Apple Watch Battery Drain after updating to 10.5

Please follow this path,

iPhone > Watch app > App Store > Automatic Downloads > switch off App Downloads, App Updates and In-App Content.

When a third party releases a poor update and the Watch automatically installs it at night, performance including battery consumption can change dramatically and seemingly overnight.

Let’s give that a try for a week or two and see if consumption improves etc.

Unfortunately, lithium batteries do not age like most other batteries, including lead-acid batteries (car batteries) which gradually lose capacity over time. Lithium ion batteries lose very little of their capacity until the end, then it’s like falling off a cliff. In just a few months the batteries lose a significant portion of their capacity that they cannot power sophisticated electronics.

Here’s the life cycle of 5 different lithium ion batteries and they all have the characteristic of significant loss of capacity at the end of their lifetime.

Apple offers remote diagnostics, but I’m not sure Apple Watches can be diagnosed over the phone or internet. Apple Retail Stores can properly diagnose Apple Watches. If you’re in the US please call 1-800-MY-APPLE or outside the US, consult the support article below.

Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

Do a forced restart of your Apple Watch. If you’re unfamiliar with how to do a forced restart please review the Apple Support article I linked below. After the forced restart the battery usage should return to former levels in 24 to 72 hours. After an update the Watch performs indexing and syncing of apps and data in the background and this can consume a lot of battery power.

If high battery usage persists after 72 hours please unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone, restart both devices and then pair them again.

If your Apple Watch is stuck on the Apple logo - Apple Support

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

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

You’re welcome! I hope you have a great day.

Did you wait 72 hours for the forced restart to work? If it failed, did you unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone? Please reread my post and follow the instructions I posted.

Have you replaced the battery in your Series 5 yet? I noticed when maximum capacity got to around 75% the watch really struggled lasting a full day unless I turned many useful features off.

lmckillo wrote:

I’ve tried pairing , deleting the app, forced reset , complete reset . I’ve tried it all and still the battery drains extremely fast. Frustrating as I’d get two days out of my series 4 watch

I never got 2 days out of my Series 4, which I am wearing now. I do get a full day, with an hour of either walk or cycling exercise each day.

When I upgraded to watchOS 10.5 the first 24 hours had high battery usage. I power cycled twice, and did one middle of the day recharge.

After 24 hours, my Series 4 was back to normal.

If you have 3rd party apps and complications, they could be an issue.

If you have a lot of contacts that need to be synced, that could be an issue.

Try Apple Watch iPhone App > General > Reset > Reset Sync Data

The MacObserver.com

How To Fix WatchOS 10.3 Battery Drain Issue on Apple Watch

https://www.macobserver.com/tips/how-to/fix-apple-watch-battery-drain-issue-after-watchos-10-3-update/

Also see:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250007078

For some steps that are not in the MacObserver article.

lmckillo wrote:

... I’d get two days out of my series 4 watch

You should not try to run your Series 4 for 2 days before charging. Chances are you are taking your battery dangerously low, which is a very good way to destroy a Li-Ion battery.

Li-Ion batteries DO NOT like being drained to zero, or near zero.

In an emergency, sure, put the Apple Watch in Low Power mode, and stretch it out until you can get to a charger.

But it is good practice to recharge your Series 4 every night while you are sleeping.

Thank you, Jeff Donald! My AW9 suddenly went from lasting crazy long hours to losing power rapidly. I didn't notice until it told me at 10%. By the time I started charging, it was down to 7% and wasn't increasing. After I did the forced restart and unpair-pairing, it's charging normally, and I'll keep a close "watch" over it the next 72 hours. Thanks for taking the time and energy to help people like me! Much respect to you!!!

AW9 updated to 10.5 and then extreme battery drain. On March 28th, I followed Jeff Donald's excellent advice (reset, unpair/pair), and the battery drain issue was resolved. (Thank you again, Jeff!)

Since then I've noticed two changes:

1) the battery drains more quickly than before 10.5 (but nothing crazy), so I'm going to keep checking that;

2) FIND MY has become erratic on the AW. Now when I leave my workplace (where I leave an MBAir), Find My "Notice" (often audio on Airpods Pro2) sometimes (not always) tells me I've left two items behind in my workplace. Nope, only the MBA, but it seems to include my AW, which is on my wrist. My AW and iPhone have both been in use for at least a few minutes before this, so I wonder if the Find My functions were altered with the 10.5 update.

I don't know what Apple is going to do, but lots of Apple Watch owners are experiencing problems because of (not just after...) the 10.5 update, so Apple needs to respond and make this right ASAP.

ok since I had already done a forced restart that didn't work, I went ahead and unpaired my apple watch from the iPhone and re-paired it this morning. Now it has even less of a charge than before. I usually get up around 5:30 am, I put on my watch within 15 min. and it lasted until just before I was going to go to bed around 8:30 ish at night. Recently I have been having to put it back on the charger to do low power around 6:30 pm. Today I got up around 7 am and by 4pm, I had to put it on low power with 7% left and by 5:30pm it was dead and I had to put it on the charger. This is not working. It used to last at least 14 hours and now it lasted only 9 hours today before having 7% left. Please fix this issue. I followed your instructions and it did not work. Thank you!

You didn’t wait up to 72 hours to give your watch and iPhone the time it needs to finish its low level functions, syncing, indexing etc. The Watches don’t have near the processing power of an iPhone. It takes a little time.

I have an newish SE2 I got in February. Had wonderful battery life until recently. I unpaired and restarted and everything suggested here. Then last night i got a weird storage is full message. Investigated and had to do with photo sync. Lowered to limit of 25 and let it sync and then turned off all syncing related to photos. Rebooted and honestly seems a lot better. Results may vary.

Well here we go again. It’s getting to the stage now where I dread applewatch updates. I’m another user who is unable to keep my watch charged for more than 16 hours, thanks to the latest update.

I’ve paired and unpaired my series 5 watch, straight from when it was 100% and just doing that has drained it to 74% so will have charge it yet again later in the day. Getting very tired of having to perform additional resets etc in order to try and maintain charge, if it works at all that is. Apple really need to address this, but it seems they just aren’t.