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andrewsjra

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 10, 2013
137
12
Last night I charged my Apple Watch series 3 and took it off the dock before I went to bed at 100%. When I woke up about 7 hours later it was at 92%. Is that normal to drain that much when in standby mode? I also have do not disturb on so no notifications are coming through. This is a replacement watch from Apple. I’m running the latest os 4.2.3. I never really noticed this much drain on my previous watch. I turned background app refresh on most of my apps but at night I don’t think anything is running anyways. Any thoughts?
 

44267547

Cancelled
Jul 12, 2016
37,642
42,495
Last night I charged my Apple Watch series 3 and took it off the dock before I went to bed at 100%. When I woke up about 7 hours later it was at 92%. Is that normal to drain that much when in standby mode? I also have do not disturb on so no notifications are coming through. This is a replacement watch from Apple. I’m running the latest os 4.2.3. I never really noticed this much drain on my previous watch. I turned background app refresh on most of my apps but at night I don’t think anything is running anyways. Any thoughts?

That Does seem a little higher than normal to drain 8%, but I don’t think it’s anything drastic either.

Attempt the following:

1.) Press the digital crown and power button for approximately 10 seconds to execute a hard reset that will clear any type of glitches.

2.) As another alternative, you could also drain the battery completely and then recharge it back to hundred percent. But that’s not a necessity either.
 
Last edited:

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
16,271
11,768
My experience was even more extreme until I unpair my watch. THe watch decided to do something that continuously draw battery power even when I am not using it. Turning off raise to wake only helped a bit. Because of that, I could always see 20hrs of watch usage at the end of the day.
 

andrewsjra

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 10, 2013
137
12
I just did a forced reset. I’ll see if that works. I’ve honestly have barely used it and it was down to 68% maybe after 18 hours. Just doesn’t seem like it should use that muxb battery.
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,032
Some days will have unexplicable battery usage - significantly more than the others but those days number in the 2-3 a month at most for me.

True 100% on the watch results in 4-8 hours of 100% then drops a few % an hour. True 100% (if you have a Kill-A-Watt or a battery on bottom line showing 100% Charge Completed vs 100% Charging).

I noticed when traveling for the first time with my watch that going out and about tends to use a bit more battery than usual too vs sitting all day at my desk. (10-20% more).

Wish there was a way to see what was using the battery, especially those days where it’ll use 30-40% more than usual. But it only happens once or twice a month.
 
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Ffosse

macrumors 68000
Nov 5, 2012
1,827
652
I've been lucky with my watch; it will often show 100% at 10pm then still 100% at 7 the next morning - that's with notifications running although typically I'll get far fewer notifications at night.

I've never run my battery down to even 20%.
 
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DotCom2

macrumors 603
Feb 22, 2009
6,323
5,639
I'm having the same problem only worse. I have been testing it over the last week.
I have not worn the watch at all and have it just sitting unworn to see how much it drains and continue documenting it.
I lose anywhere from 9% overnight to as much as 20%. Again, doing nothing but just sitting there on my bedside. I have tried all the usual...unpairing, hard reboot, and even setting back to new. Nothing helps. I only have 2 apps that are not stock apps. Notifications off. Background app refresh off etc. etc. etc,
I was going to wait until the next update and see what happens there and if it's still draining this much, a trip to Apple with my documentation will have to occur.
Looks like we are both having a problem with this.
EDIT:
I have asked other Apple Watch series 3 owners I know, to try the same thing of just letting it sit overnight to see how much their's drains and all have said 2-3%.
 

charlyee

macrumors 6502
Mar 9, 2011
480
289
Wisconsin
Last night I charged my Apple Watch series 3 and took it off the dock before I went to bed at 100%. When I woke up about 7 hours later it was at 92%. Is that normal to drain that much when in standby mode?
That is typically what get. I wear mine to bed, have AutoSleep running, DND on, and in Theater Mode. I probably check the time a couple times at night.

Before I installed AutoSleep I used to lose about 3-4% overnight.
 
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andrewsjra

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 10, 2013
137
12
After a forced reset the battery seems to be better. It remained at 100% overnight and is currently at 76% after 2 1/2 hours of usage and 24 hours stand by. That’s a huge improvement from yesterday
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,032
I did a force-restart and also uninstalled a few apps (sadly I should have done this one at a time). Lost 1% overnight vs a normal 3-8%. How interesting. I'm happy with even the 3-8% though because I'll end a day at 70%+ easy with exercise.
 
