Apple Watch battery draining fast

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.

I did the reset a few days ago and so far the issue seems to have been resolved. Also noticed a few other glitches have been ironed out such as the calendar incorrectly showing the wrong (previous) colour. Fingers crossed…

Ok for clarity, are you talking about a full reset? Then setup the watch as new? Or a forced restart where you hold the crown and button till it shuts off and eventually restarts after holding it long enough? I’ve done both of these things on my Ultra 2 and iPhone numerous times and neither has worked any of those times. So, what has been the difference for all of these other successful resets? I’ve also turned off auto updates, notifications, anything that seems unnecessary to my typical uses, which is really using the timer for weightlifting sets, forwarding through songs on music, and just looking at the time. There’s never more than 2 or 3 apps open at a time and the battery is dead in 8/9 hours. I’ve been wearing it through my workouts and putting it back on charge. Used to get 3 or 4 days between charges.

Where’s the typical Apple tech specialist chiming in? Someone with actual knowledge of what’s going on? They usually pop in to the larger threads to help. And nothing but crickets on their end now 🦗🦗🦗🦗

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)

Resetting the watch ios, or the phone ios?

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 bought an Apple Watch 9 about 3 months ago. Charged it to full overnight, at 4% 6 hours later and I haven’t done anything on it

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.

Since doing the erase option but keeping the watch paired to the iPhone I can confirm that it does seem to have fixed the issue. Battery use is back to normal.

mine was purchased on January 20, 2024 and two days ago it started draining 10 percent every hour. Before that it was draining faster than usual as well, but would at least last most of 12 hours. What needs to be done to fix this?

how do you do this?

I’m having the same problem with my S7 (12 months only and 90% battery health). Started right around when I updated OS to 10.4. Apple support insists it’s a “usage” problem despite no notable changes to my usage. Used to get ~30 hours, now maybe 12. Unless fully charged before bed it dies overnight. So much for a sleep tracker…

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.