Apple Watch battery drains super fast after 10.1 update.

I just went through Apple Support. They did a diagnostic test on my watch. It’s running with beta software even though I upgraded to 10.1 that was just released. I have never installed beta software! Now my watch has to be sent to a repair center!!

Just got off of chat with apple care. They wanted to charge me full price to replace my Ultra Watch after Apple pushed 10.1 to my device and now it overheats and won't stay charged. Why am I paying to cover my devices with Apple Care? In fact, at this point I am ready to sell all my Apple Products and go back to Windows and Samsung.

Busted out the old Garmin Vivoactive 3, it still works!!

Put my Apple Watch in the fridge, pulled it out and put it back on the charger, now up to 57% from 34%.

Hoping that I can get to 100% to see it drop again.

Come on Apple!

I tired resetting my watch from a backup with an older IOS. The watch automatically updates the software to 10.1 no matter what IOS version is in the back up. It’s so frustrating and Apple told me there is no way to go back one the update is installed. They said they only thing that can be done is wait for an update that hopefully fixes the issue

Just got off the phone with Apple support. They said they are going to escalate the issue to the engineers and what not can call me back tomorrow. Watch went from 75 to 19 while on the phone with them. They better come up with a fix for this. I didn’t ask for their update to break my watch.

My series 8 is barely 1 month since I bought it, it over heats and the battery drains from 100% to 0% in about 4 hours, and this is after updating to watchOS 10.1, this is not normal behavior and I don’t want my battery to be damaged by this bug. You guys need to address this ASAP.

My watch is now useless after the 10.1 update. Battery discharges fast, but when you try to charge it, it does so at slow rate (tried different chargers) and then the watch gets hot!! I just powered it off!! Get an update out quick!!!

Glad it worked for you. I still can't get my watch to go above 10% and I unpaired it and put it in airplane mode. I want to factory reset it, but I can't do that if it won't charge (and haven't repaired it for the same reason, it's almost never actually 'on' due to low battery). My older Apple Watch 3 charges just fine on the charger that I'm using so I know that's not the problem, it's the watch itself. I can only guess it's because I have music on it for my workouts.

I am sorry about being a PIA, but this really frustrated me.

Apple tech had me un-pair and re-pair watch, that dropped the battery from 47% to 34% and that's where it stayed all morning. It was very hot. Took it off the charger, put it in the fridge, cooled it off, put it back on the charger got it to 97%.

I think I got it fixed and this is how -

Once charged up to 97% in the Watch App I started removing random apps I rarely use, CNN, Tidal, etc. Just to initiate a conversation between the watch and the phone.

Before I did that I had 2 scrolls of Diagnostic Logs.

I now have a watch that is still at 97% 20 minutes later!!!! The Diagnostic Logs are cleared after that as well, I don't know what that means but I hope this is progress.

I have let it completely die for a hour and removed all third party apps from the app on my phone and since it has charged up like it normally does and has stayed at the same percentage for half an hour now. Fingers crossed that’s the end of it!

Same problem, talked to support twice and both state that it didn’t fail diagnostics so nothing they can do besides schedule an appointment- soonest appointment is in 1 week. Watch can’t charge above 47 percent before it starts draining down to 30’s while on charger

Nothing 3rd party - oem accessories, stock reinstalled software, all apps removed (other than the non removable stuff) Zero issues prior to 10.1 - series 8 watch only a few months old (July 2023) - update Just did a restart after removing all apps and it started charging again

I've had my Apple Watch for slightly over a year now and the battery health is down to 91% - I could still get 24 hours of use out of it at the very least. I updated to Watch iOS 10.1 on Wednesday evening and ever since then the watch has been overheating, not going past a certain % when charging and been draining really rapidly. I wear my watch to bed and by the time I get up, the watch is completely drained.

This is extremely annoying and frustrating.

I called Apple Support and they had me rest it to factory default. It’s charging now and they asked me to monitor the battery drain and that I should call them back in a couple days to inform them of how it’s performing.

Evening update post unpairing and re-pairing my watch:

As of 5:13 pm, my battery life is at 24%. I started the morning (7:11 am) with 100%. So almost a full day in a single charge. So definitely an improvement. However, with the previous software version, I would be around 30-35% around this time. So this method somewhat fixed it.