The battery problem with 15.3.1 thru 15.4.1

[now i see it]

I’ve got an iPhone 8+ running iOS 14.8.1 and after reading this thread I checked this phone.

When I leave it on (Lock Screen) overnight, unplugged, but with Low Power mode switched On, it consistently loses 8% overnight (12 hours).
Cellular and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are left on.

 

[OhMyMy]

Same here. Home is eating my battery. Today 80% on my iPhone 13.. that sucks!
There is a Apple support topic: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253239907?answerId=256855391022&page=7

I had the same issue but weirdly enough once I let the battery run down to shut off and charge it back to 100% without even unlocking the 13 Pro the issue resolved itself. Don’t see Home app or Siri draining battery overnight.

 

[cynics]

When saying iOS xxx is a battery hog is a counter productive way of saying it consumes a lot of energy but adds a variable that different for everyone (battery size, wear, temp, etc). So while working I'm just watching my iPhone 11 Pro Max on iOS 15.3.1 power consumption with coconutbattery while using console to see what its doing.

First thing I noticed is FaceID uses about 3 watts for the couple seconds its active.

Second thing I noticed is 0-1% brightness to 100% brightness is .5 to 1 watt depending on how much white is on the screen....not nearly as much as I would have thought....

Using coconut battery this is my iPhone screen off not plugged in. EVERYTHING on as per its default state + iCloud everything, apple watch connected, etc. iOS 15.3.1



This is using DI Radio to AirPlay to my HomePods...



This is watching a YouTube video at ~ 30% brightness (I'm in a dark room)



Scrolling Facebook same 30% brightness



Trying to max drain, Geekbench CPU benchmark test screen 100% brightness



For comparison, my 2018 13" MacBook Pro (Intel) watching the same youtube video (theater mode so I could see coconut battery), similar brightness...



MacBook running geekbench (scored lower than the iPhone btw lol Intel i5 2.3ghz Coffee Lake)



While asleep the iPhone would bounce between .03 watt and 1.5 watt as it performed various processes. This included a lot of things most of us might forget about, a lot of it was cache data removal (possibly garbage collection / TRIM), photo analyzing, a lot of databasing data for spotlight, bluetoothd used to verify my location hadn't changed, tons of cloud based processes, nearly everything being encrypted. On and on and on...impossible to accurately say since there could be 50 processes per second...



Just too many variables really. I know when I quit my last job my phones battery went from 8 hours max to 48 hours just because I wasn't using it all day.

I tried turning things on and off to see if it made a difference. The differences went from within margin of error to counterproductive. Turning off location services seemed to hurt more than it helped since it was using motion sensors wifi etc to calculate/guess my location change. I started seeing more GPS activity too...Since my iPhone needs location for my Homes geofence I can't turn everything off...



It did seem like the longer I let the device sit the more it settled down into a lower wattage. Picking it up again seemed to fire everything up and it would take a while to calm down again.

Overall I don't feel the battery life is different from iOS 14 for me....

 

[cynics]

Same here. Home is eating my battery. Today 80% on my iPhone 13.. that sucks!
There is a Apple support topic: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253239907?answerId=256855391022&page=7

What does your Home consist of? A lot of devices? Could one be stuck in an update? I would power cycle everything (main to the house if you have a lot of stuff). I have ~30 devices from cameras to light switches and my Home app rarely even makes the list....

 

[cynics]

Because I am kinda new to the whole iOS ecosystem.

Lets say in 1 hour you loose 20% of your battery and then in the breakdown it says 7min screen on time with 3 apps having 20% , 15% and 15% for example.

Did these apps consumed the (20+15+15)% of the 20% lost ? Or there are things like system things that are not accounted for in this breakdown that contribute to battery loss ?

Thanks for your help , I really appreciate it !!!

Yes. IF you have that specific hour highlighted the percentages of the apps battery use are the total use for that hour. If you add all the apps up in that hour you come up with ~100%.

 

[auxbuss]

First sane overnight battery drain after a couple of weeks on 15.3.1. What changed? Absolutely nothing.

