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Any OG Watch owners replaced the battery?

M

Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
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I got my Apple Watch after the initial long-ass wait from pre-orders, so I think my watch is going to hit 2 years old soon. It's hard to tell for sure since I don't really measure it constantly, but I think my battery life is significantly less than it was for the longest time. I know that batteries drop to about 80 percent capacity or so after a couple of years, so it's not that it's unexpected. But I basically turn on theater mode most of the time now to make sure I'm not going to drop below 20 percent before I get home from work.

Anybody else with one of the first batches experiencing this? I'm debating whether to spend $79 for a new battery. If I knew it would get back to the original battery life, I would. But I don't want to drop that without knowing it'll be markedly different. I have a stainless steel model, so I have zero interest in trading up to a Series 2. I didn't get this planning on upgrading every year like an iPhone.

Any tips would be great. Thanks!
 
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Michael CM1 said:
I got my Apple Watch after the initial long-ass wait from pre-orders, so I think my watch is going to hit 2 years old soon. It's hard to tell for sure since I don't really measure it constantly, but I think my battery life is significantly less than it was for the longest time. I know that batteries drop to about 80 percent capacity or so after a couple of years, so it's not that it's unexpected. But I basically turn on theater mode most of the time now to make sure I'm not going to drop below 20 percent before I get home from work.

Anybody else with one of the first batches experiencing this? I'm debating whether to spend $79 for a new battery. If I knew it would get back to the original battery life, I would. But I don't want to drop that without knowing it'll be markedly different. I have a stainless steel model, so I have zero interest in trading up to a Series 2. I didn't get this planning on upgrading every year like an iPhone.

Any tips would be great. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I would say your Apple Watch is likely on target with the battery starting to deplete being two years old and it's daily usage . If you have no intentions of upgrading to the Series 2 Apple Watch being you own the stainless model, then I would spend the $79 for the battery replacement And have Apple complete the process. (Assumingly you're content with it and use it regularly.)

I Also think the first generation Apple Watch shoukd be more than sufficient enough to last the watchOS 4, which we should see a demo of a WW DC in June. Which in all likeliness, you could potentially achieve another year from if the Apple Watch is still supported.

Also, Apple can conduct a free battery diagnostic over the phone or in-store to give you a generalized overall health of the battery.
 
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Not sure how fast your battery drain but mine seems to be pretty normal. I have my SS since it's launched (pre-order and all) and wearing it daily. Today I'm wearing it from 8.00 AM. As you can see 6 hours after the battery is still at 82% which should be normal I guess.

0zXl0KV.png
 
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Got my SS in July 15 and wearing it daily - great watch and still good battery life. No problems (yet;))
This is after 12 hours today.
IMG_1690.PNG
 
Relentless Power said:
I would say your Apple Watch is likely on target with the battery starting to deplete being two years old and it's daily usage . If you have no intentions of upgrading to the Series 2 Apple Watch being you own the stainless model, then I would spend the $79 for the battery replacement And have Apple complete the process. (Assumingly you're content with it and use it regularly.)

I Also think the first generation Apple Watch shoukd be more than sufficient enough to last the watchOS 4, which we should see a demo of a WW DC in June. Which in all likeliness, you could potentially achieve another year from if the Apple Watch is still supported.

Also, Apple can conduct a free battery diagnostic over the phone or in-store to give you a generalized overall health of the battery.
Click to expand...

Thanks to you (and the others!) for the input. For example, today I put my watch on about 11:30 a.m. Right now just after midnight my batter is at 35 percent. I use theater mode to kill the display coming on when I drive, and I think I had it in regular mode for about 8 hours. The problem is forgetting about it being in regular mode, doing something that may constantly turn the screen on when i don't need it, and then I'm at 10 percent battery life halfway through the day.

I think I'll go get a diagnostic run on it. I definitely still use it all the time, especially as a way to remember to get up and do something almost every day. It will at least tell me how much or little calorie-burning I did. It was a HUGE help the past two years helping me remember about which class I was going to and what I was doing at work.
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matrix07 said:
Not sure how fast your battery drain but mine seems to be pretty normal. I have my SS since it's launched (pre-order and all) and wearing it daily. Today I'm wearing it from 8.00 AM. As you can see 6 hours after the battery is still at 82% which should be normal I guess.