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mackie8

Suspended
Nov 6, 2014
898
663
i think my watch is having this drain.. is this software related? i remove from charger at 5am when i wear it 8am.. 2% batt drain..(usually no activity remains 100%). and whenever i go back home from work... i usually have 68% left ... and now less than 50%.... i changed from SS to Aluminum watch ... i dunno if that affects it..
 

BillGates1969

macrumors 68000
Sep 11, 2008
1,821
3,736
Poole, UK
My SS42 S2 is having horrendous battery drain at the moment. My SSSB42 S3 is getting a full two days + as normal, but the S2 is lasting a few hours. May try a wipe and re-pair it. I used to get 2+ days out of it now I put it on to go to bed whilst the S3 charged and 6 hours later it was down to 7%!

FWIW, iPhone 8+ on latest 10.3 beta, S3 on latest 4.3 beta and S2 on non beta latest 4.2
 

tonman

macrumors newbie
Jun 6, 2018
4
1
I started having this battery drain around the same time. Went from a full day to ~5 hours with little to no use. After a month of unsuccessful repairs, restores and even a replacement from Apple, I think i've narrowed the issue down to HomeKit.

I disabled home in my icloud settings and completely removed my homekit devices. I was running homebridge on a raspberry pi and I completely uninstalled it there as well. I'm now back to a least a full day of charge on my 38mm watch.
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,032
Ok I'll try this. I don't have any HomeKit apps/appliances. I turned it off in the iCloud settings. I'll charge my watch today and observe it over the next few days. Thanks!
 

tonman

macrumors newbie
Jun 6, 2018
4
1
Ok I'll try this. I don't have any HomeKit apps/appliances. I turned it off in the iCloud settings. I'll charge my watch today and observe it over the next few days. Thanks!

Keep me posted, I'm curious if this does the trick. A couple of months ago I didn't have any accessories setup in home either and turning it off still seemed to do the trick. I turned it back on about a week ago after playing around with homebridge to find the same result.
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,032
I'm not seeing any battery difference on day 1. But I'm probably a terrible candidate to try because I don't use any homekit items so I should have taken that as a "hey this won't work for me" but figured I'd try anyway. :) But for those who do - like you had, I'm sure it makes a huge difference.
 

i hate phones

macrumors 6502a
Jul 5, 2010
905
393
Philly Suburbs, PA
i have a 38mm watch and consistently lose 10-15% over night with airplane, dnd and theater turned ON. I do use autosleep. I've tried repairing, restarting, force closing all apps in dock before bed... have never gotten any improvement.
 

tonman

macrumors newbie
Jun 6, 2018
4
1
well i think i should have left things alone once the battery issue went away. Turning home back on definitely killed my battery but I turned it off again yesterday and the battery drain issue is still there. I'm at 60% after 2 hours with little use.

I can say with certainty it's something in icloud. I swapped watches with my buddy and the issue followed my icloud account not the hardware. I setup a brand new phone without restoring from backup and the watch was setup as new as well. The only constant was my icloud account.
 
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tonman

macrumors newbie
Jun 6, 2018
4
1
I know this won't help anyone in this thread but just in case someone else with my issue stumbles on here.

I finally found the source of my battery drain issue, it was actually causing all of my ios devices linked to my icloud to drain but it was most noticeable on my watch.

I had an icloud device tracker plugin setup on my home assistant server running on my raspberry pi. Once I removed the plugin and restarted the server my issues went away.

hope this helps someone
 
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triangletechie

macrumors 65816
Apr 21, 2017
1,016
1,748
NC
I have a SS Series 3 with LTE plan. Fully charged overnight. I've worn the watch for 3 hours and when I checked the battery it was down to 40%. Now if I check every minute or so, it drops a %. I'm on 4.3.1. It's connected to my iphone and showing the white cellular icon and blue wifi icon.

I don't know what could be causing it to drop so quickly. any ideas?
 

ebelinga

macrumors newbie
Mar 14, 2013
4
0
I have a SS Series 3 with LTE plan. Fully charged overnight. I've worn the watch for 3 hours and when I checked the battery it was down to 40%. Now if I check every minute or so, it drops a %. I'm on 4.3.1. It's connected to my iphone and showing the white cellular icon and blue wifi icon.

I don't know what could be causing it to drop so quickly. any ideas?


Mine started this last night... I had 75% when I went to sleep and it buzzed me at 12:30 saying it was down to 10%. I put it on the charger and removed it at 5:15 am when it was at 100%. At 7:47 am it was down to 26%. I did a hard reset, hopefully that helps.
 

DotCom2

macrumors 603
Feb 22, 2009
6,323
5,639
Same here. Battery drained 20% overnight off the charger sitting idle.:eek::eek:
Last night it drained 12%.
I am not running beta.
 
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