Watch OS 3 Draining Battery Very Quickly

I Think it's definete the software as the catalyst. Pre OS 3 my battery was very reliable. I wish there was a facility to see what is draining the battery usage on the watch like they have on the iPhone. The frustration being, that if it is the workout app to blame then that is particularly annoying seeing as I never use it. annoying I've stopped it background refreshing and also removed it from dock (although I'd already done that) so will see how it goes. I hope turning this off background refresh doesn't affect the activity app because I quite like those notifications / updates even though I'm not really big on fitness activities

I had this problem too and tried different solutions, after disabling Apple watch face location from my iPhone, the problem is gone.

Scottyboy, I have been operating with it disabled and the activity is still monitored. the workout app is a separate function.

hope that helps.

jon

OK thank you.

to the poster who mentioned 'disabling Apple Watch face location' from iPhone. What do you mean by that? I'm probably being a bit dense but I don't understand what to try here.

JJust as a test I docked the workout app again this morning and started a short workout. Battery falling fast even after the workout is ended.

restarted watch now at 94%, having lost about 5 percent in 15 minutes.

in my case it does feel like this workout app is the culprit, but this is an observation rather than a confirmed problem.

it did also occur to me that maybe something on the watch background is trying to communicate / dial home to Apple servers intermittently and not getting requisite response causing heavy drain purely because their servers aren't always up to scratch. Probably an outlandish hypothesis but my watch was fine for days and out of nowhere started acting up battery wise and I've never used workout. It then seemed to radically improve for days before today acting up again. Unfortunately restarting or force restarting the watch is not improving things. It's not as bad as some but losing 6 % an hourvat moment with no use other than to glance at the time

Go to Setting > Privacy > Location service and find the "Apple Watch Faces" and disallow this option to use your location.

I've turned off the watch face location service, have no complications added to the watch face, and have an empty dock (except for Now Playing, which I can't figure out how to disable). I've also disabled background app refresh, the heart rate monitor and fitness tracking. After 8 hours I'm down to 68% battery.

Other than checking the time periodically I haven't used the watch all day, but it still reports an hour of usage for some reason.

Bearing in mind since middle of last week it has consistently only lost 2 to 3% an hour today's usage has been very different. i have not completely eliminated dock items or all background refresh but eliminatd all non Apple ones and definetely eradicated workout. Plus I restarted watch a couple times. all I have done is glance the time a few times today and noted the battery indicator at set times. The results are very erratic. some hours worse than others. Considering this is with negligible usage I think the results are pretty poor. In this last half hour the watch has dropped 3% already. Can only imagine how bad it would be if I actually wanted to use the watch for anything other than looking at the time!

summary today of battery:

7 am - 100%

8 am - 94%

9 am - 89%

10 am - 83%

11 am - 80%

12 pm - 76%

12.15 pm - 72%

13.15 pm - 69%

14:15 pm - 66%

15:15 pm - 61 %

16:15 pm - 58 %

16:45 pm - 55%

Having similar problems. Used to take off charger at 6:45 am, and by the end of my work day, 5pm, I still had around 75-80% battery left on OS2. Now, between 6:45 and now (10:30am) I am at 81%. No idea what is sucking the battery but it is really making the watch un-useful as a watch has to tell time all day. Hoping a software fix is on the way, holding out hope!

Great! thanks for this time line about the battery use!!!

Thanks. I decided to try doing that today and so far I have

10:00am - 100%

1:15pm - 78%

2:22pm - 77%

I've received 3 notifications today all between 10:00am and 1:15pm and haven't touched my watch at all. This is mind boggling.

Update on mine, after about two days, suddenly around 11am, the battery starting doing better. It dropped quickly to 89% from 6:45 to 10:45 then held. I did a 35 minute workout and now at 1:30pm, I am at 80% . I am not willing to call it fixed quite yet, but something has changed. I have talked to a number of co-workers who also have the apple watch and they all report horrible batter for 2 days, then it gets better. I have no solution other than wait a few days and see if it takes care of itself. Good luck all!

MY watch, having behaved for a few days has gone mad again today, with the battery falling like a stone.

I noticed that the workout app had turned backgr app refresh on. I could not switch it off. I eventually managed to turn it off by switching it off, then turning off background app refresh entirely, then reinstating the background app refresh.

not sure why this happened, but it does seem that the workout app and background app refresh are causing at least some of the battery problems.

I'm still thinking the workout app is responsible. I've not used it for 3 days, and my battery life is back to pre-watchOS 3 duration levels.

Sure would be nice to have some timeframe for when a software update will be available. I don't trust my watch at all anymore. Loved it for a year and a half; now it feels unreliable.