Battery Usage

[warburg]

I understand that it's difficult to estimate good or bad battery life since it depends on usage, but I suspect what I'm getting is abnormally low. I have a Gray Edition Series 3 AW running OS 4.1. I charged my watch this morning, and it was 100% at 9:00 AM. I'm retired and didn't do much today outside of a short walk and checking time. At 4:00 PM the battery was down to 60%. At this rate, it will probably need charging tonight. This is blow average battery usage, isn't it?

 

[Mlrollin91]

What do you do on your watch? That definitely seems to be low, but it really depends on your usage. I take mine off the charger at 6am and plug in at 10PM with about 75-80% remaining. Less on days that I run long workouts, but never less than 70% after 16 hours.

 

[ManicMarc]

Battery meters don’t always show discharge linearly. I often find my devices show 100% for a long time, but once they hit 95% the number drops more quickly.
How long before 9PM did you take it off the charger?

 

[warburg]

What do you do on your watch? That definitely seems to be low, but it really depends on your usage. I take mine off the charger at 6am and plug in at 10PM with about 75-80% remaining. Less on days that I run long workouts, but never less than 70% after 16 hours.

There is one question. Since I've had this cellular watch, I often don't put my iPhone on. If the iPhone is off, would this make a difference in the AW battery usage?

 

[Mlrollin91]

There is one question. Since I've had this cellular watch, I often don't put my iPhone on. If the iPhone is off, would this make a difference in the AW battery usage?

Huge difference. You are now running the LTE antenna's on your watch, which drains battery.

 

[warburg]

Huge difference. You are now running the LTE antenna's on your watch, which drains battery.

If I'm home, whee the watch is on WiFi, I wouldn't be running on LTE.

 

[Mlrollin91]

If I'm home, whee the watch is on WiFi, I wouldn't be running on LTE.

The LTE antenna is still enabled because your phone is off.

 

[warburg]

The LTE antenna is still enabled because your phone is off.

It turns out that you are right. I left my phone on last night and the watch only lost three points. In the past 12 hours the total loss has been a mere eight points. I really don't understand it. I bought the cellular AW so that I could be free of the phone. My assumption was that the watch operated on WiFi at home and switched to LTE only when that was not available.
By the way, I had a chat with an Apple technician over this issue that lasted more than an hour. He had me go through all sorts of elaborate procedures but never asked whether or not my iPhone was on or off when I had the dramatic loss in battery usage. In fact, he must have known that my phone was off because I had to turn it on so that he could perform a diagnostic procedure. It's been my experience that these Apple technicians, either in chats or phone consultations, have little understanding of what they're doing. I get better help from people like you on MacRumors.