Apple Watch battery draining fast

I’m having the same issue on my series 9. I’ve been on 10.4 and since April 11, my watch battery has been continuously draining at minimally 1% every 2-3 min. I just turned off automatic updates and background app refresh, restarted, and it’s still plummeting at the same rate. I’m writing this after charging my battery to 100% before sleeping with my watch in sleep mode and having no other activity on my watch. There’s a ghost in the machine for sure…

This is my first Apple Watch, 2-3-24. I purchased mainly for the sleep tracking & Health, and have occasionally used Siri to text. That’s it! My charging schedule has been to charge while I’m winding down for bedtime, and it’s fully charged as I go to sleep. Battery has never been an issue until this past week, suddenly 3x I have been warned of low battery before I could get home. Once prelunch, yesterday in the early evening, and this morning after onky the night’s sleep, and making a pot of coffee and reading. I’ve done nothing different, and as a still learning owner, very frustrated. (The only other issue is it occasionally vibrating while I’m asleep, waking me up, which I got the thing to help me document my sleep issues, not cause more).

My ultra 2 since the update it finally successfully completed 2 days ago does in hours. Usually last me 3-4 days. Whatever happened in that update screwed us all. Also to this day I don’t understand why it has such a hard time updating. I’ll get failed to update prompts for weeks sometime. Other times I won’t even know it’s updated. So inconsistent.

Any official word from Apple on how to fix this? I just had an absolutely useless chat with Apple support, unbelievably embarrassing how they have no idea what’s going on. Just tips on how to optimize battery life. Seriously Apple!

Erase? Like reset the watch to factory settings? I’ll just put it away until apple issues a fix. I almost exclusively use it solely as a timer for exercise sets anyway lol. The Ultra 2 is my first Apple Watch and I’m as impressed by it as I expected to be with the original however long ago that was. I had hoped I’d be able to leave my phone at home situationally but the functionality isn’t comparable and it has fallen well short of that plan. Sad really.

I’m down 6% in 30 minutes after doing this twice. At that rate it’s 8 hours to die rather than minimum 3 days prior. Not entirely sure it’s the lock of a fix you’re convinced it is. Happy yours works though. Agree that Apple needs to do better. Every update struggles to go through and then there’s often something to battle through after. Kind of a joke Apple.

I was already on all the latest updates before this started. Since then I’ve experienced it happening intermittently. So I suspect there’s something else going on here that’s periodically causing the burn through. Incidentally, my watch’s battery health is now 98% after, what, four months?! I’m wondering if that has been caused by excessive battery drain and associated heat?…

This started happening to me before 10.4. After 10.4 it stopped for a few days/weeks. But it’s returned. The difference is night and day.

Normal day: 100% at 7 am and 56% at 10 pm bed time.

With this issue: 100% at 7 and out of battery around 6 pm.

No different apps. Less activity as less workouts etc. No changes to background settings. Hard reboot may fix but it returns. Also not a 10.4 issue. 10.3 maybe?

New watch as of October. Wife got same watch at same time having similar issues.

This is happening to me and my husband as well with both of our watches. We fully charge them at night and within 4 hours yesterday I was down to 70% battery and by 8-10 hours I was down to just 20%. The watch fully died by dinner time, just 12-13 hours into usage and I was sitting at a desk all day, not logging anything on my watch like workouts or anything. I’ve disabled most background processes, I’m constantly connected to WiFi, and I don’t have the screen permanently turned on. This seemed to just start happening in the last week or two, it’s super frustrating. We can’t even finish a simple walk or hike in town without them dying on us part way through our workout. What’s the deal?

I had a series 8 Apple Watch for the past couple of years and its battery would last day and night for a few days. I upgraded to the series 9 just around two months ago. Suddenly, in the last several weeks, I’ve noticed that I have to charge it every day. I have not increased usage and have even attempted leaving it on Theatre mode, so the screen does not light up at all unless you tap it. Nothing has helped. I haven’t seen any comment that dates a solution yet.

I am glad that worked for you but it is not the fix for all of us. My watch and phone are up to date and I have restarted both devices multiple times. Still draining the battery. There is a bug in the last watch update and it needs to be addressed by Apple. Hopefully soon.

I feel the same way - I started shopping Garmin as a gift for my husband because we’ve been having so many issues lately with our Apple Watches. We need them to be reliable when we are out of the house and if it’s not going to stay charged long enough for us to complete our 3 mile hike, why bother wearing it? 🤦🏻‍♀️

I just got done talking with support. They said it’s not the new update as updates only help not hinder, but they also couldn’t help me with diagnostic either. 🤷🏼‍♀️ it’s definitely the update and they’re not going to admit it.

It seems to happen intermittently. Somehow something seems to suddenly send it into burning through the battery. Last night I noticed that the watch was taking way longer to charge and felt hot. I’ve had a cell plan with it since I purchased it last autumn so I don’t think it’s that. I’m still worried this will be damaging the battery and I hope Apple is able to resolve it soon.

I disagree with this take mainly because my watch has actually died when the battery was showing “0%” a few days ago with this problem. I think others have had the same issue. Plus the watch is running really hot, which tells me that there is some process that is working in the background.

I think the issue is that the watch keeps trying to update the software, but there is a problem with the software update so the processor is continually churning in the background.