Series 7 Apple Watch. After 10.1 update my battery only lasts a few hours. I can literally watch the percentage go down. Rebooted the watch. Shut off background app refresh after advised by a friend. Still drains ridiculously fast. It’s essentially useless now. I’m out of ideas. Anyone else have this problem? This is crazy.
Just an update on this post. I found a solution that worked for me. It probably won’t be a solution for others as this seems to be a bit if a mystery on why this happened.
The short story: I deleted all those third party watch face apps. That fixed it.
The longer version: First thing I did after having the watch off all night was reset it as new. Took awhile because the battery drained really fast while it was repairing. Had to wait for it charge back up so it could finish. Honestly, it was a waste of time. The watch wouldn’t even charge. Stayed at between 15 and 17 percent.
In one of these threads here someone mentioned removing the watch face apps ( it was either Facer or Moby Face) so on my iPhone I deleted all of them (I had four) and waited. My watch was at 100% within a half hour. And it was cool to the touch. Not hot. It is now about 7 1/2 hours later and I’m down to 74%. Which is normal. I expect it to be better tomorrow because I won’t be fiddling with it as much. This also solved another problem (which I posted in another thread) The iPhone Watch App was misbehaving. All changes made to any of the faces, added faces or deleted faces wouldn’t sync over. I couldn’t even change faces from the app. This fixed that too.
Not sure why these app made this mess. Bad code. Not updated for watchOS 10. Who knows. But if you have these apps try deleting them.
edit: Seems to be what others are saying. Delete those apps. That should do it. But like I said. Might not work for everyone.
Just an update on this post. I found a solution that worked for me. It probably won’t be a solution for others as this seems to be a bit if a mystery on why this happened.
The short story: I deleted all those third party watch face apps. That fixed it.
The longer version: First thing I did after having the watch off all night was reset it as new. Took awhile because the battery drained really fast while it was repairing. Had to wait for it charge back up so it could finish. Honestly, it was a waste of time. The watch wouldn’t even charge. Stayed at between 15 and 17 percent.
In one of these threads here someone mentioned removing the watch face apps ( it was either Facer or Moby Face) so on my iPhone I deleted all of them (I had four) and waited. My watch was at 100% within a half hour. And it was cool to the touch. Not hot. It is now about 7 1/2 hours later and I’m down to 74%. Which is normal. I expect it to be better tomorrow because I won’t be fiddling with it as much. This also solved another problem (which I posted in another thread) The iPhone Watch App was misbehaving. All changes made to any of the faces, added faces or deleted faces wouldn’t sync over. I couldn’t even change faces from the app. This fixed that too.
Not sure why these app made this mess. Bad code. Not updated for watchOS 10. Who knows. But if you have these apps try deleting them.
edit: Seems to be what others are saying. Delete those apps. That should do it. But like I said. Might not work for everyone.
Get rid of MOBYFACE. The problems with watchOS 10 probably involve 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:
Here are some additional tips that may help improve battery life on watchOS 10:
If these fail to help with the short battery life:
If you are not happy with watchOS 10, share your concerns directly with Apple at Feedback - Watch - Apple
Hope this helps your situation!
If anyone has the Moby Fox app delete it. Before my watch wouldn’t charge above 75 percent and would be hot.
Removed from charger dropped to 60 simply checking it. Deleted Moby Fox app placed on charger and within 2-3 minutes it was at 81.
Watch is now cool and is fully charged. I hope this works until they can fix whatever they broke with this update.
I tried what you posted and it worked for me too. I decided to try adding back apps so I added non-Apple apps back on and within 10 mins, my battery percentage dropped by 10% (from 100%). So I decided to delete them again starting with MobyFox. I checked my battery 10 mins later, and it had not changed. Gave it another 10 mins, and the battery still had not changed. Voila! MobyFox was the cause for the rapid power drain.
I checked the MobyFox app on the App Store and it has not been updated for 3 weeks (as of today's date 11/1/2023). I wrote a review explaining my testing. Hopefully they'll release a software update very soon. For now, I'm not re-installing MobyFox until there's an update.
