I upgraded from S2 in September. I thought it was going to be a great experience. I got the regular updates and after the last update tried to minimize some features to try out the sleep monitor. All down hill from there. Did a restore on the watch instead of a back-up so we can find out what is sucking the life out of it. I would say that I was easily getting 18 hours on the S2. Today’s clean run with s8 is measured at just under 15.5 hours total run time. But the battery is 100% health!
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Is it Just Me, or is the Apple Watch Battery Horrible on watchOS 9?
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Series 6. Usually about 60% remaining at night. I charge it to 100% then wear it while sleeping. Not much change since it was new.
Same here - charge every morning at breakfast to around 90-100% - by bed time when I wear it to bed for sleep tracking around 40-60. Usually do a workout most days and two dog walks with outdoor walk routine
Update: worked extensively with Apple support after getting the right attention. Identified that Bluetooth connection was likely culprit. Was not able to get more than 13 hours of life out of the watch…my iPhone 14th was also struggling but for reasons attributed to photo updates in the background. I finally observed my watch connecting and disconnecting from my phone several times over a 10-15 second period. Would loose several% over a 10!minute period. Following on line recommendations to resolve the connection failures finally stumbled on the right sequence of reset and pairing. Now getting a full day 18 hours and still have more than 50% life. Observing over a few days had one additional issue that appeared resolved by toggling airplane mode.
What was the reset sequence?
I’m having great troubles with my S4, loosing more than 10% per hour, with nothing tuned on.
It all started after I paired it with my new iPhone.
Series 4 is pretty old at this point. Could just be your battery is worn out.
I unpaired the watch and powered it off. Then I powered off the iPhone. Then I placed the watch on the charger, it automatically starts up but just let it charge up a while. Then I started the iPhone, and did a network reset, when you go to “reset iPhone” in the settings it gives about 5-6 different options I assume in increasing depth of configuration. I picked the top one. It wipes out your Wifi configurations and a number of other setting but was not too bad. Once the network setting were good and I was happy with how the phone was working I went back to pair the watch as a new watch. It’s been performing as designed pretty much since then.
It’s not the watch…it’s the handshake of the Bluetooth connection to the phone. Blue tooth uses very little energy but acquiring the signal uses A LOT. If it is intermittent then the battery life is sucked down fast and it doesn’t show up in diagnostics yet. You may notice it on you watch though. I have video of my watch connecting and disconnecting many times in a 10 second period.
Oh good—I should have added—I JUST got rid of my Series 4 last year and it was still lasting the day, so I’m glad you found the fix! 😀
Well it was most frustrating for me because this was a series8 and there was NOTHING wrong with the battery.
Well it was most frustrating for me because this was a series8 and there was NOTHING wrong with the battery. (Or the watch for that matter.)
Unfortunately this didn’t work for me. It still drains 10-15% per hour.
So strange that the watch started to do this from the day I paired it with my new phone. Could easily go 30-36 hours when it was paired to my iPhone 12 Mini.
There are several recommendations for toggling the Bluetooth connectivity/ airplane mode. You may need to turn both off when doing the resets. If you are still getting intermittent connection it will be visible on your watch. If you swipe up on the face you will see either a "green" connected or "red" disconnected icon. If it is switching back and forth then it is not pairing correctly. Try another level down on the phone set up. Do not set your watch up from a back-up start it as new. For what it is worth, I'm told engineers are looking into it.
Ditto. Once I updated to 9.4, my Ultra's battery life TANKED. Was able to wear it 24 hours and be at about 50% battery. Now, at 50% at like 8-10 hours! The band-aid solution that works- turn off Background App Refresh. Brings it back to normal again!
I have a series 6 and before 9.4 I could get 24-30 hours of normal usage. After 9.4 I get 8-9 hours. Very much related to the last update of phone and watch. My old Series 2 did NOT get updated and lasts longer than a series 6. No settings have changed. Done hard restarts on both.
I have NOT tried to unpair/repair yet. Seems that might help but just as often does not.
Rather annoying to have my watch at 99% at 6 AM, and by 10 Am at 50% and dead by 3 PM.
I have NOT tried to unpair/repair yet. Seems that might help but just as often does not.
Rather annoying to have my watch at 99% at 6 AM, and by 10 Am at 50% and dead by 3 PM.
Same here. My Ultra charges to 80% overnight and almost never has less than 35% when I hit the sack. Yesterday in the early evening I got my first low battery warning ever on the Ultra and had to charge it then and there. Today it's already down to 43% and it's only 2:40 in the afternoon. This is not good.
In February I did three or four scuba dives per day for four days. And still the Ultra never got down to 30% in spire of the display being fully on for at least an hour for each one of those dives.
Sometimes an OS update can cause this sort of battery drain. I'll give it a couple of days before I do anything drastic.
Watch OS 9.4 update a few days ago immediately tanked my Apple Watch 8's battery. At bedtime, I typically had 50-65% left on the watch. Now, it dies completely around dinner time. Power cycling it and the phone failed to fix it. I've seen several comments here about Bluetooth being the culprit but no specific steps or links on the specific process to fix that aside from resetting and repairing it to my phone.
Anyone have a more conclusive procedure that's worked?
Anyone have a more conclusive procedure that's worked?
When I got up this morning (4:00 AM) I saw that my Ultra had charged to 100% rather than the usual 80%.
Now, at 5:00 PM it still has 76% charge. That's a huge improvement over what I experienced after the Watch OS 9.4 update.
Now I'd like to see it charge to 80% overnight and still have over 35% at bedtime. That's what I experienced before the OS update.
Now, at 5:00 PM it still has 76% charge. That's a huge improvement over what I experienced after the Watch OS 9.4 update.
Now I'd like to see it charge to 80% overnight and still have over 35% at bedtime. That's what I experienced before the OS update.