Watch OS 3 Draining Battery Very Quickly

My Apple Watch was running easily into the next day even with heavy notification usage. After installing WatchOS 3.1.3, my battery suddenly won't even get me through a full morning! The watch is new - purchased in December, and has been fantastic until this recent update. How do I fix this now?

Hi

Battery life varies depending on use and other factors.

In tests, for example, Apple achieved 18 hours of battery life with the following usage: 90 time checks, 90 notifications, 45 minutes of app use and a 30-minute workout with music playback from Apple Watch via Bluetooth.

As you have already tried unpairing and re-pairing your watch, the following further steps may help:

Close all open apps on your iPhone and then restart both your iPhone and your watch:

• I appreciate that you already restarted them, but this time also try closing all apps first:
  • On your iPhone: double-click the Home button, then swipe up on each app preview to close it;
• Turn both devices off together, then restart your iPhone first;
  • Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
  • Restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Check for and install any available updates for third-party apps on your iPhone and watch.

Check that you do not have a workout running or paused in the built-in Workout app.

If you have ever(not necessarily only recently) previously used any third-party fitness tracking apps such as Strava to record workouts on your watch, check on your watch to see whether there is presently a paused activity within any of those apps. If there is, end that activity from within that app on your watch (not on your iPhone).

• If in doubt, it may help to remove any such third-party fitness app from your watch.

Under earlier software versions, some users reported experiencing battery life issues in connection with using corporate profiles and/or Exchange Calendars. If you are using an Exchange Calendar, one or more of these steps may help:

• Archive your Exchange Calendar for all items before today.
• Remove / delete all old inbox messages relating to 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.
• Check your Exchange Calendar for errors.

Finally, it may help to remove all third-party apps from your watch and then monitor battery performance after adding them back, one at a time. The same applies in respect of watch face complications.

Having tried the previous steps, if your watch continues to experience significantly shorter battery life than Apple's examples suggest you should expect, contact Apple Support (mail-in service may be available) or make a Genius Bar reservation with a view to having your watch checked, if recommended by Apple (under warranty, if eligible):

• Contact - Official Apple Support
• https://twitter.com/applesupport
• http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/

More information:

http://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html

Please, if you could reply with more information about your watch's battery life it would be great! Thanks

Examples of expected battery life are provided in the article linked at the bottom of my previous reply.

Hi Jonathan, thank you for your reply.

I undestand that apple provides general information about the battery duration while performing some usual tasks; what I would like is to have information from someone that already used the watch on previous version of WatchOS and now have upgraded and continue using the same applications in the new OS.

I have the exact same problem. Installed Watch OS 3 last night and on a full charge with minimal usage it drained in about 4 hours. It has been sitting on my wrist silently all morning and other then looking at the clock face to tell the time it has not been used. Previously I could get through the whole without a charge.

The same thing is happening to me.

I have the bare minimum added to my watch. I've removed access from third party applications, and my battery before WatchOS 3, would be at 60% by 5:30pm. Today at 5:30pm, the battery went to 13%.

and going from power reserve mode to reboot, it used another 4% battery in 20 minutes.

Yesterday I made the same bad experience. After installing watch OS 3 I created a new face based at the "Simple" theme using the complications: messages, calendar, heart rate and weather (temperature).

After 12 hours of normal use (no hard working or moving or so...) the batterie runs out of energy. After reloading the watch and switching back to my former favorite theme "Chronograph" the watch looses 8 percent of batteriy life during 6 hours... The configured complications are moonphase, activity, temperature and the horrible always automatic on-switching timer.

By the way: is it possible to use the Chronograph-theme without the app in the upper right corner?

@Jonathan UK, crappy answer...

I have the same problem since updating to Watch OS 3. Had to disable Weather and Ecobee complications, disabled heart rate monitor and fitness monitors, changed to single color face and disabled other stuff I have no real use of. It got better but not as good as it was with Watch OS 2.

Same problem here. I have Strava but haven't used it ever since I updated to OS 3 so I'm not sure it's the one to blame

I used my watch all day today as usual and noticed a little more battery drain, but not much. Today I was down to 35% at the end of the day where before it was about 40% on average. As is often the case with a new Apple OS there will probably be a fix for this in a few weeks.

YYesterday was my first day out with watch os 3. Normally I had 30 percent battery at the end of the day. Yesterday it was 10%!

even allowing for more use because it was a new os, this is a big shift. It has also seen my iPhone 6 battery die very quickly.

digging around, I see Apple have now allowed apps to background refresh. Maybe this is using the extra battery.

every app by default seems to background refresh. I have disabled this for most apps, except the ones I use regularly. I will see what difference that makes.

Same problem here, 4 hours after taking it from the charger the watch has only 50% left.

This is a massive complain, its not random; Apple have to release a new version quickly with some fix for this, even that it have to go back (or find an intermediate solution) with this new (??) feature that allows apps in background to improve launch speed...