I called Apple. They ran diagnostics. Told me to take it in for service. I get there and was told they cannot service the watch due to the battery health being above 80%, unless I want to pay $70-350. The tech was baffled. He went to the back and was gone a long time. He talked to other techs and they said there was a LOT of chatter online about the last update and the Moby Face app killing the watch. He sent me home with a dead watch and told me to call corporate and complain. The real nugget was when he said Moby Face as I use their watch faces sometimes. Sure enough removing that app from my watch fixed the battery issue! Seems Apple is trying to avoid people sending their watches in for service when it’s actually software… which makes sense.
Like many others I took MobyFace off my phone and now my watch holds charge and performs normally, with all the other 3rd party apps I was using installed. MobyFox has admitted they know their app doesn't work right with 10.1 (they aren't the only one as there are some others, but theirs seems to be affecting a lot of folks in this discussion) and are working with Apple to figure it out. Hopefully when they get it fixed and I reinstall the app, I won't have to reload all the watch faces again since I have several watch bands.
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:
Here are some additional tips that may help improve battery life on watchOS 10:
If these fail to help with the short battery life:
If you are not happy with watchOS 10, let Apple know at Feedback - Watch - Apple
Hope this helps your situation!
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:
Here are some additional tips that may help improve battery life on watchOS 10:
If these fail to help with the short battery life:
If you are not happy with watchOS 10, share your concerns directly with Apple at Feedback - Watch - Apple
Hope this helps your situation!
came here to share pretty much this as a fix for me too. Tried nigh everything that has been suggested before, background refresh, turn off photo and music app sync, complication free watchfaces. Nothing helped.
what resolved it for me was an unpair and disable the “automatic app install” in general settings. Battery usage has returned to normal. Where i previously lost 20% battery in 3 hours, it’s now 5%!
wish i knew this months ago! During which my battery health dropped from the high eighties to just 81.
Try disabling one of the following:
Watch>Settings>Display & brightness > always on>turn off ALL complication updates under “Always on”
OR
Turn off the always on display (also disables complication updates while always on)
Watch>Settings>Display & brightness
it seems like Apple now allows complications to update on the always on display at a greater frequency, which has been chewing up battery life.
Let me know if this works for you.
I had the same problem with my Apple Watch Ultra 2, running watchOS 10.2. One week after the update, my battery started draining in less than a day. Before, it lasted for at least 2 full days on an 80% charge. The only solution that worked for me was resetting the Privacy and Location Services on my iPhone: About privacy and Location Services in iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS - Apple Support
I tried every other recommendation I could find, in the order listed below - none of them worked for me:
I assume some background task that is using location services is running wild. Resetting Privacy and Location Services on my iPhone was the least time-consuming of all these steps, so I definitely recommend trying this before doing any of the above.
Apple watch series 5.
Same issue since 10.1.
It seems like Apple decided to integrate more frequent complication updates for the “always-on” display. You can either turn off the complication updates under the display settings menu OR turn off “always-on” altogether.
I turned off Always-on (which stops the always on complication updates), and since doing this, my battery (80% health) went from lasting 8 hours, to now lasting about 12.
Hope this works for someone else.
I had the same issues on both a Series 4 and Series 9.
Series 9 I unpaired/re-paired twice (this actually made everything worse). Series 4 I did not do so.
This morning I removed all 3rd party apps from both (Series 4 and Series 9) and they've stabilized, no more drastic battery drain.
I got that tip from a different thread, but theoretically apps shouldn't be able to use battery life in the background. So it might be a syncing issue after the os update that removing the apps "fixes", but the last 2 days was super-frustrating.
I did a reset via the watch (not the app) to erase everything except the cellular plan and then paired the watch to my phone again. That seemed to work: I have a fully charged watch again (prior it only got up to 75% after being on the charger for 12 hours), the heat from charging disappeared (even as it charged to 100%) and after being off the charger for 40 minutes it’s still at 100% when this morning it went down by 5% in 5 minutes.
I haven’t even had my watch for 48hrs and what a nightmare. I spent today texting apple support and scouring the internet whenever I had a free moment at work. My battery was dropping 1% every minute, of which I was texting Apple support each time it dropped for their records. Thanks to comments in this thread, I was able to charge my watch on low power mode (otherwise it was plummeting while ON the charger). Then I removed every single app that I could from the watch, and deleted the 3rd party watch face app entirely (Moby). Battery appears to be acting as it was the first 18hrs I had it before installing 10.1, and I have it on the charger now. Charging normally with NO overheating. Fingers crossed I’m in the clear.
Apple Watch battery drains super fast after 10.1 update.
