Unusual Find My background battery drain after setting up AirTag

[SaguaroSeven]

what is the firmware version of your airtags ?

Since there’s no news of new firmware, concerned users likely have the latest. It might be possible that Apple could fix something on the server side to improve performance, which would make the firmware less relevant.

I hope to see a few more reports of AirTags playing nicely before I add mine back.

Hope they sort this soon or no one will be getting AirTags for Christmas.

 

[LEOMODE]

"To check the firmware version of your AirTag, open the Find My application on your iPhone, then choose the Items tab in the bottom navigation bar. Then, choose your AirTag from the list of items and tap on the name of your AirTag. Doing this should reveal the serial number and firmware version of your AirTag. "

there isn't a new one since that day so i dont thing you have a newer one. So you either are luck or you have disabled some of the tracking settings. Or it will come back after a week like it does.

Hmm for some reason I don't see any serial number or firmware version listed on that menu.

Do you have find my network and notify when left behind enabled or disabled?

Notify When Left Behind option was on for my 3 AirTags except 1 from the get-go.

 

[EPO75]

Had Bluetooth off and low power on during sleep.. Still drains a lot. Looks like invisible draining but if you tap on my sleeping period find my is the one drawing power. I have lots of Apple stuff in my home, MacBooks, Homepods, Airpods Pro/Max, Mini, AppleTV, Watch, iPad. Guess some still communicate thru Wifi for Find my.

 

[coso]

Had Bluetooth off and low power on during sleep.. Still drains a lot. Looks like invisible draining but if you tap on my sleeping period find my is the one drawing power. I have lots of Apple stuff in my home, MacBooks, Homepods, Airpods Pro/Max, Mini, AppleTV, Watch, iPad. Guess some still communicate thru Wifi for Find my.

I would try turning off Find My for when the phone is offline, and put in airplane mode with bluetooth and wifi off. Just for one night to see if it still drains

 

[tclementdev]

Beware that turning off Bluetooth in control center does not actually turn Bluetooth off, it disconnects from devices. To really turn Bluetooth off, go to Settings > Bluetooth and turn the big switch to OFF. Turning it off that way stops the battery drain for sure in my case.

 

[great_vc]

Beware that turning off Bluetooth in control center does not actually turn Bluetooth off, it disconnects from devices. To really turn Bluetooth off, go to Settings > Bluetooth and turn the big switch to OFF. Turning it off that way stops the battery drain for sure in my case.

what is the point ?? of course it will change the drain leak cause it will not communicate with the airtag !

it is like saying i have a leaking faucet so instead of fixing the leak you close the water from the main pipe. Yes that will do it !

 

[tclementdev]

what is the point ?? of course it will change the drain leak cause it will not communicate with the airtag !

it is like saying i have a leaking faucet so instead of fixing the leak you close the water from the main pipe. Yes that will do it !

The point is stopping the battery drain. I mean, it's either that or getting rid of the Air Tag entirely. I'm 100% hoping for Apple to actually fix the problem, for sure. It's a shame that this situation exists at all.

 

[coso]

Maybe a faulty battery would drain too much even with all services turned off

 

[SaguaroSeven]

The point is stopping the battery drain. I mean, it's either that or getting rid of the Air Tag entirely. I'm 100% hoping for Apple to actually fix the problem, for sure. It's a shame that this situation exists at all.

I removed my sole AirTag due to crazy Find My usage. I'm now on 15.1.1 and I re-added my one AirTag a little more than 24 hrs ago. I see Find My in battery usage, but it's not an alarming amount anymore. For example, I only see it listed several times, most recently at 6% usage, while graph showed negligible decrease during that hour. So I'm hopeful, that removing the AirTag and later setting it up again has helped fix this for me.

If only playing audio in PocketCasts didn't drain the battery so much....

 

[LEOMODE]

Wanted to give you an update. I don’t know if Apple updated AirTags behind the scene similar to how AirPods gets updated but the dread is now gone. The drain seems normal now and my iPad didn’t even drain the entire day! My iPhone was about 1% an hour and even less.

These days my iPads (10.5 & 11) and my iPhones no longer drain an insane amount of battery anymore. My iPhone drains about 1% now at night (without charging) with both Bluetooth and Low Power Mode on, whilst both of my iPads rarely drain 1% an hour now. Like I said I just don't know why all of a sudden they're fixed, and it's not like the indexing stage after buying the product for the first 1-2 days either. Very strange indeed.

 

[macguru212]

Picked up 4 AirTags yesterday, setup one. Battery drain appears normal for me on a iPhone 8 and an iPad 9th gen. Sure battery use is 35% on Find My, but that's only because I've been checking the location of my humidor, which tends to wander off on its own.

Seriously I shall be keeping a close eye on usage - I kinda wished I discovered this thread before buying but, mais c'est la vie. Cheers guys.

