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Original watch. Battery worse with new iphone.

M

minifridge1138

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 26, 2010
1,175
197
Hello everyone,

TLDR: Original watch battery life is worse with GPS/Activity tracking after pairing with new iPhone 7+.

I have an original Apple Watch (Series 0, I guess). With my iPhone 6 I would use it all day and have ~30% battery left at the end of the day (7 am to 9 pm). Then I bought an iPhone 7 Plus. Now the battery dies at around 3 PM (give or take an hour). I've upgraded to WatchOS 3.1 and reset it to default a couple of times but it makes no difference. It seems to be the GPS / Activity tracking that does it (if I'm lazy all day the battery is fine).

Is anyone else having this problem?
 
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You mentioned you reset the Watch. Have you tried re-pairing the Watch with your iPhone?
 
I'm having this exact same problem which I've been trying to sort out for the last month. I had a 6s Plus running 10 beta with a Series 0 running WatchOS 3 beta, the battery life was excellent. Upgraded to 7 Plus and my watch battery (both 3.0/3.1) dropped to 8-10 hours. Also have another Series 0 running WatchOS 2.2.1, the battery life is perfectly normal with the 7 Plus.

Just took the first watch into Apple but they couldn't get the diagnostics to run on my phone, the tech assumed because I still had the public beta on my phone. They're replacing the watch because the aluminium is also flaking off the back. Came home upgraded the second watch to 3.1 and now getting 8-10 hours out of it.

I suspect the iPhone 7 may be faulty. I still have the old iPhone so I'm going to try switching back to it for a day or two.

Let me know if you ever find a solution.

Edit: Btw, I think you're correct about activity/GPS. I start my day with a bike ride and about 30% of my workouts will say "GPS unavailable" when I'm done with 0 distance and 0 calories recorded.
 
Last edited:
Just ran a test this morning, definitely appears to be a a workout/iPhone 7 Plus bug. Wore my watch for an hour when I woke up battery dropped to 99%. Went for a 10 min bike ride, an hour and a half after the ride battery at 83%.

RansZ28 said:
Battery life is about the same with my series 0 and iPhone 7. 6a-10p about 29% left.
Click to expand...
Do you use the workout app?
 
Finiksa said:
I'm having this exact same problem which I've been trying to sort out for the last month. I had a 6s Plus running 10 beta with a Series 0 running WatchOS 3 beta, the battery life was excellent. Upgraded to 7 Plus and my watch battery (both 3.0/3.1) dropped to 8-10 hours. Also have another Series 0 running WatchOS 2.2.1, the battery life is perfectly normal with the 7 Plus.

Just took the first watch into Apple but they couldn't get the diagnostics to run on my phone, the tech assumed because I still had the public beta on my phone. They're replacing the watch because the aluminium is also flaking off the back. Came home upgraded the second watch to 3.1 and now getting 8-10 hours out of it.

I suspect the iPhone 7 may be faulty. I still have the old iPhone so I'm going to try switching back to it for a day or two.

Let me know if you ever find a solution.

Edit: Btw, I think you're correct about activity/GPS. I start my day with a bike ride and about 30% of my workouts will say "GPS unavailable" when I'm done with 0 distance and 0 calories recorded.
Click to expand...

Update us with your findings if you try repairing it with the iPhone 6 Plus.

I'm in contact with Apple Support and we'll see what happens next.
[doublepost=1478065150][/doublepost]
RansZ28 said:
Battery life is about the same with my series 0 and iPhone 7. 6a-10p about 29% left.
Click to expand...

iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus?
 
Hi

I'm having the exact same problem and went through unpairing, re-pairing, resetting, removing apps and watch faces etc.
Battery life runs OK until starting a workout and then it just drops like a stone.
Have been running with it paired to a different phone today and battery is over 40% now after more than 13 hours standby and 2 workouts totalling almost 2 hours.

Am now restoring the iPhone 7 and will see if that changes anything.
 
I think there is something flaky with the workout app and the battery. I have the original watch with the latest software version. I run every morning for about 90 minutes starting with a full watch battery and usually end up with either a low or dead battery by the end. When I place the watch on the charger the battery percentage after my run the level instantly jumps up to around 75%. The rest of the day the watch works as normal, usually with plenty of power to spare. This started with watchOS 3.
 
More convinced now that there's an issue between watch and iPhone 7as battery drain problems back today when paired to 7, even after a factory reset and set up as new phone...

Battery drain stopped after I put it on charger for 10 mins which must have stopped the rogue process I guess.

Tuppe said:
Hi

I'm having the exact same problem and went through unpairing, re-pairing, resetting, removing apps and watch faces etc.
Battery life runs OK until starting a workout and then it just drops like a stone.
Have been running with it paired to a different phone today and battery is over 40% now after more than 13 hours standby and 2 workouts totalling almost 2 hours.

Am now restoring the iPhone 7 and will see if that changes anything.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Update: As a test I restored my iPhone 6s Plus with a backup from my 7 Plus and setup the watch as new. Terrible battery life about 8 hours. Then tried setting up 6s Plus as new and paired watch as new. Recorded a 5 min workout only been wearing it for about an hour but it's only used about 3% battery.

Also received the replacement watch from Apple again awful battery running 3.1 with my 7 Plus. I can only assume it's not a fault with 7/7 Plus but some kind of corruption caused moving to the 7 Plus and propagated via backup.

Really don't want to lose my health/activity data so I'm going to try setting my 7 Plus up as new and restoring only the health/activity data using this app (https://deciphertools.com/decipher-activity-transfer.html). Need to decide if I want to spend $30 to also keep my SMS history.

Has anyone done a restore from an iCloud backup and still had this problem?
 
