Big battery drain when switching on cellular

[NME42]

Was doing two runs with cellular enabled (normally have it off). Using an AW7 and the stock training app, watchOS 9.0.2.

Battery drain was very high, approx. 40% battery per hour. In the past, this was half. Not streaming or doing anything with connectivity (at least not that I triggered that actively).

Reset my AW and tried again, same. With cellular disabled, everything was back to normal drain.

Anyone else noticed something similar?

 

[Misheemee]

I have an AW8 running 9.0.2, with cellular on all the time and I'm getting a day and a half out of battery which seems normal.

 

[NME42]

Is your iPhone nearby or are you in Wifi range?

 

[Misheemee]

Is your iPhone nearby or are you in Wifi range?

I have had my phone near me most of the time, and wifi has been on as well

 

[perezr10]

Yikes! 40% is way too high. Like yourself, I typically lose 20-25% per hour.

I’ve never seen cellular drain that high on a Series 7.

 

[NME42]

I have had my phone near me most of the time, and wifi has been on as well

This is a different situation then. AW is using your iPhone as bridge to the internet.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I run with my cellular watch all the time. 15-30 mins. I download music offline so it doesn’t stream over cellular. I play music over AirPods. It barely uses 6-10% for me. I’ve done this in AW 6 and I have a 7 on LTE for years.

 

[NME42]

Yikes! 40% is way too high. Like yourself, I typically lose 20-25% per hour.

I’ve never seen cellular drain that high on a Series 7.

I checked mobile data usage and nothing obvious can be seen.

As I have not used cellular since watchOS 9, it could be a general issue of 9 or specific to 9.0.2.
Or a very specific problem of my watch.

 

[Dealmans]

I checked mobile data usage and nothing obvious can be seen.

As I have not used cellular since watchOS 9, it could be a general issue of 9 or specific to 9.0.2.
Or a very specific problem of my watch.

Yeah my S7 used to drain a fair bit while walking my dog streaming radio for an hour, I don't have it now so can't tell you how much, but with my other normal uses I would get from 8am-6pm.
Now with the ultra and same uses I get 2 days.

 

[NME42]

I have no problem with battery drain in normal usage with my S7. My day typically ends with 20-30% left.

I run every day but normally with cellular off and no iPhone with me as I do not want to be disturbed. In rare cases I enable cellular if I am expecting a call. Such cases are now impossible as I can see how fast the battery drains. :-(

 

[tmoerel]

Battery drainage on cellular is very network dependant. If you are in an area with weak signal then the LTE modem will be trying to reconnect all the time and this can use quite a bit of power. Especially when inbetween cells.
Also in areas with network congestion the LTE modem is working a lot harder to be heard and can use a lot more power.
Comparing your power usage to the usage of people in different areas will not yield any relevant results. You should compare it with people in the same area and using the same provider.

 

[NME42]

I live in an area with good network coverage. My provider did not change.
Still, my S7 is draining twice as fast as in the past.

 

[tmoerel]

I live in an area with good network coverage. My provider did not change.
Still, my S7 is draining twice as fast as in the past.

Must be that something has changed. Any new cell towers? Any broken cell towers? Anything changed on your watch?

 

[NME42]

Must be that something has changed. Any new cell towers? Any broken cell towers? Anything changed on your watch?

Do not know about changes in cell towers. As my runs were in an area of about 10km radius, could be, could not be.

I installed new apps on my watch in the meantime and upgraded to watchOS 9.0 and 9.0.2.
Have reset network statistics and do another run this afternoon and check later, if I can see which app is using the network. But from my check yesterday (statistics were since I bought the watch), I do not expect to see much as I use cellular data almost not.

 

[NME42]

Today's run was 1:01h and it used 21% battery with cellular enabled. This is ok for me. Cellular data used was 900kByte. No app activity apart from mail app (received a mail while running), fitness app, training app.

No idea what caused the two runs before to drain twice as fast.
One thing I did before the run was force quitting all apps I do not use.

 

[B42low]

To help in your trouble shooting with IOS 9 you can deselect “cellular” or “cellular data” independently. Access settings on your watch and select cellular.

 

[JWGold]

The biggest battery drain is when you switch on cellular and your watch struggles to find a tower. It will continually try to ping for a tower. In a strong coverage area, there is no issue, but in a weak area, it can lead to increased battery drain. Another issue I have found is that sometimes, the watch won’t automatically switch to cellular and it has to be done manually by toggling the cellular on/off.

 

[Misheemee]

Here’s a thought - in addition to the above, which sounds like it might be the root of your problem, have you checked your background app refresh on your watch and turned everything off that you don’t need?