Apple Watch battery drains super fast after 10.1 update.

My watch used to last two days, even with me running an hour a day. I no longer run and now it drains faster. I have to put it on the charger overnight and again mid-day. Normally, it takes about an hour to charge. But there are days that it takes up to five hours to hit 100%. I haven’t added anything or changed any settings since I got it almost two years ago.

I’ve been monitoring this thread for weeks, I’m disappointed that’s there’s not been a new release to fix whatever the underlying problem here is.

Because, to be clear, there very much is some underlying problem. First of all, no one should have to uninstall something that used to work fine. It’s great if that works so fix the problem, but that’s not a solution, that’s a workaround.

But the more important thing is that for many of us no such workaround has been presented. MobyFace isn’t something we have ever had, turning off photo sync doesn’t help anything.

What we need is an actual fix here, delivered as an update from Apple.

71% drain in 5hrs. And charging to 100% is nearly impossible as it can take 2 hours. On series 8, and prior to WatchOS 10.1, battery health is at 100%.

First time I've experienced a horrible update from Apple.

Please help mark the post about reporting this via Feedback - Watch - Apple as helpful, so it appears at the top on the first page. The more people that report it, the higher likelyhood it will be taken seriously.

My one week old watch was fine until I let it update to 10.1 last night. It immediately got super hot and battery drained from 98% to 20% in about 30 min. I can’t get it to charge because it stays overheated. I’ve rebooted, reset to factory, disabled a ton of features and nothing helps. It won’t charge beyond 30%.

The update broke it. Brand. New. Watch!! I’m so mad.

The thing that bothers me with all of the advice to remove 3rd party apps as that is the problem...seems like most, if not all of us didn't have this problem UNTIL the update to 10.1. Thus, how can the issue be the 3rd party apps? Clearly something changed in 10.1 from 10.0 that caused this excess battery drain. To blame the 3rd party apps seems like a copout.

When watchOS 10 first came out my watch updated automatically. I’m one of the unlucky few whose watch started using too much power. Using extra power after a major update is common for a couple days. After two weeks, my watch still had to be recharged several times per day (not acceptable). This was not an issue with watchOS 9.6.3 (there is no way to go back).

I have a draconian configuration that gets my watch through a day on one 90 minute charge. The setting removes much of what makes an Apple Watch special…but it’s better than a frequenly dead watch.

As a side note, Apple Technical Support has been consulted twice: online and in-person at Apple Store. Diagnostics pass, my watch has never been wet, and my S4 is not covered by a warranty. 

Apple Tech Support tried to solve my issue but ultimately provided two options: 

1) trade in my watch for a new S9 (net cost $400) or 

2) replace the battery even though it has 84% capacity ($299 cost for battery capacity over 80%, $99 replacement battery capacity less than 80%).

Neither option seems all that great…yet.

Here are some tricks and tips I have used to increase my Apple Watch’s battery life while using watchOS 10:

• Adjust display settings. The display is one of the biggest battery drains, on S4 through S6. Reduce display impact by adjusting the brightness, reducing the amount of time the display stays on, and disabling the always-on display for S7 and newer.
• Reduce the number of notifications. Every notification that appears on the screen  requires the watch to wake up and use battery power. Try disabling notifications for apps that you don't use often and/or try setting notifications to silent delivery.
• Turn off haptics. Every time the watch has to send a haptic, a small vibrator has to use battery power.
• Remove apps from the Smart Stack. While this is a new feature, on my S4 it seems to consume significant power. 
• Delete 3rd party apps. Some 3rd party apps are not behaving well with watchOS 10. Delete the 3rd party apps on the watch AND on the iPhone. 
• Disable location services, especially for the Apple weather app. Apparently the weather app frequently checks location and retrieves weather for the location, even if your location is not significantly changing. Remove all but one weather app location. Completely removing the weather app may help too. 
• Turn off background app refresh. Complications will still update in the active watch face. Other apps will refresh when you open them or a watch face with corresponding complication.
• Turn off as many features as possible. Many Apple Watch features use battery power, even when not actively using them. For example, the heart rate sensor, GPS, and Wi-Fi can use battery power. Try turning off these features to save battery life.
• Use Power Saving Mode. This mode disables certain features to extend battery life. 

Here are some additional tips that may help improve battery life on watchOS 10:

• Unpair and re-pair Apple Watch. This can sometimes resolve battery life issues.
• Restore Apple Watch from a backup. This can also help to resolve battery life issues.
• Reset Apple Watch and do not restore from a backup. This can also help to resolve battery life issues.

If these fail to help with the short battery life:

• Contact Apple Support. If you're still having trouble with battery life, contact Apple Support for assistance. Do not expect good technical support from these Apple Community Forums, there are a few trolls who generally make condescending and smug remarks. 

If you are not happy with watchOS 10, let Apple know at Feedback - Watch - Apple  

Hope this helps your situation!

