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ios9 upgrade causing battery drain on apple watch

I am using the Apple Watch (42mm) for just about 2 weeks and was initially very impressed with the battery life - I am only using very few notification and absolutely no apps - I got almost 2 days battery life - Yesterday, I upgraded my phone to IOS9 and since observe battery drain on the watch of about 20% per hour without any usage ... presumably, IOS9 is connecting and exchanging data with higher frequency, or things have changed on how the watch connects to the watch, different usage pattern between wifi or bluetooth, regardless, IOS9 on the phone made the watch utterly useless.

Apple Watch 42mm, iOS 9

Posted on Sep 17, 2015 6:50 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 17, 2015 7:01 AM

I upgraded to IOS 9 and do not see that at all


LN

56 replies

Sep 17, 2015 11:22 AM in response to markusfromeaston

Hello markusfromeaston, I have the exact same issue with my watch after the iOS9 upgrade. It has been only 6 hours since a full charge (and nearly no use) of my watch and its battery is dead. My iPhone 5s is also going through battery at least twice as quickly as normal, after the upgrade...but it still has 60% after 6 hours.

I do use an Exchange mail account with my iPhone, so I have tried to turn off the mirroring with this account to the watch to test if this is the cause...unfortunately, my charger is at home so I have no way to recharge the watch until this evening.


Apple Watch 38mm, iOS 9

Sep 17, 2015 11:43 AM in response to LP-tech

As you are using Exchange Calendars, try some or all of these (which have worked for others):

  • Archive your Exchange Calendar for all items before today.
  • Remove / delete all old inbox messages about calendar invites (accept and decline notifications).
  • Create a rule in your Outlook Mail account that moves all future accept and decline replies - immediately upon receipt - into a separate mail folder that does not sync with your iPhone and Apple Watch.


This potential solution has also been tried, but has not yet been reported back on, so you may prefer to skip it - especially if you have followed all of the previous steps:

Remove the Exchange Calendar from your iPhone, check it for problems (and resolve them), then replace it:


After making changes:

  • On your iPhone, in the Apple Watch app, go to: My Watch > General > Reset > Reset Sync Data (process runs in the background - allow a minute or so).
  • Restart both your iPhone and Apple Watch (to restart Apple Watch: Press and hold the side button until you see the Power Off slider; Drag the slider to turn off completely; Afterwards, press and hold the side button until you see the Apple logo).


For a more thorough reset and refresh, you could also unpair and re-pair your Apple Watch. Do this via the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, which takes backups of your watch automatically including a fresh one when you unpair via the app. Use the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and choose to Restore from backup when setting up again (this will retain most data and settings):

Unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone - Apple Support

Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Sep 17, 2015 11:34 AM in response to Jonathan UK

HI

I have the exact same issue before ios9 after a full day with multiple workouts i was never below 30%. Even with exchsnge syn etc ongoing! And today the first day with ios 9 i hafto charge it before i go to bed with only 3% left

something have changed and i just hope that it gets solved in watchos2 otherwise i will return the watch

Sep 17, 2015 12:59 PM in response to Jonathan UK

we are using google calendars as our corporate scheduling software - regardless of what I am using, the new OS, is in some mysterious way, depleting my Apple watch battery very rapidly - something I didn't experience before - thats a major regression in the products usability - I actually unlinked the watch, reset its content to "virgin" status - re-linked, and viola - same problem ... the slogan "it just works" doesn't hold true anymore for Apple ... they've become quite sloppy ...

Sep 17, 2015 1:10 PM in response to Jonathan UK

I won't try any of these steps above - as a customer I should be able to rely on the advertised performance - I have been using the product as it was designed by Apple and followed Apple's instructions for the upgrade - that should be all I have to do - I should not have to delete vital data, search and delete literally hundreds of emails that may contain invites, etc - seems to me that Apple has done a "**** poor" job yet again ... product will be returned this weekend.


Also, I am not using MS exchange, we use gCal ... so, what's the excuse on that one ...

Sep 17, 2015 1:41 PM in response to Jonathan UK

Thank you for the suggestions!

I am hoping to not have to comb through my Exchange account for issues, as they were not issues moments before this upgrade. However, I will wait until I can recharge my watch and test further through resets of each device, network, etc. and other efforts...and ultimately hope that Apple releases a fix to address this soon.

...Perhaps the battery issue they discovered with WatchOS2 is actually more to do with iOS9?

Sep 18, 2015 1:48 AM in response to markusfromeaston

Where there have been battery issues after the IOS 9 upgrade and the other suggestions haven't helped, the following has worked:


1. Unpair theWatch from the phone. This makes sure your Watch data is backed up on the phone

2. Back up the phone to iTunes (there have been some reported issues with IOS9 and iCloud backups). If you keep Health or Activity data, encrypot the iTunes backup

3. Restore the phone fom iTunes and re-pair the Watch

ios9 upgrade causing battery drain on apple watch

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