Apple Watch Battery Draining suddenly after Software Update

I had exactly this issue yesterday and found a fix! I woke up with my phone having automatically updated to iOS 17.4.1 and then my watch battery started draining approx 4 times faster than usual. Tried to update watch OS to 10.4 and it kept getting stuck on “preparing”.

I read online that issue could be fixed by updating your iPhone through iTunes on Mac/PC. I did this even though my phone said it was running iOS 17.4.1-it still installed an update on my phone once connected to iTunes. Then I update my Apple Watch, it took around 40 minutes so just leave it do its thing. Battery drain is fixed!! Hope this helps

what I’ve learned so far…

Updating iPhone to 17.4.1 prompted an auto update of the watch to 10.4. That got stuck at around 2/3 into “preparing”, and caused the watch battery to drain quickly. At that point I wasn’t even aware that my watch was trying to install an update.

After visiting this thread I used the workaround of disabling the auto-update function on the watch app on iPhone and deleting the pending 10.4 from my watch.

Yesterday I contacted Apple, who ran some diagnostics on my watch and told me the problem was with poor communication between watch and phone. They talked me through uncoupling the watch and phone, reconnecting them, and then installing the 10.4 update on the watch.

My watch and phone are both now running on up to date software, and (so far) the battery life of my watch seems normal. Apple gave me a link to use so I can pick up the support again if I encounter any problems.

If you have AppleCare for your watch I recommend contacting Apple for help. They did a cool screen-sharing thing on my phone to show me what to do whilst they talked to me.

Hope that helps anyone still having problems.

** Work Around Suggestion **

Same issues here. First, watch battery dying w/in several hours, then software update not completing (stuck Preparing). All started today, after my phone updated last night. Checked the Battery on my watch and it shot to 100% the moment 17.4.1 installed on my phone. The issues are 100% related to the update.

First I powered off both devices entirely for 5 minutes to clear any connections & cache. Then I powered them both back on. I temporarily disabled bluetooth on my Phone to stop any communications between the two. I then temporarily disabled the "Auto" software update from the phone: Open the Watch App > General > Software Update > Automatic Updates > toggle OFF. Next I deleted the Update from my Watch - On Apple Watch, go to Settings > General Storage > scroll down and touch watchOS 10.4 > Delete. After this, bluetooth on the phone can be enabled again. The update should not auto-anything since that's been disabled. The two won't be on the same OS build but at least the watch stays charged for more than a few hours!

My watch is charging normally again and the phone should not update it automatically, so I'm going to wait a week or two and try again. While isn't a fix, it's a relevant work around to get someone through a 10K this weekend. If the issue doesn't resolve itself in a week or two, give it a few more weeks and an entirely different update will be released.

I got my watch to update to 10.4 and that seems to have solved the problem. sounds like most people are having an issue with a 10.4 update on the watch...if you don’t match the update on the watch to the update on the phone the delta between those two causes the rapid loss of battery on the watch.

What is required is a forced restart of your Apple Watch. A forced restart is more than just turning your Watch off and on. Observe the battery usage for the next 24 to 72 hours. If there is no improvement you’ll need to unpair the Watch from your iPhone, force restart the Watch and the iPhone and lastly pair the two devices. Battery usage will return to normal in 24 to 72 hours.

Force restart Apple Watch - Apple Support

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Experienced the same issue as everyone else here.

Apple Watch SE charged before bed, dead in the morning. Charged to 80%, put it back on, looked at it mid-afternoon, dead.

I WAS ABLE TO FIX IT BY charging the watch to at least 50% and then while still on the charger, upgrading it to Watch OS 10.4 (it was previously on 10.3). The update took a while to download but did eventually work.

After this, battery performance has returned to normal.

Fixed it! - I noticed that I had this draining issue after trying to update my watch. Even if I stopped the watch update on my phone I think that it was still trying to somehow update and was sucking the battery life out of my watch.

I turned "automatic updates" off in the watch app (on my phone) and then went out for the day. Naturally my watch battery died after about two hours and I had no way to charge it up so was carrying a dead watch around on my wrist for about three hours. When I got home I charged it up again and now it works fine. My advice would be to do the same as I did by turning off automatic updates and letting it die completely. Wait a couple of hours and then charge it up again. Don´t try to update again until Apple releases a fix.

It worked for me!

MINE IS FIXED!!!

