Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Impact on iPhone's Battery?

It seems 16hr (mainly standby time) of use, with 84% battery left is possible if most of the battery killer functions (airdrop, background refresh, etc) are turned off. And also, all health functions on the watch (heart rate monitoring, activities, etc) are turned off.

For those who have very bad battery life now, may be a good idea to go to the usage page have a look. May be just one or two killer apps there.
 
Last edited:
When I check the battery usage on the iPhone (Settings>General>usage>battery usage)... the Apple Watch app is 4th with 11%, but weather is 10%. I haven't opened the weather app on my Phone or my watch once in the last 24 hours, but it is displayed on my actual watch face!!... does having this use 10% of my iPhone battery!?!?!?!
 
Only 2% and 1% respectively in my case.

P.S. Background App Refresh is turned OFF.

IMG_8860.jpg
 
Last edited:
dexterbell said:
so which is it? Is your iPhone 6 plus at 84% battery or less than 30% after 16 hours use?
Click to expand...

If you read my post...
Day 1 my iPhone 6+ was less than 30% at end of day. I also had to charge my :apple:watch that day (it was only at 70% when I received it).
Day 2 my iPhone 6+ was at 84% after 16 hours and my fully charged :apple:watch was at 38% at midnight.

Day 1 I played hard with my :apple:watch
Day 2 I tried to have what would be a normal use day
 
Angelgrant said:
If you read my post...
Day 1 my iPhone 6+ was less than 30% at end of day. I also had to charge my :apple:watch that day (it was only at 70% when I received it).
Day 2 my iPhone 6+ was at 84% after 16 hours and my fully charged :apple:watch was at 38% at midnight.

Day 1 I played hard with my :apple:watch
Day 2 I tried to have what would be a normal use day
Click to expand...

I have never seen an iPhone 6 Plus at 84% after 16 hours of normal use without Bluetooth, let alone with Bluetooth. You should contact Guinness, thats a world record.
 
So it looks like most people are experiencing this and I don't think it will be resolved anytime soon. This only requires a more efficient bluetooth technology which is a hardware problem IMO.
 
I don't think my iphone 6+ has ever run out of battery in 1 day. I always have bluetooth on and use it quite a bit. Most nights I have 40-50% when I go to bed, and charge it each night.

Got the apple watch, Friday and Saturday were fine. I have just picked up my phone and it's dead at 9pm (Sunday).

The only difference is that I turned on email notifications today on the apple watch.

As a side note, there is a little red icon that appears on the apple watch when the iphone is out of battery.

If anyone else is having this problem please report it to apple. https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html
 
Last edited:
I have used my iPhone much heavier than usual today, due to my stupidity, since I had to contact the AA etc... Had to wait for almost 1.5 hours, watch some TV on it and had my watch connected.

Now... the phone is down to around 8% but considering what i have done, i am absolutely ok with that, since I won't be having this usage every day.

On another note: My Apple watch still on 60% despite me playing around with it.

I guess it could be worse for me :)
 
On my 6+, I am losing 30 or so % more battery than before the watch.

I used to go to bed with 30-40% left, now it is less than 10% (after 3 days). I cannot say I have been using the watch particularly heavily, and it has even spent significant parts of some days off my wrist.
 
My 6 Plus battery life is also getting absolutely destroyed. From the 8.3 Beta to GM, it was PERFECT. I mean a good 26hrs of standby and 11 hrs of usage. To the 8.4 Beta it was horrid. A DFU back to 8.3 and it was still horrid. Now with the watch, it is even worse. I might do another restore because I shouldnt have to watch my usage on my phone. Replying to messages and stuff is very inconvenient at work, speaking into the watch and what not lol. Bluetooth is definitely a killer, so hopefully some updates will fix it :(
 
My killer app!

dubv23 said:
I used the watch all day today even used the golf gps on the watch for nine holes and my battery is at 69% at 1:31 am. I have been using the phone/watch since ~10am. Now, I do charge my phone in my car between drives anywhere but it's no different than my normal day and commute and I've had much worse battery days without the watch. I'm very impressed.
Click to expand...
How did the gps fare during your round? Was it the Golfshot app? Was there any lag in transmitting the yardage and other data from the phone to your watch?
 
iBaloney said:
Do you need to constantly have bluetooth on the iPhone turned on?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. If you are on a wifi network you can turn your Bluetooth off and everything works as long as you remain on that wifi network. I was trying to figure ways to save some battery on both devices and tried turning bt off. I still got texts, emails and other notifications on my watch. It also improved my problem of the watch constantly disconnecting if I left the room my phone was in. I always start with Bluetooth on but turn it off right away and I can go anywhere in my house without my phone and keep a connection. If you're not on a wifi network then you must always have Bluetooth turned on.
 
