Poor battery life on new Apple 6

[0906742]

If that is the case, as hard as it sounds, I’d open a ticket with apple. Overall consensus is between battery and SOC the AW6 is the best of the bunch. Good luck,

But what could cause that? I'm guessing faulty battery but battery diagnostic says it is 100%. Also charging time seems normal, it is not increasing too fast or similar like faulty battery does and it does not heat up.

What is normal drain per hour with and without AOD?
I mean normal when you are just keeping in on your wrist and not playing with the apps or anything.
Mine is that 3% or 4% and I have usual apps open on the background (email, text messages, stocks, weather, heart beat metering, the same as in my AW3) but not using the apps on the screen. Pulse oximeter is on as default but it does not seem to be making measurements more than maybe couple times a day, so I don't think that should cause such high drain and as I said it takes that 3% or 4% all the time while on wrist. Only idle while not on wrist drops it to about 1% or little more.
Using apps drain a bit more fast.

 

[Cheefy]

I’ve only had one AW - this my AW 6 40 mm so nothing to compare it to. I have everything switched on except sleep tracking and I’m currently not using AOD. I do approx 3 hours of running and charge my watch every two days, same time before breakfast. I think that’s pretty good. With the AOD on I get about 40 hours.

 

[0906742]

I’ve only had one AW - this my AW 6 40 mm so nothing to compare it to. I have everything switched on except sleep tracking and I’m currently not using AOD. I do approx 3 hours of running and charge my watch every two days, same time before breakfast. I think that’s pretty good. With the AOD on I get about 40 hours.

I guess AW6 40mm has better battery life.
Just checked readings from our two (44mm and 40mm).
40mm AOD enabled 12hrs on wrist and about 5 hrs idle (=not on wrist) battery from 100% > 64%
44mm AOD disabled, 4hrs on wrist and about 11hrs idle (=not on wrist) battery from 100% to 80%

 

[The Game 161]

for what it's worth battery life on my apple watches hasn't been amazing since series 4. I normally end the day on my series 6 around 20-30% left

 

[0906742]

for what it's worth battery life on my apple watches hasn't been amazing since series 4. I normally end the day on my series 6 around 20-30% left

That's what it seems here too but I just wonder why 40mm AW6 still has better battery life...? I guess it has better battery and screen is using much less power. I saw iFixit teardown showing 40mm has "hard" battery, much different looking than 44m.

Anyway, huge disappointment after AW3 with great battery life and it has been stable for over 3 years, practically perform as new still.

 

[Cheefy]

I charged AW 6 40 mm up this morning and put it on at 9 am. That’s 8 hours now - had it on all day and just did a half hour on the spin bike. my battery is at 91%. (AOD off). I don’t know if the 40mm does have longer battery life but I’m certainly impressed with this. I was concerned when I ordered it that it would be a mistake as have always had Garmins with really good battery life. I still have a couple of Garmins but I’m using the AW more and more as I really like the display. If I run with my phone on me and use it’s GPS the battery drain on my AW on a GPS activity is actually less than my Vivoactive 4.

 

[tivoboy]

I’ve only had one AW - this my AW 6 40 mm so nothing to compare it to. I have everything switched on except sleep tracking and I’m currently not using AOD. I do approx 3 hours of running and charge my watch every two days, same time before breakfast. I think that’s pretty good. With the AOD on I get about 40 hours.

That is pretty much my experience. I find that AOD takes about 20% extra battery consumption, which is fine, but i'd rather have the length of usage than AOD. But, with my AW0, AW2, AW3, AW4 and my wifes AW5, I or she never was really able to confidently get to ~48 hour usage, including daily or every other day 1-3 hours of workouts and quite a bit of notifications and usage. I have pretty much all the same settings and setup with all these watches, since I just restore from backup. The only thing really new new with my AW6 is that freqeunt Sp02 measurements that the watch does when idle, when sleeping and on demand. That would be an INCREASE is usage, akin to the continuous HR measurements that I would have thought would DECREASE overall battery life, and yet it's up about 10 hours a charge for me from my AW4 restore.

 

[tivoboy]

But what could cause that? I'm guessing faulty battery but battery diagnostic says it is 100%. Also charging time seems normal, it is not increasing too fast or similar like faulty battery does and it does not heat up.

