The new Apple Watch Series 5 models come equipped with an always on display, a feature new in 2019. With the always on display, some element of the screen is always lit, even when the wrist is down.
It's a good way to keep an eye on the time or to keep track of a workout without needing to raise a wrist, but its use at this time requires compromising on battery life.
Though Apple says the Apple Watch Series 5 offers the same 18-hour "all day" battery life as the Series 4 model, a multitude of complaints on the MacRumors forums and the Apple Support forums suggest that's not the case.
A 36-page forum thread is filled with battery life complaints about the Apple Watch Series 5, starting from September 20, the day the device was released. MacRumors reader Radeon85, for example, said that he was seeing significant battery drain until he turned off the always on display.Several of us here at MacRumors have the new Apple Watch Series 5 with always on display and have indeed experienced our Apple Watch batteries draining much more quickly than the prior Series 4 models. Workouts, LTE, and other battery draining functions combined with always on can result in major drops in battery life. As described by MacRumors reader Yachtmac:Battery problems don't appear to be limited to the Apple Watch Series 5, which suggests that watchOS 6 is also perhaps impacting battery life. The Noise app may be one culprit, and some users have also cited cellular connectivity, though both Cellular and GPS models appear to be affected by battery life problems.
MacRumors forum member Michael says that since watchOS 6 was released, his Apple Watch Series 4 battery has been dying faster, a sentiment echoed by many other MacRumors readers who have noticed issues since beta. From MacRumors reader Canyonblue737:On the Apple Watch Series 5, battery life can be improved by disabling Always On under the Display & Brightness section of the Apple Watch app on iPhone, but on the Series 4, it's less clear what might be causing problems.
MacRumors readers have reported some fixes that have helped improve battery life on both the Series 4 and Series 5, such as force restarting the device or unpairing and re-pairing, but there does not appear to be a single solution that has worked for everyone.
Apple has already updated watchOS to version 6.0.1, and that update fixed some bugs, but according to the release notes, it did not address battery life. watchOS 6.0.1 may include some battery optimizations though, as there are some reports on the forums of improvements after updating. From MacRumors reader Haruhiko:Apple has also released the first beta of a watchOS 6.1 update to developers, and that update seems to include some battery fixes. We've heard reports from forum members that watchOS 6.1 significantly improves battery life, and in our own experience, we've also seen better battery life after installing the update. From MacRumors forum member Rogertoh16:watchOS 6.1 is still in the early stages of beta testing so additional optimizations could be added before the software sees a release, and many of the battery life woes associated with watchOS 6 and the Series 5 could be addressed soon.
Are you experiencing battery life issues either with the Series 5 or with an older Apple Watch updated to watchOS 6? Let us know in the comments.
Article Link: Apple Watch Owners Complain of Battery Life Issues With Both Series 5 and Older Models With watchOS 6
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Apple Watch Owners Complain of Battery Life Issues With Both Series 5 and Older Models With watchOS 6
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My experience of Watch 5 and watch os 6.01 is dramatically reduced over my watch 3 and watch os 5. It all takes significantly longer to charge, on the order of 3 hours for a 10% to 100% charge. On old watch it was barely over an hour. I have resorted to charging twice a day. Hard to understand how testing would miss this???
S5 SS running latest OS yielding 5% drain per hour just sitting around. Worse if active. Noise off, dimmed down, AOD on. It’s going back to the store unless Apple extends warranty return period until OS 6.1 fix can be evaluated. My first AW. Early adopter remorse?
I’m also returning my 44mm SBSS Series 5 as I was getting less than 12hrs on some days over my first 10 days of use (with AoD on but noise monitoring and Hey Siri off, and background use disabled for most apps). It could be a bug, or is it a faulty watch? I would happily have given it a month, but Apple’s return window is 2 weeks. I have received a replacement which, so far, seems a lot better (first full day and I’m on 52% after 12hr - the first watch was dead at 12hr on day 1). I will see how I get on over the next few days as battery drain seems to be very erratic. But so far it looks like I had a faulty watch...
I think it’s more that they quoted the “same 18-hour all-day battery life as the Series 4”, so one would expect that for usage that took X hours on the Series 4, it would be a comperable X hours on a Series 5. In my case, I’m right at the 18 hours of battery life (sometimes a bit less), but that’s with barely interacting with the watch, very light usage. Their all day battery life test does include some semi-moderate usage.
I noticed my apple watch 5 would barely last the day. I was having to charge it over night and couldn't use my sleep app. It let me up update last night to 6.0.1. I had it charging earlier in the evening as I have an appt. today regarding the battery issue. I was going to follow my previous schedule when my old watch would run all day. I wore it all night and now at 2:30 PM it is at 50%. Maybe the update fixed what ever it was for me.
Yes significant battery drain with Series 5 and 6.0.1. I have stopped carrying phone with me in workouts (too many distractions) so my 2 hour morning workout drains me to 40-50% and I generally have to recharge before a 1-hour yoga in the evening or else battery will die before bed. I am tracking as a workout with HR during both but listening to on-watch music during the first and also disconnected from phone so LTE connected. I have not disabled any new features to improve battery life, as these are the features that convinced me to upgrade from S3 to S5 in the first place
no battery issues on my gen 4...what I hate is how slow it is to run homekit, when I’m not carrying my iphone too! tell watch to do something with iphone in pocket, instant...no iphone in pocket takes a minute to anything with homekit😤
I would say it’s the 16th or 17th iPhone, but it really depends on how you count.
2007-2012 is clear: one iPhone per year. So that’s 6.
2013 brings 5s and 5c - is that one or two? I say one because the 5c is just the 5 in a new shell, but one could argue. So that’s 7.
2014: I count plus/max sizes as the same as the standard size, so 6 and 6+ are one. That’s 8.
2015: 6s/6s+, that’s 9.
2016: SE in the spring, 7/7+, that’s 11
2017: 8/8+ and X. definitely count differently. So that’s 13.
2018: Xr and Xs/Xs max; that’s two more. 15.
2019: 11 and 11 pro/pro max. 17.
but you could argue that the 5c counts as different from the 5, or the plus size is different from the smaller size, in which case there are even more.
on topic: 6.01 seems better than 6.0. I’m at 8 hours off the charger now and 71%. No workouts yet, but that’s still good, IMO.
I turned off Noise Detection and raise to wake. Since it's always on I don't need it to wake if I'm just checking the time and if I'm interacting with it I just tape it... works great. It's 4pm here now and been of the charger since 9:30am. Still have 86% battery left. I'm thinking it must be the noise detection, I was a getting mediocre battery life the first few days and I only had "raise to wake" off then.
Yeah I've definitely noticed some days my watch drains extremely quick and then others it's fine. I used to have a S3 and had NO problems running a half marathon and still enough battery for the rest of the day. Now I don't know if my S5 can handle that same distance. Hopefully there will be a concrete fix soon. Or confirmation from Apple that they are looking into it.
After a day on my 44 mm aluminum 4 I still have 70% remaining. with watch OS 5 I was getting similar to a bit lower sometimes. No problems for me with 6.0.1
Why so quick to dismiss two users reporting their experience as "anecdotes" while just believing whatever Apple claims verbatim? I don't see any explanation of how Apple base their tests, it's not an independent body running the tests.