Here's the night before, when it started draining 20% at about 4:15 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Samdh90]

I would just keep an eye on it. It is hard to say but something was probably running in the background and being a pain. I have found that some apps like to do weird things, despite not being open. One thing I can suggest is to enable the App Privacy Report feature, then check the activity overnight. See if any app stands out with a lot of network activity specifically.

I had a somewhat similar issue, not as steep of a degrade but was using more than I thought I should, found several apps that were pulling background activity despite apps that I have not used in days. Since these apps were removed, I have an overnight graph, just like how your second screenshot is. Although, I went roughly 7 hours off a charger to still 100%.

With that said, iOS 15.4 is right around the corner and some are reporting better battery on beta 4 compared to this version, sounds promising

 

[wallenium]

What does your Home consist of? A lot of devices? Could one be stuck in an update? I would power cycle everything (main to the house if you have a lot of stuff). I have ~30 devices from cameras to light switches and my Home app rarely even makes the list....

I have:

• Apple TV 4K (2017)
• HomePod Mini
• Velux Active (currently plugged of power from bridge to test, no effect)
• Home Assistant Homekit Integration (turned off, no effect)

No other Homekit devices

I tried:

• Unplug power from Apple TV & HomePod mini: Battery drain stopped immediatly
• Unplug Velux Active - no effect
• Turn off HomeAssistan - no effect
• Reset AppleTV and setup new - no effect
• Upgrade AppleTV to 15.4 current beta - no effect

Battery drain on devices started with iOS 15. There is an issue with iOS. I will no try coconut battery to test

 

[auxbuss]

I would just keep an eye on it. It is hard to say but something was probably running in the background and being a pain. I have found that some apps like to do weird things, despite not being open. One thing I can suggest is to enable the App Privacy Report feature, then check the activity overnight. See if any app stands out with a lot of network activity specifically.

Well, this is why I've provided so much information. As you can see in my last post, there is zero Screen Off time. There is nothing running in the background that I have authorised. Location Services are Off, Background Updates are off, I run almost nothing on this phone – my most used apps are Chambers Dictionary and Thesaurus – I could go on.

I know you mean well, but you provide no data. The need for data is why I started this thread. It is clear to me now that there is no way to find out what is running on an iOS device. That's tragic. And for me, probably unsustainable.

I do run the App Privacy Report, but it provides nothing useful at all with respect to the issue I have recorded here. According to that report nothing is happening while my phone has been using over 20% battery overnight.

As you say, 15.4 is nearly here, and that's my last throw of the dice.

 

[doddytan]

hii @auxbuss .. i just have the same problem just like your iphone.
my iphone on ios 15.3, and my battery decrease overnight like 1% per hour with no activity on the background.

airplane mode on, wifi BT off, cellular off, low power mode on, background app refresh off.

here is my battery usage screenshot.
you see from 11pm until 6am in the morning.

lets find out the fix together!

 

[auxbuss]

Overnight, 10% drop. Better than last week, but still absurd given it's not doing anything.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Overnight, 10% drop. Better than last week, but still absurd given it's not doing anything.

View attachment 1966257

Have you tried doing a Recovery Mode Update or Recovery Mode Restore?

 

[auxbuss]

Overnight back to 18% drop:

 

[auxbuss]

Have you tried doing a Recovery Mode Update or Recovery Mode Restore?

I've not had time. But I think that's the only thing to try now. I was hoping the next version would have dropped by now – it's clearly imminent – and that would magically fix things.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I've not had time. But I think that's the only thing to try now. I was hoping the next version would have dropped by now – it's clearly imminent – and that would magically fix things.

Try the Recovery Mode Update first as that won’t touch your user data or app. Both ways aren’t that bad to do. If you do a encrypted backup to a Mac computer, when you restore from backup everything will get copied back including any passwords and installed apps. You will need to re-login to your WiFi network again.

 

[ManuCH]

I have a hunch that those people who get overnight battery drain while having no visible app activity might be having issues with cell reception.

If the phone keeps switching towers because the signal is "on the edge" or something, that can drain the battery really fast. Try putting it on airplane mode and re-enabling wifi only, leaving the cell part off. Is it better?

 

[auxbuss]

Try the Recovery Mode Update first as that won’t touch your user data or app. Both ways aren’t that bad to do. If you do a encrypted backup to a Mac computer, when you restore from backup everything will get copied back including any passwords and installed apps. You will need to re-login to your WiFi network again.