0zXl0KV.png
Click to expand...
Do you have your watch face automatically turn on when you turn your wrist up or do you require a tap to do it? That seems to be the main battery killer of mine aside from using the workout app, which will increase the pulse measurements. Also, do you get a lot of notifications? I get emails out the wazoo and other app notifications.

Too bad my magnetic clasping band isn't full of a series of batteries.
 
Michael CM1 said:
Do you have your watch face automatically turn on when you turn your wrist up or do you require a tap to do it?
Click to expand...

Raise To Wake is on, yes. My brightness is 3/4 of full brightness. I have around 10-20 notifications per hours normally.

There could be some app running in the background that kills your battery. Maybe from 3rd party..
 
matrix07 said:
Raise To Wake is on, yes. My brightness is 3/4 of full brightness. I have around 10-20 notifications per hours normally.

There could be some app running in the background that kills your battery. Maybe from 3rd party..
Click to expand...

Wow. 10-20 notifications per hour. I average maybe 3. But I imagine that would play a role with the battery, especially if you have Haptic feedback activated. I do have Haptic feedback at the lowest setting for my Watch. My brightness setting is approximately what yours is set at.
 
Relentless Power said:
Wow. 10-20 notifications per hour. I average maybe 3. But I imagine that would play a role with the battery, especially if you have Haptic feedback activated. I do have Haptic feedback at the lowest setting for my Watch. My brightness setting is approximately what yours is set at.
Click to expand...

facebook, twitter, instagram etc. all adds up. :(

Good news is looks like I'm getting 10-15% better battery life from 3.2.2. Yeaaah!
 
For me, i thought that my battery had gone bad...but the past few BETA updates have restored my battery life back to normal.
 
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i want to bump this. i'm coming up on 2 years with my original AW and I've noticed that the battery is draining a lot faster in recent weeks. typically i get to the end of the day with 25%-35% left (that's with an hour workout), but recently I'm getting the 10% low alert a lot more frequently than usual.

worth going to the apple store and getting the battery diagnosed? i have about 3 weeks before my Apple Care runs out.

(side note -- on my iPhone 6 I did a remote battery diagnosis via Apple Support. According to them, the battery was fine. But using Coconut Battery, it showed the battery was clearly past it's usable life. So I'm not sure if I trust a remote diagnosis. I ended up replacing the battery via a 3rd party and it solved my issues right away. Wasn't software based like Apple Support said)
 
how do i get my battery diagnosed over the phone? i rec'd my original sport on launch day which is 2 years ago and i am getting much shorter battery life now . . . it is my daily watch and i get ALOT of notifications
 
prk60091 said:
how do i get my battery diagnosed over the phone? i rec'd my original sport on launch day which is 2 years ago and i am getting much shorter battery life now . . . it is my daily watch and i get ALOT of notifications
Click to expand...

Apple will guide you through the process when you call AppleCare. They run a series of diagnostics over the phone with your Apple Watch from your iPhone. It takes approximately 5 to 7 minutes.
 
ericg301 said:
has anyone successfully had their battery replaced?
Click to expand...
"Successfully" would at best be relative since even if you did replace the battery you could NEVER seal the :apple:Watch back to the factory spec (the adhesive, process and tolerances are unknown). In all likelihood a 'successfully' replaced battery would end up being a ruined :apple:Watch after water/moisture exposure.
 
Relentless Power said:
Can you elaborate what you mean more by this statement?
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Has anyone with an original AW gone through Apple Care diagnostics that ended up with them getting their battery replaced?
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Julien said:
"Successfully" would at best be relative since even if you did replace the battery you could NEVER seal the :apple:Watch back to the factory spec (the adhesive, process and tolerances are unknown). In all likelihood a 'successfully' replaced battery would end up being a ruined :apple:Watch after water/moisture exposure.
Click to expand...

