Apple Watch Series 5 battery life sucks!

[nickdalzell1]

I've seen many posts regarding horrid battery life on the Series 5 but that's one issue my watch has failed to have. My Series 5 battery is excellent--on par with my Series 3--But it's got a ton of other faults that I blame on hardware:

It refuses to detect workouts any more--have to start them manually. Also it won't track standing anymore, unless I dance, shake my wrist hard, or smack my watch with my fist/slap it on a table. It now rattles as I move.

Microphone is bad--works for noise detection but forget using Siri for anything.

Speaker is weak too. Much quieter than Series 3. Can't even hear the tone when disabling water lock and it no longer has an audible sound when you place it on the charger. Can barely hear notification sounds. It makes a strange 'bliing!' acsending tone once I place it on my wrist after taking it off the charger, nothing on screen, it's NOT Apple Pay related. I watched it as it happened. It only does that when putting it on first thing. Only time I've heard it and there's nothing showing. It also does haptic feedback when it does that too.

I'm just not having battery issues.

 

[symphony]

I've seen many posts regarding horrid battery life on the Series 5 but that's one issue my watch has failed to have. My Series 5 battery is excellent--on par with my Series 3--But it's got a ton of other faults that I blame on hardware:

It refuses to detect workouts any more--have to start them manually. Also it won't track standing anymore, unless I dance, shake my wrist hard, or smack my watch with my fist/slap it on a table. It now rattles as I move.

Microphone is bad--works for noise detection but forget using Siri for anything.

Speaker is weak too. Much quieter than Series 3. Can't even hear the tone when disabling water lock and it no longer has an audible sound when you place it on the charger. Can barely hear notification sounds. It makes a strange 'bliing!' acsending tone once I place it on my wrist after taking it off the charger, nothing on screen, it's NOT Apple Pay related. I watched it as it happened. It only does that when putting it on first thing. Only time I've heard it and there's nothing showing. It also does haptic feedback when it does that too.

I'm just not having battery issues.

Your Apple Watch sounds defective.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Your Apple Watch sounds defective.

Yeah my Series 5 is defective in many ways--except in battery life. I've managed to work around most of its issues though. Turning off Siri voice feedback seems to fix the inability to dictate or use Homekit controls via voice, stops raise-to-speak from crashing back to watch face, and starting workouts manually fixes the lack of auto-detect (but I hate the white numerals--when it auto-detected it had amber/yellow bold numerals).

If there were a way to bring the 'nicer' complications and some of the faces to the Series 3 I'd have returned the wonky 5 by now (I don't know why the 3 couldn't have gotten California face or the earth complication, for example). I really do despise my Series 5. When I charge my Series 5 and use my Series 3 it seems to be a lot faster and more responsive than my Series 5 and the microphone works a ton better even if the TV is playing. Not sure why Noise isn't a feature on the 3 given how much better it is with cancelling out noise in the background. Try to dictate a text on the 5 with a TV in the same room it just sits there with the dictation waveform but nothing appears on screen and eventually says 'Dictation failed' have to actually turn the TV off or mute the audio for it to work. Not a problem with the Series 3 though.

 

[Napoli Lasagna]

To be honest, syncing songs from the phone was a little buggy. It might be because of that...

follow you advise, I wiped out all of my 8G songs on watch to test. And maybe the smart sync of "your most listen" is a factor too. I had bad feeling on this feat(bug)re too.

 

[rbart]

Yeah my Series 5 is defective in many ways--except in battery life. I've managed to work around most of its issues though. Turning off Siri voice feedback seems to fix the inability to dictate or use Homekit controls via voice, stops raise-to-speak from crashing back to watch face, and starting workouts manually fixes the lack of auto-detect (but I hate the white numerals--when it auto-detected it had amber/yellow bold numerals).

If there were a way to bring the 'nicer' complications and some of the faces to the Series 3 I'd have returned the wonky 5 by now (I don't know why the 3 couldn't have gotten California face or the earth complication, for example). I really do despise my Series 5. When I charge my Series 5 and use my Series 3 it seems to be a lot faster and more responsive than my Series 5 and the microphone works a ton better even if the TV is playing. Not sure why Noise isn't a feature on the 3 given how much better it is with cancelling out noise in the background. Try to dictate a text on the 5 with a TV in the same room it just sits there with the dictation waveform but nothing appears on screen and eventually says 'Dictation failed' have to actually turn the TV off or mute the audio for it to work. Not a problem with the Series 3 though.

You should go to Apple support to make your Watch replaced.
The problems you have are not common

 

[nickdalzell1]

I'm afraid of doing the gamble that another Series 5 will have similar issues. Around my area, the Series 4 was only out a MONTH then vanished completely and now only the Series 3 and 5 are available to buy. My guess is the 5 was rushed for some weird reason, and is full of issues. Can't even get the 4 anymore to find out if it was any better. My Series 3 works fine, but is majorly lacking in the watch face/complication dept. I wish it got some of the faces the 5 got, or at least, the nicer complications.

 

[rbart]

I have a series 5 without any issue (except GPS accuracy sometimes poor when LTE is on) ...

 

[PugMaster]

You should return the 5 asap. If there is any technical malfunction and it gets worse, you may be out of luck then when maybe your warranty expired. Amazon still has some S4 for an even better price, so better get rid of it sooner than later.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Given how rushed the Series 5 seemed to be I doubt another will be any better. I'm simply done with device gamble dance. If it ultimately fails (or I end up taking a hammer to it out of frustration) I'll live with my Series 3, even without the better face selection/better complications.

Still it ends up being the first Apple product I've been seriously disappointed in.

