Apple Watch battery draining fast

If the battery drains too fast after an update, see all the replies to:

has anyone had battery issues with the 10… - Apple Community

Battery Drain since watchos 7.4 - Apple Community

WatchOS 7.5 battery drain - Apple Community

FWIW, in some cases, unpairing the watch, completely erasing it, then pairing and restoring the backup will resolve the battery draining issue after an update. (Simply unpairing and pairing again may not work.)

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Also, some people have found that simply waiting a few days after an update resolves the battery draining problem.

Also see:

Apple Watch battery drain - the ultimate … - Apple Community

I ended doing the Apple Support chat and then the phone call BUT my watch seems back to normal and I was finally able to finish the watch update. Some of the things they had me do:

1.) Reset the Network Settings on my phone to refresh the wifi

2.) Hard factory reset my phone and my watch (holding the buttons until the apple appears, turning on the watch first so it was awake when the phone turned on)

3.) Open the update screen on both my phone and watch

4.) And sadly just sit and wait

In total it took about 2-2 1/2 hours for the whole thing once I started talking to the support chat and probably 3 or so hours from what I tried before contacting support. But eventually the bar moved after leaving the phone awake on the update screen.

I’ve solved this at the moment by.

Turning off the auto update to the watches software in the watch app

Watch app > General > Software update > Automatic Updates off

Then switching off the phone and restarting and the watch and restarting it.

overnight is used the usual 10-15% battery unlike the night before where it was 100% drained. So it looks like it’s the process of updating which is draining it

I’ve also logged this with Apple support and gave them this thread to check to see it wasn’t just me.

previously I’d done the erasing and re-pairing but had then tried to do the update again.

hopefully they fix the updating bug on the iOS or watch iOS soon

I had the same problem. Four-month-old Series 9 that died mid-afternoon with no apps running to speak of. here is how I fixed it.

1) I went into the Watch App and did the following:

General -> Reset -> Erase Apple Watch Content and Settings

If you have cellular you will be given the option to keep that. Keep the cellular settings.

2) While the watch was doing its thing, I fully shut off my phone (volume and side buttons) and restarted it.

3) Then I "re-paired" the watch (bad pun intended). When I did this, I set it up as a "new" watch (I did not restore it from a backup).

I noticed an improvement immediately and within a day my Series 9 was back to its old (functioning) self. I used it with a golf GPS app over the weekend and it was just fine. Before it would die halfway through the round (which is how I noticed the problem in the first place).

Good luck.

I did the erase and unpair option (keep the cellular plan) and then set it up as a new watch. It has been a few days and so far so good. Yesterday I started with 100% at 6:30 AM and 19 hours later I was at 34%

100% 6:31 AM

84% 11:11 AM (started to worry)

63% 5:30 PM (started looking better)

47% 8:11 PM

34% 12:56 AM (next day)

I was not doing much (e.g. basic apps like timer and various notifications.) but before erasing unpairing and setting up as a "new" watch I could not get through the afternoon.

I will be using a golf GPS app in the next few days. We'll see how that goes.

The watch. I did the erase and unpair option (keep the cellular plan) and then set it up as a new watch. I also shut the phone down completely and restarted it before I repaired the watch. It has been a few days and so far so good.

Yesterday I started with 100% at 6:30 AM and 19 hours later I was at 34%

100% 6:31 AM

84% 11:11 AM (started to worry)

63% 5:30 PM (started looking better)

47% 8:11 PM

34% 12:56 AM (next day)

I was not doing much (e.g. basic apps like timer and various notifications.) but before erasing unpairing and setting up as a "new" watch I could not get through the afternoon.

I will be using a golf GPS app in the next few days. We'll see how that goes.

*** I had this exact problem and this is THE FIX THAT WORKED FOR ME:

1) I unpaired my watch (this makes a backup and then erases the watch)

2) Re-started my iPhone

3) Re-paired my watch (this restores it from the backup)

4) Turned off Automatic App Install in the Watch App (under 'General')

I don't know if this last step was necessary, but I was having constant trouble and now I have none - and the fix is lasting, not one bit of trouble since.

Hi,

So I had the same issue since the last 5 days. Turns out it was an update pending. The problem was that the update was not installing and was stuck at preparing which was probably what was draining the battery. I tried everything from restarts to deleting update file from storage and re installing it, but it was still stuck on preparing. Finally I left the watch on charge for 2 days and wore it sparingly. I also unselected the auto update option so the watch being connected to Wi-Fi and charger ended up completing the ‘preparing update’ mode. Post this it showed install update mode. So now my watch battery is back to normal and running the usual 18-24 hours of my usual wear time. So again let it move from preparing to install now mode and that should fix the problem hopefully.

Will update you all on battery life after the 10.4 update is installed and running on my watch. Hope this helps

epoppleton wrote:

Same here! BS 🍏! “It Just Works” for a very short amount of time.

Fix this already, please.

Apple does not read this user-to-user technical support forum for feedback.

But you can send Apple feedback via:

Feedback - Watch - Apple

It will take 24-48 hours for the new operating system to finish it house keeping, as well as resync things it wants from the iPhone.

Power cycle the Apple Watch and your iPhone (at least once, but maybe once or twice a day until the Apple Watch battery consumption returns to normal.

