detailed log of software usage along with battery percentage after each app is used.

At this point I'm fed up. Every time I speak with a new agent I have to wait on hold while they review the case and go over stuff that has already been covered and which should be in the chat transcripts and reports.

They still won't acknowledge that this is an OS problem, not a hardware problem and not a user software problem.

I will not contact them again. I will never buy AppleCare+ again as it seems to just lead to an incredibly frustrating waste of time. Easier to just buy a new watch and be done with it.

This is especially frustrating coming from someone who has been an Apple Fan since 1984 and a shareholder with, let's say, more than 100 but less than 1000 shares of Apple stock.

At best I'm sad and at worst I'm angry.

You know they’re lying. How many people are on this thread complaining about the same thing. Maybe they don’t check this thread. I don’t know. All I know for sure is that I get Apple discussion alerts about this issue several times a day. They know there’s a problem. Hopefully they can fix it.

"You might need to go into the genesis bar and have them lay hands on it. It is hard do support to diagnose things over chat and on the phone "

I live in northeast Thailand, which has exactly two Apple stores; both in Bangkok which is 250 kilometers away.

So update I was seeing the watch drain with OS 9 so with nothing else to try updated to latest OS on watch and phone 14 ProMax and now my watch is back to normal mostly with 40 to 50% charge left. So guessing point release solved it.

This new update is a disaster. My 1 year old Mac Pro is glitching like crazy. My Phone keeps freezing when using the camera, and my Apple watch battery dies way too fast. I was able to have a full charge and then go to sleep with it at night. Now, it's not even 5 pm I have 40% left. Also, I can't connect to my Peleton Bike, App, or Guide. It tells me wifi is not found! Apple, please fix all of it!

But having EVERY app do background refresh didn’t drain the battery before the update?

I other words, the update has forced you to diminish the functionality of your watch in order to get back to normal battery life?

That kind of sucks, doesn’t it?

So, you’re saying that the OS update did this without notifying the user?

Anyone else notice this?

All but a handful were ON when I checked my wife’s watch after the update, but she was unable to tell me whether or not she had ever changed those settings.

On my own Ultra1 the Background app refresh settings were not altered by the OS update.

Had a perfectly functioning series 9 before these updates. Charged it in the morning and, after a 10 hour work shift, still had a charge of 50 to 70 percent. After this **** download, my watch once again went from 100% to 0% in less than 3 hours. This is unquestionably a software issue. I want a direct line to whoever in Apple is responsible for this, and I want them unemployed NOW! Someone going to answer for this, and that’s a promise.

Mine wouldn’t charge properly had to turn it off wait the put charger to it and woke up about 5 and it had fully charged , put it on and fell back sleep then woke up at 10 and it was like 32 % it never drops that low even where it all night long , would hate to think how quick it would die doing a workout

Apparently Apple does not even acknowledge that this an issue, according to the descriptions here of the interactions people have had both in in-person tech support appointments and virtual help sessions. They seem to be approaching each individual case as an isolated event that they want to blame on hardware error or how users have installed or use apps — anything other than accepting responsibility for causing these issues via the most recent OS updates.

I am also having this problem, even with the new 10.1 update.

My battery health is 97%, and it used to last twelve hours easily. Now, it hits 20% battery left after 6-7 hours.

I removed all unused apps and turned off the background refresh without luck.

My Watch had zero issues until I updated to 10.1 last night. Battery drains from 100% to 10% in about half an hour. Won’t charge past 75% and starts overheating to the point it shuts off services. Also scrolling is stuttering. Update 10.1 broke my watch

The person on Apple Support thought it was a beta, but 10.1 had been officially released yesterday. Just concerning that the tech thought it was still in beta (you’d think if anyone would know, they would).

My watch was at 100% this morning at 5:30am and hit 10% at 9am. I put it on the charger and figured it would be fine, but it died again an hour later. Now I'm watching it, on the charger, losing battery (went from 15% to 12% just now). The only thing I did was update to 10.1 this morning.

Hopefully Apple figures this out and gets it fixed ASAP....

My IPad is horrible at this point. iPhone 13 draining very quickly. Apple Watch almost impossible to wear… What a horrendous posture of this company. No news, apologies, reports…. Nothing at all. Very disappointing