I had this same problem and I fixed mine - no problems now. The first thing I did was to turn off the bluetooth on my phone, then close out all the apps on the watch - double tap the crown and swipe the apps off. The next thing was to plug both the phone and the watch into power sources and then to go to the phone and download the WATCH UPDATE. This required switching the bluetooth back on, so I did that and waited. It took a LONG TIME - probably 2 to 3 times as usual - for the update to happen, but I let them both sit on the chargers (the phone was not on a Qi charger but plugged in at the lightning port) and waited. When they were done, everything was fine. No more watch draining too fast. This has been good like this for several days now. I posted here before about it but it seems to have been lost in all the other posts about having the draining problem.

Best of luck!

Sounds like either an update issue with one of the apps you have installed and/or maybe a sync issue on data from iCloud and/or iPhone.

Please unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone and force restart both devices once unpaired.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Force restart Apple Watch - Apple Support

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

Once both devices have restarted from the forced restart, please pair them again.

Set up and pair your Apple Watch with iPhone - Apple Support

Battery performance generally returns to normal in 24 to 72 hours. Apple Watch has a lot of background activity and syncing to perform. Apple Watch generally updates at night while it’s on a charger. Apple Watch may delay certain activities if Watch is not on WiFi and connected to charger.

I generally do a forced restart of the Apple Watch 24 hours after an update or pairing. This stops any software issues that pairing and updating may have caused.

Certain settings previously changed or modified to extended battery capacity may have reset. Please check all your settings to insure they are as you intend them to be.

Sounds like either an update issue with one of the apps you have installed and/or maybe a sync issue on data from iCloud and/or iPhone.

Please unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone and force restart both devices once unpaired.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Force restart Apple Watch - Apple Support

Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

Once both devices have restarted from the forced restart, please pair them again.

Set up and pair your Apple Watch with iPhone - Apple Support

Battery performance generally returns to normal in 24 to 72 hours. Apple Watch has a lot of background activity and syncing to perform. Apple Watch generally updates at night while it’s on a charger. Apple Watch may delay certain activities if Watch is not on WiFi and connected to charger.

I generally do a forced restart of the Apple Watch 24 hours after an update or pairing. This stops any software issues that pairing and updating may have caused.

Certain settings previously changed or modified to extended battery capacity may have reset. Please check all your settings to insure they are as you intend them to be.

I had this problem too however I have just managed to do a SW update on my watch. In the watch app I turned auto update off then on again, after that preparing began advancing and then completed seccessfully. Could just be Apple fixed a problem with the Watch update. I will let you know if this resolves the battery drain problem

My problem was finally solved by starting the 10.4 update from the watch instead of the iPhone. For some reason when I started it from the iPhone it got stuck at preparing and wouldn’t progress. Now 10 hours after installing the update and getting a 100% charge my phone is still at 90% battery.

I had exactly the same problem:

Watch stuck on Preparing, trying to update to 10.4, extreme battery drain iPhone on 17.4.1.

I've tried erasing the update file and downloading it again, unpairing and factory resetting the watch - nothing has helped.

I suspect that proceeding with update might be time relevant.

The issue solved by itself when I've tried to update the watch (so I've placed it on the charger with about 80% battery) at around 1am of my local (CEST) time. Then after few minutes of reading this forum I've noticed the watch updated successfully. I suspect that this update might actually worked because it entered a kind of "update over night" mode.

The battery drain seems to be back to normal after update. If it's not I'll post an update tomorrow :).

Alternatively I think these answers are most valuable among all:

Apple Watch Battery Draining suddenly aft… - Apple Community

Apple Watch Battery Draining suddenly aft… - Apple Community

I was just on the phone with Apple today because my watch has been going from fully charged to dead in less than eight hours and getting worse since the update. Putting it on low battery power doesn't help. I added cell service to see if that would help but it didn't. My apple care warranty expires in five days (5/21/24) so I called today hoping for a replacement.

After going through all the steps to diagnose the problem, the phone rep who was actually a delightful young lady, tells me that because the battery diagnostic test showed no problems, my watch wasn't eligible for replacement. She elaborated further saying that it was likely a 'software' issue which isn't covered under the warranty.

Then miraculously as our conversation is about to end, the rep tells me it looks like there is a software update I need to make. With this update, I seem to be losing about 3.7 percent of battery power each hour vs the 10-20 percent per hours I was losing after that last update. I still think that is unacceptable, but this clearly proved it's a software issue. Now I am at the mercy of Apple to not turn my watch into an expensive paperweight.

Anyway...that's my experience.

Someone on here said to toggle off “background app refresh” on the Apple Watch app. My watch is holding a charge. Thank you to whomever that was!