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softandy

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 7, 2009
58
1
Updated to the new watch OS 11 on a series 9 and now the watch is battery is flat half way through the day. Anyone else experiencing problems with battery drain since the new update?
 

axantas

macrumors 65816
Jun 29, 2015
1,006
1,408
Home
I am on 80% after one day with a Series 9, which is much better than before.

Wait for the next charging cycle. Updating the firmware also means, that a lot of background processes for caching and other things are running. It will get better.
 

BugeyeSTI

macrumors 604
Aug 19, 2017
7,244
9,089
Arizona/Illinois
I went from Watch OS9 to Watch OS11 and I noticed it consumes battery faster also. Not sure if it's due to a higher demand to run the latest OS features or just need to un-pair and re-pair the watch to see if that improves battery performance
 

jz0309

Contributor
Sep 25, 2018
11,415
30,118
SoCal
Updated to the new watch OS 11 on a series 9 and now the watch is battery is flat half way through the day. Anyone else experiencing problems with battery drain since the new update?
Give it a few days to settle on all the various updates in the background, then reboot watch…
Give it a full week for final judgement
 
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Bichon

macrumors 6502
Oct 17, 2019
292
492
Today on WatchOS 11 my series 9 is down to 51% charge after 8 hours with no workouts. That's about where I'd normally be end-of-day after 16 hours off the charger and one 60 minute workout with WatchOS 10. Fingers crossed that it's just busy with after-update processing. Also noticed that my battery health dropped from 100 to 99%, which I suppose I shouldn't complain about after a year of use.
 

watchthisspace

macrumors 6502a
Apr 11, 2010
658
71
AW6 - took the watch off charge at 0720am, went for a 25 min walk that was tracked. It's now 1016am and im at 86%.

I'm sure OS11 is still busy doing it's thing in the background.
 

stbrown

macrumors member
Jul 17, 2010
58
23
Today on WatchOS 11 my series 9 is down to 51% charge after 8 hours with no workouts. That's about where I'd normally be end-of-day after 16 hours off the charger and one 60 minute workout with WatchOS 10. Fingers crossed that it's just busy with after-update processing. Also noticed that my battery health dropped from 100 to 99%, which I suppose I shouldn't complain about after a year of use.
Same for me on my AW9. I have been on the Betas since beta 2 and battery has been like this the entire time. Im ending the day at 20-30% now. It seems hit and miss, some people are fine and other have more battery drain. I even tried unpairing and setting it up as a new watch
I did turn off live activies to see of that was the issue but it didnt really change anything. I wonder if its something with the watch faces
 

mtrm

macrumors regular
Jul 7, 2013
128
265
Portugal
There are other discussions stating that the drain might be due to live activities. I turned that off and my battery is much better than it was with it on
Thanks for the thumbs up. My series 7 41mm which doesn’t have much battery to spare (at 80% battery health) was doing fine on watchOS 10, but was getting tough to get through a day on watchOS 11. Disabling the live activities seems to have improved it!

Edit: disabling live activities improved battery life, but still not near what it was on watchOS 10
 
Last edited:
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Wagbh

macrumors regular
May 6, 2020
108
97
Same here on Ultra.
Used to have 2 full days (100% in the morning -> Full day + Full night of sleep tracking, then another full day before I had to charge it again at 15-20%).
Now, it's the second morning, just had a coffee and I'm at less then 20% already...
 

MaureenD

macrumors newbie
Sep 9, 2024
3
1
Scotland
Same here. I treated myself to an Ultra about a week ago and thought the battery life was amazing. 2 full days including gps use every day.

Since the update, it’s drastically reduced. I’m having to charge earlier into the second day rather than leaving it until the evening.
 

cubodado

macrumors regular
Nov 28, 2022
202
302
Torino
First day was awful, battery lasted around 12 hours. Now it seems to turn back to normal not exceptional standard.
AW6 battery life 87%.
 
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Wagbh

macrumors regular
May 6, 2020
108
97
I'll give it another day to attribute it to background post-upgrades touches.

After that it it continues I'll call it a 11.0 bug.

And by 11.1 if it's not fixed, then it's just Apple's deliberate planned obsolescence.

And I'll reward this little yearly scam by shutting up and buying a new one as always...
 

jonh229

macrumors member
Dec 26, 2013
82
48
S8 wifi only watch. Bat life 89%. I wear it in bed to track sleep. Usually consumes just a few % Through nite. Yesterday charged to 80% and 6 hrs later it is at 16%!! Charged to 84% and upon awakening 8-1/2 hrs later it is at 68%. Charging now to 100%. Have performed resets on both S8 & iPhone 15 PM.

In my 8 yrs of watch wearing I’ve never seen a battery issue like this. I don’t know what live activities is but when I figure that out I’ll try turning it off.
 

ice29

macrumors regular
Dec 9, 2016
187
143
Switzerland
Battery life on my S9 is also much worse since the update (the same with iOS18 on my iPhone)... will try to turn of live-activities (which I have never used anyway), hope it gets better :(
 

jonh229

macrumors member
Dec 26, 2013
82
48
I don't use live-activities but just in case, I turned it off. In the prior 12 hours my battery has gone from 100% to 45% (vs. typical 35% consumption in this period of time) with only various notifications and an hour workout. But it is an improvement over the prior charge cycle. I'm hoping it makes it through the night.
 

Bichon

macrumors 6502
Oct 17, 2019
292
492
Today on WatchOS 11 my series 9 is down to 51% charge after 8 hours with no workouts. That's about where I'd normally be end-of-day after 16 hours off the charger and one 60 minute workout with WatchOS 10. Fingers crossed that it's just busy with after-update processing. Also noticed that my battery health dropped from 100 to 99%, which I suppose I shouldn't complain about after a year of use.
Following up on my previous post, I'm happy to report that yesterday my series 9 was at 48% after 16.5 hours of wear and an hour workout. That's pretty much what I was seeing with WatchOS 10, meaning that the drop I reported on my earlier post was just the normal post-upgrade housekeeping, combined perhaps, with some extra battery use from playing with the new watch faces and features.
 
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mac_head

macrumors regular
Jun 29, 2020
200
276
Went running with my Ultra 1 today: 1 hour of running and I lost over 20% (phone was with me, so cellular wasn't even on). I'm running the WatchOS 11 RC since it's out, so background processes should have settled long ago...if this thing lasts you an IRONMAN then you're probably approaching world record paces o_O
 
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isaacf

macrumors newbie
Dec 6, 2012
2
0
Updated to the new watch OS 11 on a series 9 and now the watch is battery is flat half way through the day. Anyone else experiencing problems with battery drain since the new update?
I definitely am! And I'm watching these posts to track how the problem will be resolved.
 

onenorth

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2021
626
865
I am seeing much more battery usage on my S9 since the update. I think Live Activities is the main cause of it because battery drain seems to vary according to how many hours Live Activities is active.
 
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