I agree, that’s why it’s problematic. Apple sees it as a nuisance, but it’s what they do so that your watch battery either has to be replaced on your watch has to be replaced. It’s $90 to have your watch battery replaced. Thanks Apple. You’ve proved once again that you don’t care about your customers, even though they’re the ones that helped build Apple into the $2 trillion company is today. Interesting that they monitor this, but never make any comments.

This just started to happen to me. Drains way too fast. Any news yet?

It is time to realize watchOS 10 is a planned obsolescence strategy via an update. It is a migration that involves execution of a plan that renders older system architectures and batteries obsolete, affecting most S8 and earlier systems. Why else would such a bloated inefficient watchOS 10 be allowed to update everything back to S4 with no way to revert to the previous watchOS that worked perfectly well?

Posted this in another thread. Updated to 10.1 yesterday after charging to 100%. Three hours later was shocked to see low battery alert. Tried to charge in the evening but could only get to 56% after two hours. After a hard restart, it went from 34% to 56% pretty fast. But then it died overnight.

This morning, charged to 100% (maybe a little less), pretty quickly. But again, low battery in 3 hours. In fact, it went from 21% to 4% in 15 minutes. Then it took 4+ hours to charge to 100%, with a hard restart mixed in. Been off the charger 51 minutes and I'm down to 78% already.

Not good, not normal.

Same for me on a Series 8. I took mine off the charger at 100 percent at 9 p.m., then went to bed. In sleep focus with the screen off and at 1:30 it was totally dead. I've reset and restarted and the drain persists. I've had trouble getting it to charge as well. It sat on the charger for 30 minutes today and lost 1 percent battery. I had to turn on airplane mode to get it to charge and even then it went from 41 to 45 percent in 45 minutes.

Read my comment above… I reset my Watch four times in total. The fourth one Apple told me to reset but not use a back up. Still did not work. Call Apple back. They basically told me it was a software issue and there’s nothing they can do to fix it until an update rolls out. Then hopefully the update will fix the battery issue.

The problems with watchOS 10 probably involves more than just MOBYFACE.

When watchOS 10 first came out my watch updated automatically. I’m one of the unlucky few whose watch started using too much power. Using extra power after a major update is common for a couple days. After two weeks, my watch still had to be recharged several times per day (not acceptable). This was not an issue with watchOS 9.6.3 (there is no way to go back).

I have some draconian steps and a configuration that gets my watch through a day on one 90 minute charge, but NOT back to pre-watchOS10. My settings remove or disable much of what makes an Apple Watch special…but it’s better than a frequently dead watch.

As a side note, Apple Technical Support has been consulted twice: online and in-person at an Apple Store Genius Bar. Diagnostics pass, my watch has never been wet, and my S4 is not covered by a warranty. 

Apple Tech Support is aware of the problems and tried to solve my issue but ultimately provided two options: 

1) trade in my watch for a new S9 (net cost $400) or 

2) replace the battery even though it has 84% capacity ($299 cost for battery capacity over 80%, $99 replacement battery capacity less than 80%).

Neither option seems all that great…yet.

Here are some tricks and tips that might increase an Apple Watch’s daily battery use with the current watchOS 10:

• Adjust display settings. The display is one of the biggest battery drains, on S4 through S6. Reduce display impact by adjusting the brightness, reducing the amount of time the display stays on, and disabling the always-on display for S7 and newer.
• Reduce the number of notifications. Every notification that appears on the screen  requires the watch to wake up and use battery power. Try disabling notifications for apps that you don't use often and/or try setting notifications to silent delivery.
• Turn off haptics. Every time the watch has to send a haptic, a small vibrator has to use battery power.
• Remove apps from the Smart Stack. While this is a new feature, on my S4 it seems to consume significant power. 
• Delete 3rd party apps. Some 3rd party apps are not behaving well with watchOS 10. Delete the 3rd party apps on the watch AND on the iPhone. 
• Disable location services, especially for the Apple weather app. Apparently the weather app frequently checks location and retrieves weather for the location, even if your location is not significantly changing. Remove all but one weather app location. Completely removing the weather app may help too. 
• Turn off background app refresh. Complications will still update in the active watch face. Other apps will refresh when you open them or a watch face with corresponding complication.
• Turn off as many features as possible. Many Apple Watch features use battery power, even when not actively using them. For example, the heart rate sensor, GPS, and Wi-Fi can use battery power. Try turning off these features to save battery life.
• Use Power Saving Mode. This mode disables certain features to extend battery life. 

Here are some additional tips that may help improve battery life on watchOS 10:

• Unpair and re-pair Apple Watch. This can sometimes resolve battery life issues.
• Restore Apple Watch from a backup. This can also help to resolve battery life issues.
• Reset Apple Watch and do not restore from a backup. This can also help to resolve battery life issues.

If these fail to help with the short battery life:

• Contact Apple Support. If you're still having trouble with battery life, contact Apple Support for assistance. Do not expect good technical support from these Apple Community Forums, there are a few trolls who generally  make condescending and smug remarks.

If you are not happy with watchOS 10, share your concerns directly with Apple at Feedback - Watch - Apple  

Hope this helps your situation!