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Battery life bad all of a sudden

BigDO

BigDO

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 9, 2012
1,435
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AW S6 , up to date with software. The problem didn’t start after the OS upgrade.

A few days ago, I noticed that my watch, which would usually be at 35-40% at the end of the day, is at 10-15 instead.

I unpaired it, restored from backup, and it was fine for a day or two.

Today, again it’s at 15% at the end of the day.

Health is at 98%. I don’t know how to check what is draining it. I can set up as new but not sure if this will solve it.

Any ideas?
 
Have you installed any new apps since the update? If not, setting up as new would be the prudent step to take, in my opinion. If you did install new apps since the update, I would remove them and see how you battery drain does over 24 - 48 hours.
 
You’re not the only one. I’ve been having the same issues. All of the sudden it’ll die a few hours after charging. Today it died without warning, put it on the charger and after it turned on it was at 79% battery. I found a Reddit with a bunch of people who are also having the same problem

I restored it like you and it was back to normal for about a week and now it’s doing it again
 
Yeah I though the battery in my S5 might be going bad but I guess not. Just started randomly last week. Instead of my normal 25-30% left after a whole day and my workout I seem to be at 15-20%. I was concerned. Now I wonder if it’s software.
 
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I have a series 5 and the same thing started happening to me two weeks ago. My battery life used to be at about 25% -35% at the end of the day. Now by evening I have to put the watch back on the charger. This was concurrent with my "Flights climbed" going wonky. I have not changed my workout routine or done anything different to cause this. I use very few apps on the watch and have turned off a lot of battery related services. Hoping the next update helps
 
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I have this same problem with my Series 5 Nike AW. Always ended the day on 35-40% but since the last update it ranges from 8%-15%. I get warned it’s going into power saving mode. I unpaired the watch and re-paired it again and it seemed fine for a few days but now back to being rubbish again.
 
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I've had my AW6 for a few months now and generally i always get to the end of the day with between 40% to 60% left. Randomly a couple of days last week and with no difference in how it was being used i got prompts to put it in power save mode as it had hit 10%. Read a troubleshooting thing which first suggested to reboot the watch so i did this and after that its been back to normal. For example i took it off charge at 7am this morning and now, 7 or so hours later, its sat at 81% still.
 
Same here with my AW6. I have the feeling it started when I activated my AirTags.
So maybe the watch is looking for them as well even it does not allow to search for the AirTags in the current software version.
 
After a while of being normal, it’s back to wonky battery life. Annoying.
 
Mine is bad also if I do a workout I always have to put it on charge for 20 mins otherwise it will be dead by 10pm.
 
Now not even a unpair/repair has helped. 52% battery loss over night (about 8hr). Crazy.

Will unpair and set up as new.
 
I've lost my August challenge of completing all rings every day for the month (which I always do anyway) as my series 4 died on me just after midday yesterday and I'd done virtually nothing. In fact I charged it up to 100% before going to a family get together which was sitting down most of the time but it died completely with no 10% warning after just a couple of hours of being there, coming alive again and rebooting when I put it on the charger when I got back home. This has happened several times in the last three weeks and never because the battery is low when setting off. For example only 15k into a bike ride it just died on me. No 10% warning, nothing. Again, just in the middle of the day a couple of other times too, not even near the evening when it could be more expected.
 
I'm in the same boat with my S5, have been noticing the issue for a bit over a month now, so it would seem to be in line with the other people here. My guess would be possibly some app (not OS) update at that time that most people would have installed is causing it?
 
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Unpair and set up as new worked , battery back to normal. Let’s see how long it will last this time.
 
I am thinking this is about when my AW5 starting doing this too.... I have noticed that it will have a spinning white watch in the middle that drains the battery fast.... ie I took mine off of the charger this morning fully charged - 4 hours later I am at 54%..... I did have to do a quick reset a bit ago - crown and button. So I got it before it was doing it too long.... very frustrating
 
Very relieved to find this thread - exactly the same problem here with my S4 over the past couple of weeks. It seems completely random - everything’s fine for a few days, and then all of a sudden it’s down to 10% at midday (where it would normally still be 40% plus at bedtime). My daily routine is pretty, well, routine, so there seems no rhyme or reason - and I have no new apps installed that could explain it. It’s got to be a watchOS bug.

My battery health is showing as 93%, which I didn’t think was too bad after two years constant use.
 
Can’t wait for series 7 alone for this reason. I have to put mine on charge each evening after work with a workout or without one to last me till bed.
 
The Game 161 said:
Can’t wait for series 7 alone for this reason. I have to put mine on charge each evening after work with a workout or without one to last me till bed.
Click to expand...

There’s nothing to say the 7 series won’t be affected by poor battery life which by the sounds of it is software related. I only buy the aluminium AW’s as I like to change every 3 years but I would be super naffed off of if paid £600-£1k for a watch that is struggling to keep battery over a 16 hour period. It’s unacceptable for any of them to be doing this and Apple owe their customers a solution and quickly IMO.
 
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