Apple Watch 11 is charging slowly and requires a restart

Question

Apple Watch 11 is charging slowly and requires a restart

My 2-month-old Apple Watch 11 46mm charges slowly (20-25% in an hour). If I power it off/on it returns to charging normally (80-100% in an hour). This behavior began about a week ago. I bought it in early Nov and had to replace it in early Dec when it exhibited the same behavior. At that time Apple support advised me to take it in for repair after reviewing the activity log and performing some other remote actions. Best Buy merely exchanged the watch (good for them!) and everything was fine until a few days ago when the watch began acting up again. AI (Claude) reports no known issues of this nature and advised the restart fix, which worked but only for a few days. I’m not too keen on having to restart my watch every couple of days, nor have I ever had to do it before with earlier watch versions. If anyone has some info about this as a known or emerging problem, I’d love to hear about it. The behavior suggests maybe a SW issue, but then again …

PS. As a point of reference, I charged watch tonight for about an hour and it went from 41% to 63%. I restarted it about 20 minutes ago and put it back on the charger and it is now past 90%. So, barely 20% in an hour, then over 30% in around 15 minutes.

PPS. I’m using the original cable and a 20W Apple USB-C charger. No 3rd party components. Everything is clean.

Posted on Feb 3, 2026 7:27 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Ingo2711

Level 10

80,397 points

Feb 4, 2026 1:01 AM in response to Iwanttousemyownname

To rule out a software issue inside your backup data, erase the watch and pair it again, setting it up as a new device. You will only lose your created Watch faces and may have to activate the cards in your Wallet app again.

Then test the fast charging feature again.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Ingo2711

Level 10

80,397 points

Feb 4, 2026 1:16 PM in response to Iwanttousemyownname

My Apple Watch Ultra 2 stopped fast charging a couple of days ago and a force restart fixed it again.

If the force restart does not help, setting the watch up as a new device would have been the next step, to rule out a software issue caused by the data created during the use of the watch.

If this does not help either, you can let Apple Techs know about this issue by using the Feedback link:

Feedback - Apple Watch - Apple

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Answer 3

Feb 4, 2026 5:52 AM in response to Ingo2711

Are you suggesting the bug is in the backup data? This approach could resolve the issue but keep in mind it does not pop up immediately. As a new watch, I had no trouble for about a month with the first watch and about 2 months with the second. With the restart, the problem didn’t crop up again for 2-3 days. So a reset could solve it maybe even for a month or two, which is better than a restart every couple of days, but still suboptimal. I never encountered this on previous watches (versions 3 and 8 I think).

What I was hoping is that someone else has encountered this or that there was an open issue with Apple related to the problem.

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