so I’ve had this over a week. 40 mm alum. It can only last till the next morning if I don’t wear it the whole day. I did a work out yesterday for about 70 min. Then took it off the rest of the day other than putting it on for about 10 min. This morning it was at 18%. My series 3 42mm I could use for at least 2 days without charging. This battery life is horrible. My series 4 without wearing would drop 3% per hour not doing anything. Sometimes more. I even adjusted some settings too that I never had to do before. Should I contact apple care? Both are LTE
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Battery life sucks aw 4 40mm
- Thread starter itsray
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Restart it first. If there are still issues. return it.
I could go 3 days or more using it the way you describe.
Never been less than 50% at end of day with moderate usage.
I agree, something doesn't sound right. Did you set the new one up as new or from backup when you first set it up?
Try a restart and if you still experience the drain I might think about unpair/repair setup as new. Then repeat except restore from backup.
If that doesn't work, I'd get in touch with Apple Care.
Try a restart and if you still experience the drain I might think about unpair/repair setup as new. Then repeat except restore from backup.
If that doesn't work, I'd get in touch with Apple Care.
Apple has always quoted "18 hours" (or "up to 18 hours") and it's clearly their intention that you charge it once a day:
https://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html
I don't understand some people's obsession with not putting it on the charger at night. Just stick it on the charger when you go to bed and stop stressing.
https://www.apple.com/watch/battery.html
I don't understand some people's obsession with not putting it on the charger at night. Just stick it on the charger when you go to bed and stop stressing.
Check the usage and standby numbers. If your usage numbers are high then you have a process that isn’t properly shutting down. Usage for me after a battery drain to 20% should be about 4 hours - 4.5 hours. If you see your usage number is substantially higher then it could be that problem.
Start by doing a hard shutdown. If that doesn’t fix it, do a re-pair. If that still doesn’t work try uninstalling all apps and a new pairing. If that works you can then start installing apps individually, making sure each app is not the culprit.
Btw, after recharging to 100% you can very quickly see if the problem is persisting. Once you take it off the charger if you notice 15 mins, 20 mins, 30 mins standby and almost the same in usage, then you know the problem still exists and you would continue to the next step in your troubleshooting.
This problem occasionally came up in Series 3 and going through those steps always corrected the issue.
Series 3
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I charge mine every night no matter what. That way I don’t have to worry about whether or not I can make it through the next day.
Try disabling settings->general->workout->start workout reminder. I have heard it consume a lot of power.
Also turning of "detect gym equipment" could possibly help if you don't actually need it.
I get 2 days usage, and often 3 before I need to charge.
It sounds like you have a runaway app.
I generally consume 5%-10% battery while wearing my watch overnight. That's a 44mm. The 40mm can consume a little more (due to smaller battery I think), but usually less than 12%.
I use the dock to force quit any running apps, and I put my watch into "theater mode" and "do not disturb."
Any apps you have on your watch face as complications will run and use "background app refresh" even if it's turned off.
You might want to start by looking at any third party apps, especially if you have them as a complication. Maybe it would help to set up a simplified watch face, that you swipe to at night, with minimal complications.
A few of us have gone through some of the settings we use at night to increase battery life while sleep tracking: Apple Watch Series 4 Sleep Tracking
With my Series 2 I have a pretty basic face, Color face with dial and my Series 4 has an infographic face. Both consume roughly the same battery life with roughly the same settings. I'm not convinced the complications are having much of an impact on battery life but also not suggesting they do not. I don't have proof to back that up one way or another.
I agree with @tromboneaholic it sounds like a run away app is the culprit. @Mikeeee gave a great feedback in his post on how to troubleshoot this. I'd honestly try that first before going the route of the genius bar because if that is the problem who's to say a replacement isn't going to be impacted the same way?
Here are a couple of links to articles on battery life that you may find helpful.
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-watch-more-battery-life/
https://www.imore.com/how-to-fix-apple-watch-battery-life-problems
I agree with @tromboneaholic it sounds like a run away app is the culprit. @Mikeeee gave a great feedback in his post on how to troubleshoot this. I'd honestly try that first before going the route of the genius bar because if that is the problem who's to say a replacement isn't going to be impacted the same way?
Here are a couple of links to articles on battery life that you may find helpful.
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-watch-more-battery-life/
https://www.imore.com/how-to-fix-apple-watch-battery-life-problems
I agree that the complications don't seem to contribute to excessive drain over night, especially with the screen not lighting up, but a run away app set to a complication could possibly cause too much battery drain.
I also agree that troubleshooting might solve the problem more easily than taking a trip to the Genius Bar, especially if it's a third party app that might cause the same issues if restored from a backup.
Well, I love to track my sleep at night. And it's pretty hard to do if my AW is on the charger at night.
My 40mm s4 drains about 10% per night (with sleep tracking app). Usually I put my AW on charger every day at about 40% battery left. So, It could last (in theory) up to 48 hours.
And I didn't turn off anything on my AW. Everything is working out of the box + few other apps (like sleep tracker, etc.). Almost every day about an hour of workouts (jogging or just walking for an hour).
Yes. My wife has the 40mm, and she charges hers every other day. She does have a little more battery drain over night than I do (2%-4% more).
I don’t have a run away app draining my battery as usage is fine. I’ll try it with one of the complications I used on my s3 lte and see how it goes today. This watch is exactly how my s3 was set up. Nothing changed. Nothing new. So I know I’ve checked everything
In addition I would remove all apps for the dock. If you have a simple watch face with no complication or just Apple complications and no app in the dock and it still drains the battery, then you should return it.
Just an update. So her 40mm series 4 is at 61% now at 2:59pm. No walk or swim today. She also disabled a bunch of notifications and background app refreshes as well. I’ll let you know tomorrow what she comes back with.
So I brought it in to the Genius Bar. Their diagnostics say it’s fine. But they say it should be lasting longer than how I’m using it. They don’t have replacements there nor do they replace batteries there. So they sent it off to either replace the battery or replace the whole thing is what they told me.
Is your Fall detection ON? I don't need it and disabling it made my Watch last at least 15-20% longer.
Thanks for the tip. I went from 7:45am to 9:45pm with 47 percent left and a 40 minute workout. I'll see if the next day improves with fall detection off. I don't really need it either at this point.