Apple Watch Battery Drain Issues after Update

Right after updates my Apple Watch battery drains within 3hrs, what is going on apple need to send an update to fix this ASAP.

apple watch series 7. latest update install, watch only last 7- 10 hours. it has become useless. I don't understand why apple doesn't care at all. before 10 version, I use it charge once in two days.

i did exactly as probably everyone else. Unpaired the watch and still doesn’t fix anything . I wake up everyday at 5 am. While my phone now is only 89% and WORKS without charging until 9 pm hitting that 2% rage which I did the test yesterday.

But my watch right now is at 59 forcing myself to put it on lower power mode on to save the battery

@Ahmedhertz apparently we’ve been talking to ourselves all of these months. It seems that Apple doesn’t find it necessary to consider customer/user experience or input. I’ve been in IT both on the product & software sides for decades, and every single company I’ve worked for has actively solicited such info thru their own forums, as well as monitoring independent forums and hiring third parties to assess customer satisfaction. I guess Apple thinks that because they are Apple, they don’t need to listen or care.

I previously reported long-term issues with my Apple Watch Ultra, with an attempt to fix the problem by going to a replacement watch. My issue was inconsistent battery usage and faster discharge as time passed, for example I would have excellent usage when the battery was fully charged (losing about 2%/hr) but increasingly worse and eventually 25%/hr.

However, I am now losing consistently only about 1%/hr… getting about 80-hours on a full charge!! I think the solution was a combination of the latest iOS and WatchOS updates, re-pairing my watch, and turning off most notifications. I am very happy with the sufficient watch functionality, plus gradually adding optional notifications while monitoring battery performance.

This is a common report after a major release. The vast majority of users see the battery life return to normal after several days.

Identical scenario here.

Same here. Apple Watch is now draining power much more quickly. Watch could easily hold a charge for 12-18 hours prior to updating to 10.0.1. Now it’s below 10% after 8-9 hours.

Same bat channel here on watch 10.0.1 I was locked out of my Apple ID for 5 days when my 14 updated to POS 17. I hope the next update is to conserve battery life not take it!

Power efficiency isn’t the strongest part of the latest watchOS. My battery was draining for 3-4 days after the release. Then it stabilized. Anyways, before I charged them in mornings and I had ~50% at midnight. After the update I have to charge my watches twice a day. And on 10.0.1 it dies during the sleep tracking period despite the battery is between 80-90%. I hope Apple patches it asap.

I got the Apple Watch Ultra 2 on release day Sep 22 and it was working just fine for the first 2 days until the 10.0.1 update then it started draining, I updated to 10.0.2 and it drained even faster. I did all the tests and everything was fine via phone support, went to my genius appointment at the Apple store yesterday and they were willing to replace it but the same thing is happening. It can't even last for 6 hours on a full 100% charge (no workouts, no music).

This is beyond frustrating. I got the AWU2 for my first marathon in Chicago on Sunday but the battery life is worse than my series 7. I think I'm better off getting a Garmin like most endurance athletes...

MSMinVA wrote:

Exactly @ZlayaEatsTacos many of us never had the apps that people are blaming, which is why the 10.0.1 OS “upgrade” is still my primary suspect. I’m hoping that the next major/point release fixes it.

This is Nov 2, why are you still on 10.0.1?

10.1 is available

and

Apple Watch uses a LOT of battery - Apple Community

MSMinVA wrote:

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.

There are users that are having battery issues because of poorly written 3rd party apps/complications. If you happen to be one of them, then it is a quick fix to remote the 3rd party app.

There are reports that watchOS 10.2 beta seems to fix their battery problems. Hopefully Apple will release 10.2 real-soon-now.

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?

Not all 3rd party apps are created equal. In this case, some 3rd party apps have proven to be battery hogs.

If you want to strap a car battery to your wrist, then you can have as many poorly written apps you want on your expensive Apple Watch.

Most people prefer the lighter weight of the Apple Watch, but that means watchOS, the Apple provided apps/complications, and 3rd party apps need to sip battery juice sparingly so that the Apple Watch battery can last all day long.

Think of it this way. If you purchase an expensive, stylish car, you would not want to haul horse manure around in the passenger seats. You might be a bit more choosy about what you allow in your expensive car. The same applies to the apps you choose to install.

NOTE: If Apple provides an app or with all apps deleted and no active complications watchOS consumes excessive battery, then you should be all means report this to Apple via

https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch

Telling your fellow users in these forums does not motivate Apple because unless you send feedback, they do not know what you are saying. Make sure your voice is actually heard where it can do some good for all your fellow Apple Watch users.

A few more observations from my end:

I talked to Apple support on Friday morning and they did some remote diagnostics, including a battery usage report from where they could see that the app that mostly uses the battery on my watch is the Maps app. An app that I never use and I have all direction notifications disabled.

according to Delete built-in Apple apps from your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch - Apple Support it should be possible to uninstall the Maps app from the Watch with WatchOS 9.4 or later but I can’t uninstall it. Not sure if the document is not up to date for watchOS 10 or if there is something else wrong but I can’t delete it from my wife’s Watch either.

I have reset my watch one more time on Friday evening. While doing so I noticed that the watch App on my phone shows more than 500MB documents and data. On my wife’s phone it only shows a few MB and she doesn’t have the battery drain issue. So I thought I delete the app from my phone, restart the phone and then download the app again to clear that only to find that it still shows the same amount of documents and data.

I still went ahead and set up the watch again and this time (probably did this 4 or 5 times already) on Watch OS 10.2 things seem to have gotten better. Today, Sunday morning I took it off the charger at 9:00am and now at 11:30am it is at 96%.

One more thing that is different after the reset now though is that I don’t see anyone who I am sharing my fitness rings with anymore on the watch. They still show up on my phone but not on the watch and they report that they still see me but without any data. It just shows all my rings as 0 for them.

My wife only shares her rings with me while I share it with 6 people in total.

wondering if the battery drain could be connected to the number of people you share your fitness rings with. Can anyone else with the battery drain issue check how many people they are sharing fitness rings with?

Hmb100 wrote:

This answer is directed to Apple about the answer provided GPSRiders.

Apple is not here. Only your fellow users in the user-to-user technical support forum.

You would be best directing your question to GPSRiders and/or the community in general.

If you want Apple Support, then Click here: Support