The MacObserver.com

How To Fix WatchOS 10.3 Battery Drain Issue on Apple Watch

https://www.macobserver.com/tips/how-to/fix-apple-watch-battery-drain-issue-after-watchos-10-3-update/

Also see:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250007078

For some steps that are not in the MacObserver article.

iPhone -> “Watch” app -> General -> Reset -> Reset Sync Data

Again it may take a day or two for the rsync’ing of data to settle down.

As a point of reference, my Apple Watch Series 4 with 90% battery health maximum capacity, was back to normal after 24 hours (watchOS 10.5). I did 1 mid-day recharge, and I power cycled my Apple Watch and iPhone twice.

FIXED! OK Apple Watchers! I have been right there with you experiencing staggering battery drain on my Ultra 2 since the Watch OS 10.4 update.  My wife has the exact same watch with very similar setup. We updated both watches at the same time. Her watch did not experience any battery drain issues. Who knows why some of us took such a huge performance hit after this update while others did not?  Considering the vast resources at their disposal, Apple can and should do a better job than this of scrutinizing all updates before release. While community beta testing feedback is certainly valuable, if it is being relied on too heavily, Apple has got to dedicate more resources to taking ownership of every update and every issue it might introduce to us. Enough about that already!  Now for the fix! A couple of posts have mentioned a hard reset fix for this issue. I am extremely relieved to report that it works if done correctly!! First off, make certain that you know how to perform a hard reset on your watch and your iPhone. You have to do both! (Normal power off and on have no effect on this issue. Nor did any number of battery consumption reducing settings changes)  

     On the Ultra 2 watch a hard reset requires pressing the digital crown and the side button simultaneously and holding until the Apple logo appears. On newer iPhones, quickly press and release volume up then volume down  and then press and hold the side button until Apple logo appears. I hard reset the phone first and then hard reset the watch while the phone was starting up. I wanted the phone to be up and running when the watch finished resetting and started searching for the phone. I hard reset both twice back to back. Maybe once would have done it but I am just reporting exactly what I did to get my watch back. I cannot express how frustrated and angry I have been (not without getting my post removed that is) about the battery performance loss on my Apple Watch Ultra 2 after updating to Watch OS 10.4  The watch is the most prized gadget I have ever owned and ever since I purchased it I have been overwhelmed by the technology and innovation that went into it’s design. That is why the hit I took after the update pushed me over the edge. That and the fact that I know Apple can do better. There needs to be a reckoning, perhaps a complete overhaul of the entire update development process. Please Apple: Don’t do this to me again.

I'm running into the version of this where I'm having draining after doing a software update on both my watch and phone. On one of the threads around this issue, I saw somebody who reported fixing it by plugging the phone into your computer, and looking at the phone in Finder (or I guess iTunes on Windows, maybe?). And it'll show that it's running the latest version but there's an update anyways; if you click on that button, it'll do an update on your phone. And that mystery update doesn't change the iOS version number but I think it must contain some change related to this issue anyways, because it's been a week or so since I did this and my watch has been fine ever since. And yes, I am saying to do an OS update on your phone to fix draining on your watch.

Also, FWIW, for a short term workaround before I did the above fix, I found that if I rebooted both my watch and phone, then it solved the draining issue for a little idea. (Maybe half a day, maybe a day and a half.) Just rebooting my watch didn't work, it required rebooting both. So that's consistent with the idea that the problem is on interactions between the phone and the watch, not purely a watch problem.

I'm pretty sure the problem is with whatever software reads the level of the battery, not the actual level of the battery itself. A hard restart (holding both side buttons) and recharging to 100% has worked for me, with the recharge taking only minutes to return to 100%. With so many people experiencing the same problem, you can be sure they're scrambling to release a fix for this in a new release soon. (It's not the age of your watch or the quality of your battery or the apps suddenly draining it. I wouldn't recommend the big erase-your-watch fixes being suggested here.)

I wrote a week ago that I had the same problem. I turned my iWatch OFF, waited 30 seconds and turned it back on, charged it and I haven't had a problem since. A friend of mine said she was having the same problem. I told her to turn it off and back on, recharged. She texted me that it's working now. Sounds simple but it seems to work. Good luck.

I hope this helps someone and isn’t just a coincidence.

Yesterday, I woke up and my watch was dead which was odd since I had pulled it off the charger after 11pm the night before. Normally, it had almost 90% charge left at this time.

I charged the watch back to 100% first, and then saw that there was an update and thought that would fix the battery drain. So, I tried to install it and it got stuck at the “preparing” step and I found myself in this thread looking for a solution.

I tried a factory reset and re-pair and that didn’t work.

I then found the recommendation to delete the download and try again. I also restarted my watch and phone each time I deleted the download. I did that 3 or 4 times and it kept getting stuck at the same point during installation of the download. I had hoped that somehow the battery drain problem would fix itself, but it didn’t. I had other stuff to do so I deleted the download and went about my day.

I tried again, about 6 hours (and over 50% of my battery) later and the update stalled again (after I charged it above 50%). At this point, I decided to turn off automatic updates for my watch (which I’ve always kept on) and then delete the download one last time and restart my watch again.

Since that time, the battery drain has STOPPED.

I don’t have the latest update, but at least my watch will make it through the day now.

My conclusion (and it may be wrong but hopefully not) is that some combination of this particular update plus automatic downloads is the culprit to the battery drain.

Turn off automatic updates, delete the download, restart, and cross your fingers.

Good luck!

You have to reset the watch. My SE watch did the same thing yesterday, then I factory reset it today, and since 11am to now (8:56 pm), I’ve gone from 100% to 75. My watch is also updated to 10.4.