Strange battery consumption since 3.2 upgrade

[valenrandy]

Hello all,

I've been having a Series 0 SS42 apple watch since early last year. I love this device and it has been working great. A few weeks ago I installed WatchOS 3.2 and all seemed well. The first couple of days I noticed battery was not lasting as long but I didn't think much of it as I usually give the watch a couple of days to figure itself out after an update.

Its been about 2 weeks and the watch has not figured itself out quite yet lol.
Here are my before and after battery usage numbers from my stats I keep.

Previously I think I either had 3.0 or 3.1 I usually always update to the latest and greatest within a few days.

3.1 Watch on at 5:30AM with standard alerts and usage for the day: (texts, app notifications and about 15-20 glances of the watch face to check time)

Noon: 75-80%
5:30PM: 60-65%
10pm: 40-50%
Watch on charger right around 10pm. About 3.3% per hour battery usage

3.2 Watch on at 5:30AM with standard alerts and usage for the day: (texts, app notifications and about 15-20 glances of the watch face to check time)

Noon: 65-70%
5:30PM: 45-50%
10pm: 10-20%
Watch on charger right around 10pm. About 5.1% per hour battery usage

I think its a bit strange so I checked all the apps that I use and made sure they were all up to date. I removed CNN and ESPN from the dock in an attempt to squeeze a little bit of battery from it. As a test I also turned the old raise to wake/new theater mode on the watch and tried that out for a few days.

3.2 Watch on at 5:30AM with standard alerts and usage for the day: (texts, app notifications and about 15-20 glances of the watch face to check time) Theater Mode active

Noon: 85-90%
5:30PM: 75-80%
10pm: 50-60%
Watch on charger right around 10pm. About 2.7% per hour battery usage

Significant battery savings are to be had here but somewhat strange as every time I received any type of alert I would tap the screen to see it and also tap the screen every so often to check weather and time.

If at 5:30PM I disable theater mode I end up with about 25-35% left by 10pm.
About 5.5% per hour battery usage for the last 4.5 hours.....

I unpaired twice but it has yet to be fixed.... Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks.

 

[valenrandy]

I did another run with it yesterday with my normal usage with theater mode activated and at 10pm my watch had 58% battery remaining.

 

[valenrandy]

Last night at 10pm with another full day of Theater Mode along with my standard usage ended up at 56% battery left.
Today I disabled Theater Mode and I'll see what battery usage I get.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Any new apps, or have any of the apps recently been updated? Usually when I install new apps or app updates is when I notice a battery problem. My S0 42mm usually has about 50% remaining after 14-16 hours. That does include 30-45 minutes of a workout.

 

[RamGuy]

My girlfriend is struggling with strange battery life as well. She has the Apple Watch Sport Series 0 38mm and before watchOS 3.2 she would normally see about 25-40% before going to bed, she takes it off the charger in the morning at around 05:30 and she goes to bed at around 22:00. It's normally at around 30-40% but the days she use the workout-app for about 50-90 minutes ut normally drops to around 25-30%.

After watchOS 3.2 the watch will be close to 0% at the end of the day even without doing workouts. When doing her 50-90 min workouts she will normally have to put it on the charger right after the workout as the watch is under 10%.

She as no apps on the watch. She only use the "stock-apps" like workout for training etc.. So there is no third-party applications involved and she has most notifications turned off like breath, stand, activity etc are all disabled and the only apps giving her notifications from her phone is the phone-app, message/imessage, facebook messenger and mail.


This is awful battery life compared to my Apple Watch SS Series 2 42mm. My watch lasts for 2,5-3 days on normal use and I get way more notifications compared to her and I have the display brightness on 3/3=100%, while she has hers on 2/3=50%. I do also have one third-party app on mine (Overcast) and I get notification from pretty much everything on my phone.

Even with all that I get 2,5-3 days of normal use. And if I go for a hours long jog (using the built-in GPS on my Series 2) I still normally see 2 days of battery life. I'm never even close to 0% or even 20% after a full day of use, even with a hour long session with the workout-app and the built-in GPS. And I use it for Apple Music, Overcast etc control pretty much every day so my display, which is on a higher brightness is way more active compared to hers.


I'm not entirely sure how to deal with this. There is no battery tracking on the watch so there is no way to figure out what's draining the battery. I tried to reboot the watch without it resulting in improved battery life and I also tried to "reset" the battery memory by fully draining the watch and topping it at 100% but it didn't help. There is no way to do DFU recovery of the watch like I would normally do with a phone in cases like this. The best thing we can do is to "unlink" the watch from her phone forcing a "reset" but I highly doubt that equivalent of a complete software restore. And there is no way to "roll back" to 3.1.3 just to compare and see if the battery would go back to "normal".

 

[valenrandy]

I think I'm back to normal...

Yesterday I finished the day with 52% at 10pm with theater mode off.

Today as of this moment (5:20PM), the watch is currently at 68% on track to finish the night at just above 50%.

I have not done anything other than let my phone auto update apps. I'm sure one of them was causing problems.