Original Apple Watch Ultra Battery Life

[cambookpro]

How is everyone's 1st gen AW Ultra holding up in terms of battery life?

I ran a half marathon this morning - charged overnight to 100% battery. I didn't take my phone but had downloaded my playlist, so my watch was on cellular for the whole time but should have only been for notifications. I was workout tracking with the Apple Workout app and had AirPods connected listening to music.

By the time I finished - just less than 2h of workout tracking, and ~6-7 hours after taking it off the charger - the watch was at 16% battery.

My partner ran the same race (albeit with her phone, so watch wasn't on cellular), and her 41mm Series 9 was at over 40% battery.

Is something wrong here? Does using cellular really tank the battery that hard? Any ideas of what I should try?

My battery health is ostensibly 86%, but the graph wasn't showing and it's saying it was last charged to 80% on 4th October which just isn't true. Both phone and watch are running the latest stable software versions (iOS 18.0.1 and watchOS 11.0.1).

 

[MarkX]

Was the music actually downloaded to the watch or was it being streamed via the watches data connection?

If the latter then I'm not surprised your battery tanked.

Next time try switching the cellular off on the watch and starting your run and music. I'm sure you could survive a run without notifications? That's what I do as I don't want to be bothered by them.

 

[Howard2k]

I don’t run half marathons but a 30 minute run without my watch, anecdotally, takes 20% to 25% off the battery IIRC. So in line. My battery is 100% still.

Injured at the moment but I’ll try to pay closer attention next time.

I also play downloaded songs from Spotify and have the cellular active.

 

[cambookpro]

Was the music actually downloaded to the watch or was it being streamed via the watches data connection?

If the latter then I'm not surprised your battery tanked.

Next time try switching the cellular off on the watch and starting your run and music. I'm sure you could survive a run without notifications? That's what I do as I don't want to be bothered by them.

Downloaded - made sure specifically. But yes I could have turned off cellular that is a good point - although was hoping I wouldn’t have to actively manage the battery on an Ultra to be able to last at least most of the day!

I think the 4G signal was quite spotty/towers were congested due to the number of people in the location, so maybe that contributed.

 

[StaceyMJ86]

My Ultra 1 has a battery capacity of 87%. I take it off the charger at 7:50am at 100%. I track my 2.5 hour walk at work. I listen to music for the 9 hours I’m at work using my AirPods. I don’t have cellular anymore on my Ultra. By the time I get home from work around 7pm, I’m usually between 45-50%.

 

[MarkX]

I don’t run half marathons but a 30 minute run without my watch, anecdotally, takes 20% to 25% off the battery IIRC. So in line. My battery is 100% still.

Injured at the moment but I’ll try to pay closer attention next time.

I also play downloaded songs from Spotify and have the cellular active.

20 to 25% for half an hour seems a lot! I tracked a 40 min walk yesterday and lost around 8%.

 

[metman888]

My Ultra 1 was doing the same regarding the last charged info although mine was stuck at 70% on the 4th October. A reboot seems to have sorted that part as well as improved the battery life which I'd also noticed didnt seem as good as usual. My battery health is still at 99% but I'd noticed it draining about 4% per hour when it was basically doing nothing. Back to ~1% now.

 

[kitenski]

My UW 1 was noticeably worse battery than new recently, battery health was 87%. I used to get a full 2 days out of it inc 2 45 min outdoor GPS workouts. I was down to charging it daily!

Traded in for an Ultra 2 and seemingly back to a good 2 days battery life based on the first few days!

I'd definitely try turning off cellular!!

 

[Lucas Curious]

ULTRA 2 at 96% life after 13 months mostly recharged at 30% to 100%. No battery optimization.

 

[moonnavigator]

Day 1 UW1 at 100% capacity. Cycle Count 34. Use the hell out of it from a workout perspective, like averaging 3.5 hrs of workout a day since purchase. Battery life with OS 11 has been disappointing so far, can’t get through a day without turning off always on display or going low power mode.

 

[weather34]

turn off live activities significantly improves the battery performance .my neighbor has ultra 1 2 years old battery capacity 96% was having rapid battery drain since recent update. since turning off live activities on watch he is back to almost 3 days with normal daily use . also turn off photo syncing on watch

 

[MarkX]

Og Ultra, battery health 96% and still getting 2 days out of it with approx 1 hour of gps activity per day.

 

[kitenski]

Its interesting how the Ultra 1 battery health changes so much for people over the past 2 years!

 

[xDKP]

I run quite a bit of long runs with my Ultra 1 - streaming music can really make a massive difference - but your battery usage seems very high - maybe try a hard reset of it and see if a similar run makes it better.

Going to run around 20K this weekend so might bring music along and see how it fairs - but think music though a full marathon should easily be possible if it's offline on the watch