Apple Watch battery draining fast

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

Posted on Jan 11, 2024 10:35 AM

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Posted on Apr 12, 2024 6:14 PM

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.

173 replies

Apr 18, 2024 11:49 AM in response to bradfrombracknell

Same exact thing happened to me starting April 11th. Same watch with the same settings but if I look at the battery app you can see the steep downward line showing the draining at a very fast rate. I even went to the Apple Store and they did some diagnostics and said there was nothing wrong with the battery itself. She suggested turning off background app refresh and turning the watch off and back on. I had already done the latter, and (reluctantly) did the former (i.e., turned off background app refresh) since I had never had a battery problem even with background app refresh turned on. Anyway, none of this has helped.


I should mention that the battery drain started happening before the most recent Watch OS update. I've since installed the new update and it has not changed anything for the better (although it is not necessarily any worse).

Anyone know of the reason for the problem and the fix?

Apr 20, 2024 2:55 PM in response to chongey

I think there is a clue there. This was the same case with my Apple Watch Series 9 in my wife’s Apple Watch Series 3. My Settings had automatic software updates and Hertz did not and she has not had this problem at all. This is one more reason why I think the battery draining problem has to do with the automatic software updates and any files that downloads onto your devices.

May 25, 2024 5:08 PM in response to Mumof2g

This happened to me a couple months ago too. It was after an update. I reset my watch to factory and that seemed to fix it. Now today, I’m traveling and it’s just a little after 2pm and I got an alert that it’s at 10%! I had to put it in low power mode. Great. I think there was an update about a week ago. I agree that customers shouldn’t have to troubleshoot and be expected to reset their device after every update. It’s ridiculous!

Jun 14, 2024 7:03 AM in response to Jeff Donald

Sorry that is not quite right. Mine has been “stabilising” for a week after it unexpectedly started to malfunction. After waiting for three days to correct itself, I undertook a factory reset. As I was away on holiday I didn’t try anything else but simply recharged it as the battery power diminished.


I have just returned from holiday and after a further factory reset, unpairing the watch and even removing the app, I have left it for a further two and a half day days, after the initial 5 day “stabilisation” and it is worse. It is undoubtably a problem as Apple have asked me to return my out of guarantee Watch for a replacement.


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Apple Watch battery draining fast

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