Apple Watch battery drains super fast after 10.1 update.

My brand new Ultra 2 went from 2-2.5 days of battery before the update, to going from 100% to 20 percent in less than 5 hours.

It does charge and it does not overheat. This is NOT normal behaviour due to rebuild of caches or other such mumbo jumbo.

Reboots, and restores without backups make no difference (as others have allready reported), presumably going back to 10.0 might make a difference but that is not possible.

Hoping a fix comes quickly. For now, I put it in Energy saving mode, that seems to bypass whatever process is sucking up energy (though it is a somewhat crippled device now).

So, in my case, I did a factory reset of my Series 7. Along with that, I made sure no third-party apps installed (if some installed, I promptly uninstalled them). So far, I'm having no battery drain issues. 🙂 👍🏻 ⌚️

Midday update:

So far, I have seen improvement since I’ve unpaired and re-paired the watch. From 7:00 AM to 11:07 AM, the watch went from 100% to 73%. So the rate of battery drainage has improved, however it is slightly draining faster than normal. Normally I would still be at 85% around this time. Before unpairing and re-pairing the watch, the battery was draining at the rate of 30%/ hr. At that rate, the watch would have been dead by now. Let’s seen where we’re at later this afternoon.

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!!

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.

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.

Removing the apps related to watch faces and resetting the watch helped me to gain some battery performance. Charges it at 10:00am to 100% it’s 7:45pm battery at 69% seems like it’s working have a series 7 watch

@Zenguin I just did what you mentioned and deleted the MobyFace app and it seemed to work. It is now charging normally now. I have an appointment today with Apple for the issue still. We will see what happens.

Tony, deleted the third party apps on Watch and it seems to work after a reset. Unfortunately though 10.1 hit battery health significantly.

At least in the short term there seems to be a work around! Thank you!

Sorry! Did you uninstall all 3rd party apps? That fixed for many/most who had battery issues as I did.

After the battery issue was resolved for me I had another problem. Watch would no stay unlocked. Online chat with Apple and another visit to the apple store .... And a heated discussion with them. Apple replaced my Series 9.

Restored from backup made that day. Now all is well. Watch has been off charger for the last 10 hours. Battery is at 55%.

Good luck

Have been in contact with Apple support twice (online chat, in-person appointment at genius bar). Results and advice from support chat: Apple said diagnostics look good, battery condition at 84%, Apple support said fully charged battery important for all day performance, recommended select charge to 100% when put on charger, I asked if I should turn off optimized charging in settings, Apple support said to not turn off optimized charging, recommended taking the watch to apple store for further support. Results from in-person support: diagnostics look good, has this (S4) watch ever been submerged in water (answer is no, it's not exactly water proof), Apple support said it is water resistant and designed for swimming (then why ask?), delete and reinstall apps from Smart Stack (already did that when 10.0 came out), delete third party apps (did that when 10.0 installed), turn off background app refresh (did that when 10.0 installed), reset watch (made no difference). I asked if the software can be reverted back to last OS (9.6.3) because I had none of these problems before watchOS 10. Apple does not support this option (will not is different than cannot). I asked if it would help all-day performance if the battery was replaced? Apple support said yes; however, if the battery has 80% or more capacity the cost is $299, if the battery has less than 80% capacity the cost is $99. Apple said if current performance is not acceptable the watch could be traded in for a credit of $60 toward a new watch, lowest cost equivalent size option with trade-in is about $400 (with tax). Bottom line, watchOS 10 has negatively impacted me, and apparently other users. The only supported solution is a costly forced obsolescence or expensive battery service. Verbal and written feedback has been provided to Apple about the design, performance, and options provided with watchOS 10.

Yeah sadly it’s not consistently linked to MobyFace but it could be any other 3rd party app. I uninstalled most of my apps like UPS. FedEx, Audible and many others and the watch has been working well today. So it’s really unknown which app or what is creating this mess except one fact which is it all started with the 10.1 update

After deleting 3rd party apps, my watch appears to be back to functioning normally.

However>>>I just got off the phone with Apple Support and there is NO record of this issue that the agent could find and she said I'm the first person to call in about this. It might help escalate this issue if folks call in to complain!!

yeah, Apple tech support seems woefully unaware of this. The Genius Bar was like 'well, turn off background refresh and you uninstalled all the 3rd party apps, so, that's all we got'. This discussion was far more useful and you would think as long as it is, their Geniuses would be briefed on it. Sadly MobyFace does not actually install a version of the app on the phone and instead communicates through the Watch app and was clearly doing something to seriously ping the watch constantly, though I was not seeing battery drain on my phone.

I had the same problem on my ultra after the 10.1 update my battery lasted half a day at best. I don’t have a tone of apps and I only use it minimally. I let my battery completely drain and left it dead for a full day than charged it up to 100% and the battery seems to be back to normal so far.