Sorry I meant though Apple care. Not DIY
 
I scheduled a genius bar appt for tomorrow to get my battery checked out. i've gone into power reserve mode more in the last week than i have the entire almost-2 years ive had the watch. i'm on the latest public OSes for both phone and watch. and done a re-pair.
 
I got my watch replaced totally. My watch was a stainless steel 42mm one, bought at the preorder. So it was over 2 years.

On May 18th, I found the sound of it was different from usual when I knocked the screen by finger nail. The sound was an empty sound. The usually sound was a solid sound. I got curious and raised up my arm to the front of my eyes and knocked. Then I found the bottom of the screen ( I put Apple Watch on my left hand) had left the frame.

So I arranged an appointment at genius bar from Apple Store app in my iPhone. One tip, you can still arrange a genius bar service even if your hardware is out of warranty.

I also remembered that days ago, there was a piece of news on this site saying Apple expanded first generation Apple Watch's warranty if there was an battery inflated issue. I had thought those things would never happen to me.

I went to the Apple Store near me. I said my concern and let the genius to confirm me if it was the battery inflated issue. The genius said that he could see the inflated battery and wrote it into his iPad app, however the final decision would be made by the factory instead of him. So my watch would be sent to the factory and I should wait 2 or 3 weeks.

Luckily my watch was replaced in one week. I got a new one, or saying, a refresh one on May 25th, 2017. It was packed in a squire box along with two documents called AppleCare Service. According to the documents, the new replaced Apple Watch has 90 days warranty since my first watch's warranty was no longer valid.

--------------------here is the battery comparing---------------------------------------

I usually put on my watch for 16 to 20 hours a days. The old watch usually left 20% to nearly 10% before charging. The new one, except for the first two days, almost left nearly 50% everyday. Both of them are the same model number. However, I don't know if there were any internal changes.

My set is brightness to max and installed selected apps as some third party watch apps are not well design or useless. I am a developer so I can read the crash report on my watch by Xcode and remove those bad apps.
 
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ericg301 said:
I scheduled a genius bar appt for tomorrow to get my battery checked out. i've gone into power reserve mode more in the last week than i have the entire almost-2 years ive had the watch. i'm on the latest public OSes for both phone and watch. and done a re-pair.
Click to expand...

So Apple Store used same diasgnostic tool as apple care support over the phone. It showed my battery was still "healthy". They don't have detailed battery metrics for the watch like they do other devices.

He still offered to send it off to a service center, but he said they use the same tools as everyone else. Suggested I setup as a new watch if it continues to drain excessively.
 
ericg301 said:
So Apple Store used same diasgnostic tool as apple care support over the phone. It showed my battery was still "healthy". They don't have detailed battery metrics for the watch like they do other devices.

He still offered to send it off to a service center, but he said they use the same tools as everyone else. Suggested I setup as a new watch if it continues to drain excessively.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, I'm not entirely sure if I trust the Apple Watch battery diagnostic that they use as well. If the watch is reaching a certain age and or amount of usage in hours, and it's starting to deplete faster than it did from when you first owned it, sometimes I think you need to use your best judgment if the Battery needs to be replaced or not. Only the user really knows the amount of stress the battery has been through.
 
Relentless Power said:
In my opinion, I'm not entirely sure if I trust the Apple Watch battery diagnostic that they use as well. If the watch is reaching a certain age and or amount of usage in hours, and it's starting to deplete faster than it did from when you first owned it, sometimes I think you need to use your best judgment if the Battery needs to be replaced or not. Only the user really knows the amount of stress the battery has been through.
Click to expand...

No, you must exclude the possibility that some third-party app is faulty first. I am a developer and I am sure you that some app causing ridiculous more power than it should. Unfortunately, there is no build-in method to let you know which app causing it. As Watch app in iPhone side only shows the duration and working time. However, if working time is almost the time as duration, there must be a faulty app or more.

If you are also a developer, you can connect your iPhone to your Mac. Using Xcode, you can read the logs, the system will log those apps who cause too much power. Then you can uninstall them.
 
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