Cjhooper said:
Not necessarily. If you are on a wifi network you can turn your Bluetooth off and everything works as long as you remain on that wifi network. I was trying to figure ways to save some battery on both devices and tried turning bt off. I still got texts, emails and other notifications on my watch. It also improved my problem of the watch constantly disconnecting if I left the room my phone was in. I always start with Bluetooth on but turn it off right away and I can go anywhere in my house without my phone and keep a connection. If you're not on a wifi network then you must always have Bluetooth turned on.
Click to expand...

Even though my phone is on wifi here at work, I get the little phone disconnected when I turn off BT. How did you get yours to stay on?
 
DJLAXL said:
Even though my phone is on wifi here at work, I get the little phone disconnected when I turn off BT. How did you get yours to stay on?
Click to expand...

It's still designed for Bluetooth use, the wifi is a workaround, don't always expect it to work in all cases
 
Aluminum213 said:
It's still designed for Bluetooth use, the wifi is a workaround, don't always expect it to work in all cases
Click to expand...

Gotcha. Thank you.

Well....being the genius I am, I found that I had not turned off all of the options in the Location Services, only leaving Traffic and FMI on and I had not turned off Health/Fitness tracking on my phone when I restored back to stock. Still noticing a difference in battery drop though. Has to be a BT issue.
 
simsdaniel said:
I used my Watch very heavily today (Email, Texts, Uber, 2 games, etc.) and the battery on my iPhone 6 Plus has absolutely been murdered. For the first time since I bought my iPhone 6 Plus, I had to plug it in before days end and today is probably the least I have used it since launch.

While reviewing my battery usage, apparently fetching emails from your phone to your Watch KILLS the battery. I checked my email multiple times today and as a result, E-mail killed 46% of my iPhone 6 Plus' battery life.
Click to expand...

Same here. I'm getting < half day now. Have you had any success in pinpointing the issue? When I check settings > general > usage > battery usage , Mail is using 25% of battery - but I rarely use email at all. I suspect it's something to do with watch-phone-email.
 
Can you guys try turning off your watches?
And see if battery life improves.
 
Same happened to me, I talked to Apple Supprt, and they recommended that I unpair the watch, restart the phone and the watch, and then repair. Battery life is great now and better than before as I don't check my phone! 20% at 10pm on a 5s!
 
lchlch said:
Can you guys try turning off your watches?
And see if battery life improves.
Click to expand...

Did that and yes problem resolved. I'll be doing to further isolation testing over coming days and will let you know. One thought is that it may be using a lot more power when talking to watch over wifi vs Bluetooth (which for me is most of the day).
 
I have always had fantastic battery life on my iPhone 6 but I must admit it has become erratic since getting the apple watch.

Some days it seems okay but others it drains mentally fast and I can be down to 50% by midday requiring a top up charge to get me to the end of the day.

Some have said that leaving the watch app open on your iPhone is the cause. So I have started removing it from multi tasking after use.

I think it's all down to bugs and glitches here and there that will be resolved with software updates.
 
Sir Ruben said:
Some days it seems okay but others it drains mentally fast and I can be down to 50% by midday.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have the same inconsistentsy. First week it seemed fine, last few days terrible. It's something I'm doing or not doing - perhaps an app on watch has been stuck in a loop pinging the phone - although I did restart phone and watch and that did not resolve.
 
dilap said:
Same happened to me, I talked to Apple Supprt, and they recommended that I unpair the watch, restart the phone and the watch, and then repair. Battery life is great now and better than before as I don't check my phone! 20% at 10pm on a 5s!
Click to expand...

Has this continued to be the case? Does removing and repairing make you have to set the watch apps and settings etc all over again or do they remain?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back