Apple Watch Series 6 bad standby battery life

[kevinf1990]

I've had a series 6 watch for a while now and one thing that I've noticed since the beginning is that the battery life when off the wrist is very bad. For example, I take off my watch with 70% battery life at 7PM at night, the next day I pick it up, the battery life reads 35%. Is there something running on the watch that is causing this much drain when off my wrist or is this normal? I don't charge the watch every day as I don't want to wear out the battery with too many charge cycles. What can I do to improve the battery life?

Thanks

 

[Howard2k]

Are you putting it in power reserve mode?

 

[kevinf1990]

I don't put it in power reserve mode when I take it off my wrist, but I guess I will have to start doing that now. I thought that the watch wouldn't use as much battery power when it is sitting on the night stand.

 

[The_Interloper]

I have a Series 5 Cellular and the battery life is atrocious. It’s one area Apple has made zero progress on in six iterations. It baffles me how a watch with the screen off, overnight, can lose so much battery life. It’s literally doing nothing. The Power Reserve is a pain, too, as the watch has to practically reboot from scratch to get going again.

The likes of Garmin, Samsung, Fitbit etc have all mastered 3 to even 7 days of battery life; the more limited functionality of a Huawei, Amazfit or Honor watch can give you 14 days, even with OLED screens and always-on displays. Yet Apple Watch is STILL stuck on basically a day of using it for anything.

And don‘t get me started on the cellular battery life. You can leave an iPhone behind, but only for 4 to 5 hours! I once foolishly took it out on the golf course without my phone to track shot distances; using the GPS killed it by hole 10!

 

[kevinf1990]

I have a Series 5 Cellular and the battery life is atrocious. It’s one area Apple has made zero progress on in six iterations. It baffles me how a watch with the screen off, overnight, can lose so much battery life. It’s literally doing nothing. The Power Reserve is a pain, too, as the watch has to practically reboot from scratch to get going again.

The likes of Garmin, Samsung, Fitbit etc have all mastered 3 to even 7 days of battery life; the more limited functionality of a Huawei, Amazfit or Honor watch can give you 14 days, even with OLED screens and always-on displays. Yet Apple Watch is STILL stuck on basically a day of using it for anything.

And don‘t get me started on the cellular battery life. You can leave an iPhone behind, but only for 4 to 5 hours! I once foolishly took it out on the golf course without my phone to track shot distances; using the GPS killed it by hole 10!

Yeah, agree with everything you said. Based on a search, doesn't seem like many people are complaining about this though which I am surprised by.

 

[perezr10]

Wow, that is very suprising and not normal. There must be a rogue app or function.

I’ve been a big critic of the Series 6 battery life and my watch regularly finishes the day at 10% left. However, even I’ve found the standby battery life to be pretty good. If I just leave my watch on my dresser it’ll last at least 3 days if not 4 on a single charge.

If I was you, I’d re-pair my watch and set it up as new without any apps. Then add apps back one by one until you find one that significantly impacts battery life. Although, it’s possible that erasing and reloading the rogue app might fix it.

 

[kevinf1990]

Wow, that is very suprising and not normal. There must be a rogue app or function.

I’ve been a big critic of the Series 6 battery life and my watch regularly finishes the day at 10% left. However, even I’ve found the standby battery life to be pretty good. If I just leave my watch on my dresser it’ll last at least 3 days if not 4 on a single charge.

If I was you, I’d re-pair my watch and set it up as new without any apps. Then add apps back one by one until you find one that significantly impacts battery life. Although, it’s possible that erasing and reloading the rogue app might fix it.

I can try that. So you're saying, you end the day with 10% left and you leave it like that, it will still have some charge after 3-4 days? If you have your apple watch at 100%, how much battery do you lose overnight, after 2 days, after 3 days, etc?

 

[Itinj24]

I have a Series 5 Cellular and the battery life is atrocious. It’s one area Apple has made zero progress on in six iterations. It baffles me how a watch with the screen off, overnight, can lose so much battery life. It’s literally doing nothing. The Power Reserve is a pain, too, as the watch has to practically reboot from scratch to get going again.

The likes of Garmin, Samsung, Fitbit etc have all mastered 3 to even 7 days of battery life; the more limited functionality of a Huawei, Amazfit or Honor watch can give you 14 days, even with OLED screens and always-on displays. Yet Apple Watch is STILL stuck on basically a day of using it for anything.

And don‘t get me started on the cellular battery life. You can leave an iPhone behind, but only for 4 to 5 hours! I once foolishly took it out on the golf course without my phone to track shot distances; using the GPS killed it by hole 10!

My cellular S5 was also atrocious on battery life. I was depleting about 8%/hour even when connected with Bluetooth. My S6 was incredible until WatchOS 7.5 (I think). I was ending a 12 hour day with ~65% left. Now I’m ending off with ~30% on 7.6.

 

[wgaller]

My Series 6 has pretty amazing battery life. Last week I wore it all day including a workout, forgot to put on charger at night, in the morning still had 10%. So 90% battery was 25+ hours.

 

[ninecows]

Ehm… just putting a stupid question out there:

So you basically have to charge it each night?

And the sleep tracking just works by recording when you take it off to you put it on? More or less as the iPhone does without all kinds of gadget in your bed. I (naively) thought it would do some sort of measure movement, pulse etc but then you would have to wear it and not charge it…

Edit: I was considering buying one because of this sleep tracking thing. But charging at night is not my thing due to the fire risk.