 

[eclipse01]

Given how rushed the Series 5 seemed to be I doubt another will be any better. I'm simply done with device gamble dance. If it ultimately fails (or I end up taking a hammer to it out of frustration) I'll live with my Series 3, even without the better face selection/better complications.

Still it ends up being the first Apple product I've been seriously disappointed in.

many people are using a 5 with no issues, it has to be something on your end (an app or something eating up all the battery)

 

[nickdalzell1]

many people are using a 5 with no issues, it has to be something on your end (an app or something eating up all the battery)

The battery in my 5 isn't the issue at all. It's fine on that front. That's about all it's fine with though without workarounds. My 5 gets 1-2 days just as my Series 3 does under the same usage.

Where it fails:

1. No longer auto-detects workouts
2. Stand credits don't happen without shaking the heck out of the wrist or smacking the bottom part of the watch.

3. Siri fails on raise-to-wake often (shows the command on screen, but dumps back to watch face and does nothing)

4. mic doesn't noise-cancel at all like my Series 3--playing movie on TV and dictate text = fail 100%

5. Music control is still broken. No longer controls music playing on iPhone (made separate thread about this bug)

6. screen never leaves AOD mode on wrist raise OR goes back to AOD mode when at rest--also related to faulty accelerometer.

 

[eclipse01]

The battery in my 5 isn't the issue at all. It's fine on that front. That's about all it's fine with though without workarounds. My 5 gets 1-2 days just as my Series 3 does under the same usage.

Where it fails:

1. No longer auto-detects workouts
2. Stand credits don't happen without shaking the heck out of the wrist or smacking the bottom part of the watch.

3. Siri fails on raise-to-wake often (shows the command on screen, but dumps back to watch face and does nothing)

4. mic doesn't noise-cancel at all like my Series 3--playing movie on TV and dictate text = fail 100%

5. Music control is still broken. No longer controls music playing on iPhone (made separate thread about this bug)

6. screen never leaves AOD mode on wrist raise OR goes back to AOD mode when at rest--also related to faulty accelerometer.

ok with the exception of Siri usually not working for me, the rest of those typically work well for me.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Music issue started for me a few days ago. It's not the 6.1.1 update as that happened a week before the music issue began. I believe I might have nailed it but won't know for sure until I do my daily walk later.

As for the accelerometer failure I'll live with it. Not really a deal breaker anyway. More concerned about the music control and voice commands working.

UPDATE: Seems the music issue is fixed by doing two things. Turning off Auto Switch in the iPhone Watch app (so my Series 3 when I wear it while my 5 charges never actually pairs back to the iPhone) and disabling Wifi on the Series 5. My music control is working now! Main problem was my watch would disconnect from my iPhone and default to Wifi and connect to it remotely as my phone was in the other end of the house when I slept. When I got near my phone the next day my watch was still using Wifi (wouldn't switch back to Bluetooth for whatever reason) and leaving to go walk once I left wifi coverage my watch stops talking to iPhone and music control breaks. Which means my Series 5 has a definite handoff issue between wifi and bluetooth. Now I just use it on Bluetooth only and keep my phone near me when I sleep.

 

[PBz]

After months with the AW5 and about a year weigh the AW4.. my AW5 will match my AW4 (or slightly beat it) if I disable AOD. With AOD, my AW5 is about 90% of my AW4.

I got about 2 days with an indoor workout with the AW4.
I can get 2 days with the AW5 with a daily indoor workout.

I only use LTE when I don’t have my phone around.
Outdoor workouts would cost about 10% (assuming about an hour).

 

[Allyance]

At my age, my AW5 lasts longer than I do, that's all that counts.

 

[PBz]

42mm aluminum S5 LTE here.

I wake up at 6am, do a 60-90 minute workout every day (strength with phone or outdoor run with no phone). On runs, I Bluetooth music to Wireless Beats Pro from a playlist stored on my watch. Every day around 6/7/8pm, it's bugging me to go into power reserve. Once a week, in addition to my morning workout, I play beer league hockey at night and use the Hockey Tracker app. If I don't do my evening charge after I get home form work, it will die mid-game without a doubt. AOD is on (I find it ridiculous that I would have to turn off the core feature of the watch to reach advertised battery life), and my only 3rd party complication is Dark Sky. No noise/compass complications either.

It's extremely rare when I can last until 11pm when doing any sort of workout and I almost always have to do a 20-minute evening charge to make it the whole day. It's super disappointing compared to my old Series 3 LTE in which I'd go to bed regularly at 40% (20% on hockey nights). I never had to charge mid-day, even on it's 2-year old battery. My 5 is super disappointing when it comes to battery.

That said, I've done the chat support a handful of times, and have done the whole update software, un-pair/re-pair thing. 6.0 was even more garbage. 6.0.1 made some improvement, but still short of the usage stated on Apple's website (18 hours, with 4 of those on LTE, with one hour workout, etc). 6.1/6.1.1 no improvement over 6.0.1.

Finally, after my 3rd or 4th online chat, they had me set up an appointment to bring it in. The dude at the Apple store said that he's personally serviced a few people with the same issue with the 5. But of course, my battery (and theirs) all pass diagnostics with flying colors. He's having mine sent in for repair regardless, since it doesn't reach the advertised battery life, but he's also done this for other people, and the repair center just sends it right back when it passes diagnostics. He said one guy had to send his back 3 times before they just swapped it out with a new one, and he no longer had a battery issue.

Mine just got to the repair center today, so here's to hoping they don't just ship it back.

Isn’t GPS rated for 6 hours? An hour outdoor workout/run with GPS & GPS would seem to burn 20% of battery life. Even with that, the remaining 12 - 14 hours should burn around 25-30% leaving you at around 50%.