I've now run the Recovery Mode Update. Will fully charge, and see what happens.

 

[auxbuss]

I have a hunch that those people who get overnight battery drain while having no visible app activity might be having issues with cell reception.

If the phone keeps switching towers because the signal is "on the edge" or something, that can drain the battery really fast. Try putting it on airplane mode and re-enabling wifi only, leaving the cell part off. Is it better?

This started to happen immediately I installed 15.3.1 (might have been 15.3, because the .1 appeared almost right away). Before that, no issues whatsoever. In addition, there is no drainage during the day.

re: other suggestions: see above, they've all been tried, amongst other things. Thanks for the ideas, though, I'm sure there's other things that could be done. It would really save everyone a chunk of time if Apple provided some diagnostic reporting.

 

[Samdh90]

Hi bud,

I know this won't be helpful right now but I know following the development versions, Apple has been tweaking the modem firmware since at least 15.3b1 or prior. They continue to tweak it within 15.4 beta 1-4. This is due to ongoing bugs that has been primarily affecting cell connectivity when the line would change from LTE to 5G or 5GUC(T-Mobile).

It is very possible that in doing such tweaking that they did introduce a connectivity bug that would affect battery life. 15.3 and 15.3.1 were primarily security fixes and did seem rushed IMO. All I can say is that if this is still occurring, either hope that 15.4 solves the issue, or take the phone into a local Apple store for help. Depending on age, they can diagnose and correct it for free. I would say though that if you can "live" with it since it just started with 15.3, maybe wait for 15.4 and see if it helps. If it does not help, I would probably call Apple for help. iOS 15.4rc may be released today, it is a beta but in some cases, it is the same build that goes public a week later.

 

[auxbuss]

No stats today. I've actually been using my phone for once!

 

[Samdh90]

Hey bud,

This thread is not conclusive either but thought I would let you know that others are having similar issues. Probably is a bug somewhere but at least it is not just a issue on your end.

Battery drain at Idle / Standby

Thanks for all your suggestions. Appreciate it. Yes, airplane mode on, wifi / BT off and the drain is 2-3% overnight. Which is perfectly fine. The issue is during the day. With airplane mode off, WiFi/BT on and on standby. App Privacy Report is enabled. Will definitely take a look there. I...

forums.macrumors.com

Thank you.

 

[auxbuss]

Hey bud,

This thread is not conclusive either but thought I would let you know that others are having similar issues. Probably is a bug somewhere but at least it is not just a issue on your end.

Battery drain at Idle / Standby

Thanks for all your suggestions. Appreciate it. Yes, airplane mode on, wifi / BT off and the drain is 2-3% overnight. Which is perfectly fine. The issue is during the day. With airplane mode off, WiFi/BT on and on standby. App Privacy Report is enabled. Will definitely take a look there. I...

forums.macrumors.com

Thank you.

Thanks. I'll watch that thread too.

 

[doddytan]

No stats today. I've actually been using my phone for once!

Is the overnight battery drain fix after recovery restore? How much drain now overnight?

 

[Gilley]

I have had the Siri drain since iOS15 Beta days last summer, I was getting 2 hours of screen time on my 12 Pro, tried shutting off Siri and restoring phone numerous times and nothing worked. I bought the 13 Pro Max and set up fresh and been on this since launch. I went out of town this weekend for 4 days and magically Siri was not a top used app on the days I was away. The day we came back around 2PM, she made it up to the 4th highest that day. Last night without a charger I started at 9:30PM @ 97% and ended up at 83% @ 6:30AM from siri.

 

[auxbuss]

Last night's usage.

What I find interesting is that the battery level remains almost flat – a trickle drain, which is what I'd expect – until the phone "identifies" that I'm not using it at all (I write, so occasionally pick it up for a 15 second thesaurus query) when it starts a slow, inexorable more rapid decline. This decline stops when I pick the phone up in the morning. You can see this last night from ~20:00 until ~08:45.

It occurred to me that Apple might be mining bitcoin on our devices when we aren't using them ;-)

More seriously, could this be the CSAM background process being brought in by stealth? Who knows?

@Gilley Siri is off.