Apple Watch battery draining fast after watchOS 11 Update

With the last update, now my watch battery lasts another hour (7 hours instead of 6). Also, my watch no longer gets severely hot like it has been whenever I charge it since the OS 11 update.

Since the 11 update, I also cannot change the brightness on my watch. I move the slider and it has no effect. My display also periodically twitches, so I have trouble changing any alarms.

I turned off most of my notifications. (Already tried all resets.)

Maylandy, yours was a helpful comment. Unfortunately I've reached my "likes" limit (what???) In any case, this whole thread is borderline scary. I have a 6; my wife a 5. I've been suggesting she upgrade to a 10, but now I wonder. The 5 will not update beyond ios 10.x, so that one has no battery problem even though its older than mine.

Hi guys,

Same here. My Watch 7 CE is draining super fast after upgrading to iOS 18 (even 18.1). Wrist detection is also completely off and keeps locking every time so I had to disable it.

Of course month after warranty.... Sweet.

Restarts / reattaching did not solve the issue. Disabling Live activities or picture sync neither.

What now?

Leave it finish its updates which seem to progress long after they look like they’re finished. Mine took the whole day and ran my ultra to 5% in 6 hours. Back to normal today - I hope! Not sure why Apple don’t declare this as part of their upgrade process.

It looks like you need to keep your 10.nn if possible, until the final 11.nn bugs are out. It does appear that my series 6 is slightly better with 11.1 than it was with 11.01. My wife's series 5--which actually is displaying an end-of-life warning under battery health--is lasting longer than my series 6. Hers shows capacity down to 77% from new; mine is 93% from new. The series 5 apparently is not compatible with the iOS 11.nn versions.

Timing is everything. I had almost convinced her to trade up to a series 10.

Two days ago I installed the latest watchOS 11.1 update and the battery life on my Ultra 2 remained stable.

Unpairing and re-pairing, water watchOS 11.0.1 restored the battery life to normal and the latest watchOS update did not change that. 45hours without charging, 44% battery life left, average use 1.2% per hour, 60min recorded workouts.

Live Activities are still disabled.

Wife S5; me S6 (wife got me one because she liked hers...ordinarily, I have the older version of any tech in the house.) Anyway, the S5 won't update beyond iOS 10.nn, and she has no problem with it running down rapidly. My S6 suffered the 11.0 and 11.01 rapid battery drain. It seems to be doing better a couple days after 11.1 was installed. I shut down and restarted a couple times. I leave it on a charger overnight, and it charges to 80%, as that's the new system, I'm told, to maximize battery life. Yesterday, it was still at 44% at 11pm, so it's doing much better. Fingers crossed.

Same problem here. It’s not to do with age of the watch though as mine is series 9 and was perfect before this update. Now I put it on the charger and it’s draining as fast as it’s charging! The charge percentage sometimes goes down when the watch is on the charger. I found if I turned the watch and the phone off and on again it seems to resolve for the day… but happens again the next day. Very odd!

It’s getting worse. Tried unpair and repair. Watch is going to drain in two hours and I can’t charge it as it’s draining faster than it can charge. I’ll be heading up to the Apple Store as it’s actually unusable now. Need a fix asap!

Hey, Small_violin. What happened at the Apple store? Any new information? Did they fix it? This watch battery problem is starting to resemble the stories of Tesla EVs spontaneously combusting (we keep hearing about them but never a definitive cause or how an owner could have prevented them!)

My Series 6 seems to have settled down after 11.1 and restarting once a day for a few days after that update. I put in on the charger overnight, usually take off the charger between 7 and 8 am, and the charge is at 80%, the new standard, as I read about it. Most of my days include 45 minutes on a treadmill with the watch recording an "indoor walk." End of day around 11pm or so, it's showing between 36% and 44% charge left, when it goes on the charger. I used to put it on the charger while I'm showering after the treadmill, but to better test the battery life, for the last few weeks, I've skipped that extra 25-minute charging session. So, it's going 15-16 hours daily use between charges. I don't sleep with the watch on.

One thing I may do differently from most is I have Passcode and wrist detection turned OFF. I was one of those people with the phantom "too many wrong passcodes, try again in 2 hours" or such, after carrying the watch in my pocket during yard mowing or pushing a cart at the supermarket. I don't use Apple Pay, and I don't leave my watch anywhere outside my home, and frankly, the watch is far more convenient to me without having to enter a passcode 3 or 4 times a day. This may or may not affect battery life, but I thought I'd mention it.

My wife is still undecided on moving from her Series 5 to a new Series 10 (she's been thinking about upgrading since Series 9 first came out!)

I have Apple watch series 9 after this update I am now having to charge my watch twice a day. Prior to this I could go almost 48 hours with charging once. Took to Apple store, they said there were no reported issues with battery life. Said my battery is fine. Suggested I unpair my watch and set up as new. I did this and the battery life is even worse. Took all apps off my watch, background refresh. Turned off always on. Disappointed to find many people complaining about the issue and the issue still persists.

Series 6. iOS 11.01 started the problem for me. Rapid battery discharge and barely made it to the end of the day. I kept a charger on my desk to be able to charge during the day. Then came iOS 11.1 (a .1 update is bigger and more important than a .01 update). Initially after that the battery charged to 80% overnight, explained in a message on the watch as a battery life extender. However, the watch is now back to 100% charge overnight. I don't know why. Battery health says I'm at 93% of original battery capacity.

Also, after 11.1 installation, at end of day (7am to 11 pm typical), the remaining battery life is highly variable, from as low as 15% to as high as 40%. I don't play music on my phone. I have the Modular watchface. From there, I do look at text messages (but use the phone to reply). I look at the weather forecast. A few times a day, I check exercise rings. For 45 minutes or so, I switch to the Activity watchface and run the Indoor Walk app while on the treadmill. I have the Passcode function turned off. My daily life is consistent (and boring) activity, so why my battery discharge is so variable is a mystery, as is why the watch was charging to 80% and now back to 100%

A question for all who have posted your battery issue here: Have you told your story outside of this limited venue? I'm not a Facebook, X, Instagram or other social media user, but I'll bet a lot of you are. So far there are 8 pages of complaints and observations here, but it seems we're "preaching to the choir." Everyone here already has an Apple watch. Posting problems like this elsewhere will serve as a warning to those who don't have one but might be considering one as a gift. If you read that there is a charging problem that has been unsolved for months and months, you might think twice about buying one. What's more, the Apple execs looking for their annual million-dollar bonuses might decide this really needs to be fixed. Just my thoughts.

BTW, the history I've seen is version 11.0 must have had bugs. Version 11.01 may have fixed them but introduced a battery charge problem. Version 11.1 was intended to fix it and did for some but not others. Now I'm on 11.2, and while a full charge seems to bounce back and forth between 80% and 100%, daily charge is lasting through the day, typically 7am to 11pm. Notes. I have Passcode turned off (and btw, the watch is way less trouble without passcode for me). I've also turned off most apps that I never use. I do an "indoor workout" (1 hour on the treadmill) pretty much every day, and I use the watch to find my iPhone once or twice a day, and I use the timer maybe every other day. Battery "health" for my series 6 is 93%, and the Last Charge was to the Optimized Limit of 80%.

I did unpair my Apple Watch Ultra 2 after the watchOS 11.0.1, and the battery life went back to normal after that.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Yes