Since I toggled the individual background refresh on and back off, and then the main on and off, it seems that the severe drain after a workout has stopped.

Did this a few days ago so hopeful it lasts!

This was with an original watch and an iPhone 7 by the way.
 
Relentless Power said:
Do you use the workout applications/heart rate sensor through out the say?
Click to expand...
Tuppe said:
Since I toggled the individual background refresh on and back off, and then the main on and off, it seems that the severe drain after a workout has stopped.

Did this a few days ago so hopeful it lasts!

This was with an original watch and an iPhone 7 by the way.
Click to expand...


Battery drain seemed to reduce for a few days then started it's old tricks and following a workout flattened in less than 2 hours.

iPhone has had to be replaced due to a hardware fault and repaired watch as new but battery drain worse than ever.

Have reset, repaired, deleted backups etc but drain worse than ever.

Considering that others with series 0 aren't getting problems I think my last resort is to wipe and set up iPhone as new which is not a prospect I'm looking forward to!
 
Tuppe said:
Battery drain seemed to reduce for a few days then started it's old tricks and following a workout flattened in less than 2 hours.

iPhone has had to be replaced due to a hardware fault and repaired watch as new but battery drain worse than ever.

Have reset, repaired, deleted backups etc but drain worse than ever.

Considering that others with series 0 aren't getting problems I think my last resort is to wipe and set up iPhone as new which is not a prospect I'm looking forward to!
Click to expand...

Let us know how it goes. Good luck.
 
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I'm also getting abysmal battery life. Getting it off the charger at 6.30pm, i'll have 24% left by 5:30pm and I haven't even started my workout yet! Good thing I found this thread, I was thinking maybe my watch is just showing its age.
 
Tuppe said:
I think my last resort is to wipe and set up iPhone as new which is not a prospect I'm looking forward to!
Click to expand...
I recently did this but used the Decipher Tools app I linked to above to migrate my activity/health data. Had no effect battery life is as terrible as before. I'd definitely be interested in seeing how a fresh setup performs.

I've simply stopped using the workout app, battery life has been excellent.
 
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I'm running into the same battery depletion issue with my Series 0 Apple Watch. I upgraded from an iPhone 6 Plus to a 7 Plus on Friday. Battery life on my Apple Watch has never been an issue with the 6 Plus. Normally would have around 30% left at the end of the day. It's taken a nosedive with the new iPhone 7 Plus. Yesterday the battery was depleted by late afternoon. I've never had that happen before. I didn't even use the workout app once. Now today, it's only about 10:30am and the battery on the watch is already down to 45%. I have a 45 minute workout planned a little later, so I'll likely have to put the watch on the charger if I go ahead and use the workout app. If it even makes it through the entire workout. I did unpair/repair the watch with the 7 Plus early yesterday morning, so that hasn't helped any. Neither has restarting the watch. Don't understand why upgrading to the new iPhone would have such an impact on the Series 0 watch battery.
 
Battery usage on my Series 0 Apple Watch is back to normal after togging off Background App Refresh on all but a few apps. One of the apps that had Background App Refresh turned on previously must have been draining the battery.
 
azcoyote said:
Battery usage on my Series 0 Apple Watch is back to normal after togging off Background App Refresh on all but a few apps. One of the apps that had Background App Refresh turned on previously must have been draining the battery.
Click to expand...
I've experienced the same issue, with my new Watch 2.
After I've disabled background refresh for all apps on the Watch, battery seriously improved.
However, I'd be curious to know what the real (battery) impact is of having your Watch always connected versus no Bluetooth device.
 
Still having battery issues with my Series 0 Watch. I had Background App Refresh turned off completely yesterday and my Watch had to go into power reserve by late afternoon. What's strange is early in the morning when I'm still at home, battery usage seems to be normal, only dropping a couple percentage points per hour. Once I get into work, that's when the battery drainage seems to accelerate. This morning when I left for work, battery percentage was still in the low 90's after using the Workout app for a 25 minute walk. I've been in the office an hour and it's now down to 76%. I don't have Wifi access at work, so I have to use 4G cellular data. Not sure why that would make any difference. It didn't matter when I still had my iPhone 6 Plus. Battery usage on the Watch was never an issue until I got the 7 Plus last week.
 
azcoyote said:
Still having battery issues with my Series 0 Watch. I had Background App Refresh turned off completely yesterday and my Watch had to go into power reserve by late afternoon. What's strange is early in the morning when I'm still at home, battery usage seems to be normal, only dropping a couple percentage points per hour. Once I get into work, that's when the battery drainage seems to accelerate. This morning when I left for work, battery percentage was still in the low 90's after using the Workout app for a 25 minute walk. I've been in the office an hour and it's now down to 76%. I don't have Wifi access at work, so I have to use 4G cellular data. Not sure why that would make any difference. It didn't matter when I still had my iPhone 6 Plus. Battery usage on the Watch was never an issue until I got the 7 Plus last week.
Click to expand...
You've re-paired it, have you also tried setting up the Watch as new? I went from a 6s plus to 7 plus without any issues but I also set up the Watch as new. Might be worth a shot
 
chuyn said:
You've re-paired it, have you also tried setting up the Watch as new? I went from a 6s plus to 7 plus without any issues but I also set up the Watch as new. Might be worth a shot
Click to expand...

Have tried repairing the watch to my iphone with no improvement. Setting up as a new Watch I have not yet attempted. Besides having to redo my watch settings, Apple Pay, reinstall watch apps, etc, what data do I lose if I set up the watch as new without restoring from the last backup? Obviously I'll lose my activity for the day up that point (steps, calories, workouts). Do I lose historical health data associated with the watch?
 
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