My Apple Watch has started losing battery so fast on its own even when I don’t raise my wrist or use it. I left the house with 99% and after just 2 hours it had reached 32%! I tried uninstalling most apps and turning off the notifications but it still drains the same amount, what else can be done?
Apple Watch SE, watchOS 10
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.
Yes. The only thing that really works is to erase, unpair then pair again.
Troublesome but the only method that works.
I had the same issue, only thing that worked for me was unpairing the watch from my phone and retrying it. I have been having issues all day with the battery draining from 100% to 0% in 3 hours and am told by support that this will solve the issue. Currently have 2 minutes remaining of the update so fingers crossed this works but I recommend unpairing the watch and repairing
I bought the Apple Watch 9 three days ago and on the second day the battery drained from 100% to 10% in 4 hours. The updates got stuck in the preparation phase. Last night I did a hard reset, updated to version 10.4 and today everything is working fine.
Just to confirm my earlier post: updating to 10.4 has cured the problem, I'm at 86% after 5 hours.
I have had an Ultra for 9 months and had the same problem a few days ago. Yesterday it seemed to have trouble identifying an update. Then I read this thread (thanks) and tried unpairing and re-pairing, and update to watchOS 10.4 happened. Then today everything is fine. 100 % this morning and full day of use and now 12 hours later 70%.
I took a chance and installed the last update. I mean, what could it hurt, it was basically unusable or reliable after the April update. So far, it’s behaving, and I’ve not had a drained battery since. (Crossing fingers).
You’re not giving the Watch enough time. It’s takes the Watch and iPhone 24 to 72 hours after an update and/or pairing to stabilize. There are many background processes that need to complete before battery usage returns to normal levels.
What worked for me:
Unsuccessful Attempt 1: Turned off automatic updates and background app refresh and force restarted (simultaneously holding side button and dial until apple logo appeared)
The battery drained to near zero and I recharged to 100%
Successful Attempt 2: I immediately force restarted after taking the watch off the charger at 100% and it has been rock solid for 4.5 hours right now - only 10% battery drain with light usage which has been typical. I did not unpair or do anything at all with my iPhone 14 Pro. Just those 2 attempts. Hope this helps you!
I think I fixed the problem on my watch. 🤞
Just based on the fact that so many of us here started having problems on or about April 10, which is essentially the day/night before (or the day of) that Apple dropped its watchOS 10.4 update, I am assumed that this is related to the issue that a few folks noticed about turning off automatic updates of the WatchOS through the settings.
I also looked at General/Storage for any update files (but didn’t find any).
I was still having issues so finally I simply erased the watch and rebuilt from scratch and now I’m not having any problems.
It's erase your Apple Watch. But the option that leaves it paired with your iPhone and retains the cellular plan if you have one (second option in this link). Unpair and erase Apple Watch – Apple Support (UK)
Must be due to a botched update if there's this many of us with the issue suddenly. I've factory reset and restored my series 9 earlier today and, so far, the drain issue seems to be fixed. Give it a try.
So I put my watch back on the charger since it was close to dying again for the 3rd time within a day. I went on my phone to the watch app>general>storage and deleted the watch os update. This resolved the preparing issue I was facing then I went to the software update in the watch app and installed the update, now it looks like my watch is back to a proper battery drain. Try it and see
Hey, all, have a series 9, 2 mos old, fully updated and started to lose battery dramatically every day for a week and a half. Just did a full reset and everything is back to normal. No more draining halfway through the day. I’m not sure anyone who has done this has restored from a back up, but I set it up as a new watch just to make sure there were no transferred bugs. All good here! Hope that helps.
For all those who are facing battery drain issue post 10.4 update on their apple watch I have a fix for you
got to settings > Go to passcodes > Turn of wrist detection it will get your watch back to its normal battery function.
I don't know how this thing started happening all of a sudden do give it a try
I was having the same problem. I turned my iWatch off for about 30 seconds then started it again. I charged it to 100% and I haven't had any problems since. Good luck!
Apple Watch battery draining fast
