Unusual Find My background battery drain after setting up AirTag

[brig2221]

Actually, I didn’t have this problem on 16.1 but started happening on 16.2

Sorry to hear that man, but I am so relieved my issue was corrected via the update. I imagine these updates often time cause issues for as many people as they wind up correcting!

 

[SaguaroSeven]

What I found is the contact sync issue doesn't show up in the Battery settings, but because we see Find my activity in Battery settings, we assume that's the cause. It may or may not be, and you have to try and isolate the actual issue you're having, and for me that was Contact Sync.

I tried your suggestion for several days in early December. Forgot to post results: no change. Disabling Contacts from icloud made no difference over several days. Find My still was highly active overnight.

to add insult to injury, I’m back now because over Christmas holiday my iPad was in a Find My death spiral. No idea what prompted this. All this drain was while iPad was in standby…

when i got home I tried removing the one remaining AirTag from my account. After three days, I see no difference at all. Still seeing significant overnight activity And drops of a several percent on iPhone and iPad. <sigh>

 

[Dog Bone Malone]

Well, I've given up and delete my airtags from my Apple account and put them away in the cupboard.

I've tried everything and and anything and all found suggestions, but they still kill my battery.

Maybe I'll dig them back out when Apple come up with a solution.

 

[akash.nu]

Well, I've given up and delete my airtags from my Apple account and put them away in the cupboard.

I've tried everything and and anything and all found suggestions, but they still kill my battery.

Maybe I'll dig them back out when Apple come up with a solution.

Yeah and unfortunately taking them to Apple is of no help either.

 

[addamas]

My iPad Pro 2018 11” got literally drained by FindMy by yesterday.


Suddenly today it’s probably all ok… I have literally no idea.

 

[Corgirat]

View attachment 2150836
My iPad Pro 2018 11” got literally drained by FindMy by yesterday.

View attachment 2150835
Suddenly today it’s probably all ok… I have literally no idea.

I think there’s a delay for FindMy usage to show up on the screen. Check again do you see it now?

 

[addamas]

I think there’s a delay for FindMy usage to show up on the screen. Check again do you see it now?

Weird, after charging and next day as you said it’s almost not applicable in power consumption - but still drain in idle.
AirTag is 5 meters away by one small plaster wall.

 

[Corgirat]

Weird, after charging and next day as you said it’s almost not applicable in power consumption - but still drain in idle.
AirTag is 5 meters away by one small plaster wall.

Mine looks just like that and I don’t have air tags. Most of the week my devices all stay at home including my iPhone.

 

[addamas]

Mine looks just like that and I don’t have air tags. Most of the week my devices all stay at home including my iPhone.

I highly appreciate your feedback.
Does your iPad if I assume you have behaved in 16.2 way better in terms of idle battery usage?
I am sure I it was way more flat on previous iOS version 16.2

 

[Corgirat]

I highly appreciate your feedback.
Does your iPad if I assume you have behaved in 16.2 way better in terms of idle battery usage?
I am sure I it was way more flat on previous iOS version 16.2

No.. 16.2 was like this too. It was 16.1.2 that didn’t have this issue and over night usage was none. The bars stayed flat.

 

[Dog Bone Malone]

It's a shame. I really miss using my air tags. Maybe I'll dig them back out of the cupboard and give them a go once again when 16.3.1 comes out in the next few days.

 

[Euroamerican]

Wow. After a weekend during which I thought of a few useful tests for "finding my stuff", I was just 15 minutes away from finally ordering and trying out some Airtags.

Now, I read that battery life of my iPhone is diminished if I use the Airtag? Hmmmm... Apple needs to work harder to stamp out reasons for NOT trying out their peripheral gear.

I just spent a lot of time and effort cracking open our iPhones and successfully replacing their batteries.

So, I'm pretty sensitive to things that want to degrade my battery life.

 

[Dog Bone Malone]

Update:

Ok. So after updating to 16.3.1, I have reinstalled my air tags. After 3 days, battery drainage is only 4%. This is a massive improvement. Previously my battery drainage was averaging 30-40% in the same sort of time period.

I have no idea if it was the IOS update, or numerous attempts at disconnecting and reconnecting my air tags, but this time it seems (we'll see) to have been sorted out. Time will tell!

 

[Dog Bone Malone]

Running IOS 16.4 on 14PM. The Air Tag baddery drain is even less now currently at 2% over the last 48 hours. That'll do. Now I can be confident it's fixed and buy some more AT's. Only problem is, is where to put them! Maybe the Tortoise in the garden? or the £20 notes in my wallet, because **** knows where they go!😄

 

[great_vc]

My only purpose was for the Dog
Maybe if it is fixed now with 16.4 i will give it a try.

can any more people verify the finding ?

 

[SaguaroSeven]

can any more people verify the finding ?

I haven't been monitoring this closely in the past weeks, but the first night after 16.4 update, my 1st gen 11" iPad Pro (with somewhat degraded battery) went down only 1% over about 12 hours. Although Find My still shows up with a high % in some hours, there wasn't any noticeable drain. Last night the drain was more like 4% (56-52%), so for me it looks promising, but the verdict is still out. [From today I will be on 16.4.1.]

 

[Dog Bone Malone]

Update: On IOS 16.5B2 now. Air Tag baddery drain is still constant at 2-3%. Looking good. All 10 AT's working flawlessly.

 

[Corgirat]

Disabling it will still allow all your devices to work in find my like they have traditionally, through the internet. You’ll be losing the feature to find your devices if they’re turned off or not connected to the internet, however.

I get what you mean with regard to the battery drain. And it’s all idle drain. In my case, I noticed that having find my network turned on, my phone would keep using location every few minutes, sometimes multiple times under a minute. This was especially true if Bluetooth was turned on. It also drained the phone’s battery if my Apple Watch had find my network enabled. Hence, I decided to disable the network on all my devices and I’ve been happy with my battery life since.

Hi I just did exactly the same for all my devices now. I got 16 pro and airpods4. As soon as I found out that AirPods was causing the drain with FindMy, I discovered that turning off Find My Network made Find My disappear from battery stat. This post is from 2021, have you been using find my network without battery drain? I wonder it happens with new devices they release.