Did the last update kill my Apple Watch SE?

[Yvan256]

It used to be pretty responsive with no significant delays and the battery life lasted me through the day, usually ending with around 20 to 30% of the battery life left.

But since the last month or so, my battery has been draining exceedingly fast, from 100% to 10% within less than 12 hours.

Picking it up from the charger or just raising my wrist takes seven or eight seconds before the display wakes up.

Asking Siri something takes a long time as well, I have time to finish my request and wait several seconds before the "Siri logo" even appears on the watch display and the actual request takes at least another five to ten seconds to actually get done.

Was there a bad watchOS update or did they simply push software that's too demanding for the CPU/RAM of the Apple Watch SE?

How do I revert back to the previous version of the software to get my watch back to something that's actually usable?

 

[jz0309]

It used to be pretty responsive with no significant delays and the battery life lasted me through the day, usually ending with around 20 to 30% of the battery life left.

But since the last month or so, my battery has been draining exceedingly fast, from 100% to 10% within less than 12 hours.

Picking it up from the charger or just raising my wrist takes seven or eight seconds before the display wakes up.

Asking Siri something takes a long time as well, I have time to finish my request and wait several seconds before the "Siri logo" even appears on the watch display and the actual request takes at least another five to ten seconds to actually get done.

Was there a bad watchOS update or did they simply push software that's too demanding for the CPU/RAM of the Apple Watch SE?

How do I revert back to the previous version of the software to get my watch back to something that's actually usable?

Have you rebooted your watch since installing the update? If not, you should.
And I assume you’re talking 11.3, right?

As for “downgrading”, afaik only Apple can do that but I do not recall anyone posting here that they were able to do that.

 

[Howard2k]

Batteries deteriorate over time, unfortunately. What is the battery health on the watch?

 

[BugeyeSTI]

Try unpairing and re-pairing your watch. It has fixed battery and other odd issues I've encountered in the past..

 

[Yvan256]

Batteries do deteriorate over time, sure, but I've never seen such an abrupt change in a matter of days.

Thank you for the tips, I will try to reboot the watch and if that doesn't help, I will try the un-pairing and re-pairing steps.

 

[jz0309]

Batteries do deteriorate over time, sure, but I've never seen such an abrupt change in a matter of days.

Thank you for the tips, I will try to reboot the watch and if that doesn't help, I will try the un-pairing and re-pairing steps.

which SE is it? original or SE2? and what is the battery health?
And with the update today, this might throw a little wrinkle into this testing ...

 

[Yvan256]

which SE is it? original or SE2? and what is the battery health?
And with the update today, this might throw a little wrinkle into this testing ...

I think it's the original Apple Watch SE, battery health is still at 83% so it's not like it's on the verge of dying either.
I've disabled background updates, removed all third-party apps and set the watch on low power mode.

It does seem a lot more responsive after a reboot of both the watch and the phone though, so maybe that's all it needed.

 

[jz0309]

I think it's the original Apple Watch SE, battery health is still at 83% so it's not like it's on the verge of dying either.
I've disabled background updates, removed all third-party apps and set the watch on low power mode.

It does seem a lot more responsive after a reboot of both the watch and the phone though, so maybe that's all it needed.

I've made it a habit that ~ 1 week after a watchOS update installed I reboot the watch. I've seen some updates that negatively impacted battery life and rebooting has always helped, for me.

 

[Howard2k]

I think it's the original Apple Watch SE, battery health is still at 83% so it's not like it's on the verge of dying either.
I've disabled background updates, removed all third-party apps and set the watch on low power mode.

It does seem a lot more responsive after a reboot of both the watch and the phone though, so maybe that's all it needed.

Glad to hear it's working better.

83% is pretty poor. Generally once you hit 80% you'll see a drastic downturn. And sometimes that might be 75% or 85% but you're pretty much in that window where you're going to see battery issues soon, if you're not already.

 

[Soondae]

I had the exact same issue with my SE2, did a reboot after I saw the battery running down so quickly, it has been fine again after the reboot.

 

[Yvan256]

I wanted to wait a while to post an update, and sure enough the reboot fixed the problem entirely. I can now easily go over 24 hours without recharging. And setting the watch in low power mode gets even more time from each charge.

 

[Kandrew]

I think it's the original Apple Watch SE, battery health is still at 83% so it's not like it's on the verge of dying either.

Would you please check that?

When WatchOS 11 was first released, Apple had the original SE on their list of supported models. By the time I went to update my original SE about 2 hours later, the SE original had been removed from that list! My Watch OS is currently at 10.6.1 and not going anywhere. Unless you have found a secret method, of course!

 

[Yvan256]

Settings says "Model A2352" running 10.6.1