 

[macguru212]

Battery drain was enough to suck 6% overnight from a freshly fully charged iPhone (in Airplane mode and Do Not Disturb Mode). Background usage does not reflect this, but it's obvious to me...

I changed my Find My settings to not alert when items are left behind ( I do not need this, just need to track). I will test again tonight.

 

[great_vc]

Battery drain was enough to suck 6% overnight from a freshly fully charged iPhone (in Airplane mode and Do Not Disturb Mode)

that is not for a regular user. Your findings will not be accurate. Why do you people do that ? all that for save a battery ? it is a smartphone!

 

[macguru212]

that is not for a regular user. Your findings will not be accurate. Why do you people do that ? all that for save a battery ? it is a smartphone!

Maybe it's just a way to get my kicks - like those screwballs trying to eek out the highest MPG from their cars. Old habits, I dunno.

 

[SaguaroSeven]

@great_vc People are willing to do different things. Some people claim to charge up their iPhones to 80% then unplug them, to minimize battery wear. ppl in another thread are saying they clear all the apps out of the app switcher regularly.

@macguru212 I've left overnight to check battery performance and seen very different results from night to night, so you shouldn't rely on one data point. Perhaps not ideal, but I don't know that -6% is all that bad anyway. (iPhone 8, right?) Some suggest you can only really test this if charged up to 100% before overnight, as the displayed % is highly massaged by algorithms.

I hope Apple is improving Find My performance in 15.2. Remains to be seen.

 

[Pro_the_legend]

I'm not sure what has happened, but it seems AirTag battery drain has been fixed over the last 2 weeks or so. When I first noticed this, I even turned on find my network and all my devices, and kept my bluetooth on all the time. While the phone may still show find my using 100% of the battery while the phone is idle (This is to be expected as AirTags maintain a constant connection with the phone), the overall battery usage per day of find my has dropped to 1-2%, consistently. If this remains, I might consider picking up a few more AirTags.

 

[ahmede]

I'm not sure what has happened, but it seems AirTag battery drain has been fixed over the last 2 weeks or so. When I first noticed this, I even turned on find my network and all my devices, and kept my bluetooth on all the time. While the phone may still show find my using 100% of the battery while the phone is idle (This is to be expected as AirTags maintain a constant connection with the phone), the overall battery usage per day of find my has dropped to 1-2%, consistently. If this remains, I might consider picking up a few more AirTags.

That does not make sense , 100% idle usage, overall daily usage of 1-2%.

 

[Pro_the_legend]

That does not make sense , 100% idle usage, overall daily usage of 1-2%.

That 100% idle usage is when nothing else is using your battery. It uses Bluetooth LE to maintain a contact with your AirTags, but it’s a very low power draw. When seen in terms of an entire day, it consumes 1% of total battery.

 

[ahmede]

That 100% idle usage is when nothing else is using your battery. It uses Bluetooth LE to maintain a contact with your AirTags, but it’s a very low power draw. When seen in terms of an entire day, it consumes 1% of total battery.

What happens to the usage when the Airtag is out of Bluetooth range ?

 

[Pro_the_legend]

What happens to the usage when the Airtag is out of Bluetooth range ?

Assuming you have find my network enabled, it would stay around 1-2% depending on how many find my items you come near in a day.

If you switch off Bluetooth altogether, your find my usage will be zero.

 

[SaguaroSeven]

I'm not sure what has happened, but it seems AirTag battery drain has been fixed over the last 2 weeks or so. When I first noticed this, I even turned on find my network and all my devices, and kept my bluetooth on all the time. While the phone may still show find my using 100% of the battery while the phone is idle (This is to be expected as AirTags maintain a constant connection with the phone), the overall battery usage per day of find my has dropped to 1-2%, consistently. If this remains, I might consider picking up a few more AirTags.

This is my experience with Find My + AirTag battery, too. My ipHone 13 Pro still seems to have so-so battery life, but depite occasionally seeing "100%" battery impact, the actual impact in a given hour is small. Find My is not draining the battery like before. (My next guess is my battery drain is 5G/cellular-related)

 

[NicolasPP]

Same here, 0 issue with an iPhone X, then since I upgraded to a 13 pro the drain has been huge most notably at night most likely because of the airtag in my bag in my bedroom. Disabling bt is not an option since it would disconnect my watch so I have removed the battery cap on this airtag, very disappointing.

 

[marcellux]

I have an iphone 12 pro , ipad air and airtag. On the iphone 12 pro the battery drain is 2% on my ipad air however 92%. I have tried everything except resetting the airtag. I moved the airtag out of BT reach but still over 90% drain on the ipad air. Very disappointed

 

[coso]

If you switch Bluetooth off what does happen? I have an automation to disable it automatically at night

 

[ahmede]

Do magsafe Wallets also cause background battery drain