Ultra 2 + WatchOS 10.2 -> DESTROYED battery life

I'm having the same issue with my Series 1 Ultra. After 10.2 update, rapid battery drain. Called Apple support and dx revealed no issues. Performed a reset and issue continued. Trip to Genius Bar and no issues uncovered, unpaired the watch and re-paired it. Now draining as fast or faster. than before. 100% battery at 7:30 AM and now at 59% at 9:00 AM. I was going to send the watch in per the Genius Bar suggestion, however, I suspect that this is software related and that a "repair" or replacement isn't the right fix and may result in the same issues. I've come to rely on this watch at work, which is Apple's marketing objective, but if this is a software issue, they've dropped the ball. I hope Apple is listening and will respond promptly. (It's dropped another 2% as I've typed this!)

Also having very fast battery drain on WatchOS 10.2 with an Apple Watch Ultra 2.

I am currently losing 1% of the charge every three to six minutes. I have tried various things people have recommended including disabling double tap, un-pairing and re-pairing the watch, etc.

Prior to 10.2 I was getting acceptable battery length. The watch would last at least a day on a charge and frequently a day and a half.

Help please.

Same issue with my Ultra2 the author reported. Complete trash on battery life. Thanks Apple.

I chatted with a rep. All he did was kept asking the same questions. How long has this been happening. How long do you charge the phone. I told him this is an update issue. In an hour my watch went from 100% to 61%. How much clearer could I be. But the same questions kept coming. Then asked me how long do I think a battery should last? Seriously? More than an hour. I got frustrated but he didn’t care.

I have spoken to 3 other people. Same issue with them.

what are our options. A new watch will not help

Apple needs to do a reverse update

and why are their reps clueless

This is the second big failure of watch charging this fall. On my Series 8, it had been behaving until a few days ago. I charge overnight, and when I woke up, the watch showed 47%! I put it back on the charger and after breakfast, it was back at 100%. Same thing for a few days. Then, I tried turning OFF Optimized Battery Charging and now everything is fine. For my needs, I don't care about battery life. I will likely upgrade the watch before ruining the battery. All I want to do it put it on the charger when I go to sleep, and wake up to 100%, no BS. Same with my phone. It's too late for me to go outside the Apple ecosystem, I track all my exercise with the watch. I hope that Apple can shake up the shoddy engineering, stop obsessing about useless features, and make a reliable product! WatchOS 10.2

I came here because of the same issue. One thing I’ve found in the past and just found to be true in my case, is to make sure you’re signed into all of your email accts through your watch app. I believe that the watch is continually trying to fetch new mail but it can’t. I looked at all my accounts and I was not signed into one and just signed in. Worth checking out.

I've had a trusty S4 watch since 2018 and until the 10.2 update it worked as expected. Battery life was about 30 hrs. Now, if fully charged at 8am it will be dead by 5pm - 9 hrs battery life and a bit of junk on my wrist. I had been thinking of upgrading this Christmas but the question now in my mind is, 'why would I risk buying an Apple watch?' If this is what Apple has now become, why waste my money when there are so many alternatives. I might just go back to an old fashioned watch - one that tells the time!

I lost an 1800 day move streak on my Apple Watch Ultra 2 when it’s battery died unexpectedly. I have unpaired and repaired several times with no success. The only reason I upgraded to an ultra was for the battery life. Very disappointing.

SOLVED: I did a complete reset of my Apple Watch Ultra 2 and did not restore from a backup.

It is now working fine with reasonable battery drain.

Before this I unsuccessfully had tried: unpairing and repairing with my iPhone, reducing notifications from the iPhone to the apple watch, and disabling double tap (all suggestions offered somewhere in the community).

Your mileage may differ.

Reinstall New

It is not a great experience but the answer is in this thread a few times. I removed my watch install (reset) and added my Ultra 2 back as a full fresh install. NOT from backup.

This means you will lose your watch faces and need to reset your payment forms in the wallet among other permission items. Not ideal but instantly battery life is strong like bull!

Apple devs, this is on you. No app was causing this as I did not change my app pool. Something is wrong with the code that kills the battery when simply letting the watch update. Not a great look for a $1000 WATCH. My Apple “fan boy” stock has gone down.

It is Watch OS 10.2. It has nothing to do with your watch. My 11 month old 41mm Series 8 SS was doing great last update. Now with the update when i’m not wearing the watch the battery drains a lot during standby. Usually when i go to bed and wake up my watch is at minimum in the high 80’s, but now im waking up to high to mid 70’s. It caught me off guard and i noticed it immediately. It typically only drains like that when i accidentally cover the sensor with the band since i take off my watch every night, it uses the heart rate sensor all night but i know for a fact that’s not the case this time around because i make sure the sensor isnt covered.

I had to remove some of the apps from the watch (which should not have to do) I unpaired and paired again. Same. Then I turn off and on several times. The battery seems to be ok. But Why should we have to remove apps after their update?

Then today I had to turn off and on because it kept loading old emails to the watch. I would delete, get a new mail and when I looked at it, all the old ones popped up

APPLE needs to make this right. Spend allot of money with them and their reps have no clue

Hi. I had the same issue as you with 10.2. My ultra 2 is only 2 weeks old. I only got a day and half battery life max if I was lucky. My series 8 lasted longer on a bad day.

What fixed it for me was completely resetting the watch and erase all content and settings and just setting it up as a new watch instead from a back up. Now I get easily 3 days. Only pain was doing all the watch faces all over again but it was worth it.

Give it a try. Can’t hurt. If you already have done that just take it back to Apple and demand a replacement.

Just adding that I am experiencing the very same issue but with the Apple Watch Ultra. WatchOS 10 impacted the battery life a bit, but 10.2 DESTROYED the battery life. I charge to 100% and it hardly last 6 or maybe 7 hours, rendering it almost useless really. I have tried restarting both the Watch and iPhone and no change. Trying to contact support, but the watch battery was so low we couldn't even do diagnostics :-(