What is normal drain per hour with and without AOD?
I mean normal when you are just keeping in on your wrist and not playing with the apps or anything.
Mine is that 3% or 4% and I have usual apps open on the background (email, text messages, stocks, weather, heart beat metering, the same as in my AW3) but not using the apps on the screen. Pulse oximeter is on as default but it does not seem to be making measurements more than maybe couple times a day, so I don't think that should cause such high drain and as I said it takes that 3% or 4% all the time while on wrist. Only idle while not on wrist drops it to about 1% or little more.
Using apps drain a bit more fast.

The battery health indication is really just a comparison of full battery capacity compared to initial battery capacity design. i'm not sure if this is one on a per watch initial calibration or a nominal amount that all batteries have. As for the % use, obviously it's going to vary depending on activities used. If I go for a walk workout and turn on a tracking workout and don't take my phone, the watch is going to use GPS for tracking and that uses pretty much the most battery. Making phone calls, fair amount of battery consumption. Workout with real time HR tracking, uses more battery.. but from the couple weeks of testing I have just done, with AOD off and everything else being equal the watch uses 1-2% per hour and with AOD on it's closer to 2-3% per hour. Some lower, some higher but that is how it works out. At night, I run off the radio, put it in airplane mode (don't want any alerts to come in), obviously the screen is not coming on but it's taking HR readings, tracking sleep and taking O2 measurements. I put it on at 20:00 and at 07:00 it had used 9% battery total. That's even LESS than 1% per hour.

 

[bransoj]

I charged my AW6 last night and put it on at 7am this morning. It has AOD on and I’ve had it on all day at work with notifications pinging all day and I did a 30min cycling workout on fitness+ earlier. As I type this it’s at 55% after just over 12 hours of wearing it so just under 4% an hour and it’s pretty consistently around this sort of level.

The only time I got it down a lot lower was when I used it to track an 8 mile outdoor walk using a walking app that you put the route in and it shows directions etc on your watch so was using gps for quite a while and checking it regularly as well as using it to control music on my phone.

 

[nph]

Ise theatre mode during the night and that gets usage down to 2% and during the day with AOD I get around 3% going up to 4% if I do an exercise so all in all I get 24h before I need to recharge, can stretch to 36 but then it is empty and takes long to recharge. Prefer to charge it a bit more often. This is AW5 with 90% capacity.
I hope 7.3 gives good life then I will stay on that for a long time unless some really compelling feature makes me upgrade.

 

[0906742]

I charged AW 6 40 mm up this morning and put it on at 9 am. That’s 8 hours now - had it on all day and just did a half hour on the spin bike. my battery is at 91%. (AOD off). I don’t know if the 40mm does have longer battery life but I’m certainly impressed with this.

Sounds like AW6 40mm has much better battery life. That is about what I did expect to see but my 44mm is terrible, much worse than my AW3 is still after years of daily use.

Mine just dropped 13% overnight while not on wrist in about 11 hours...

 

[0906742]

I charged my AW6 last night and put it on at 7am this morning. It has AOD on and I’ve had it on all day at work with notifications pinging all day and I did a 30min cycling workout on fitness+ earlier. As I type this it’s at 55% after just over 12 hours of wearing it so just under 4% an hour and it’s pretty consistently around this sort of level.

Is this 44mm? That 3-4% sounds about what I see with mine. Practically mine uses the same or little more AOD off than other family members AW6 40mm with AOD on. That is surprising as I was expecting to see the same as was between AW3 38mm vs 42mm where larger one had better battery run time.

 

[bransoj]

Is this 44mm? That 3-4% sounds about what I see with mine. Practically mine uses the same or little more AOD off than other family members AW6 40mm with AOD on. That is surprising as I was expecting to see the same as was between AW3 38mm vs 42mm where larger one had better battery run time.

I have a 44mm Space Grey Nike AW6, my wife has a 40mm AW5 that seems to use more but since i got my watch and became more familiar with them i've set hers up in a similar way to mine and its got better.

Basically turned off background refresh and set the weather app to use a static location rather than using GPS all the time to show weather for your current location.

 

[ShadowGuardian87]

My Cellular Apple Watch Series 6 (44 MM) does pretty well. I work in an office so I am at desk for most of the work day. I do take an hour lunch and 15 mins breaks and during those times, I often take walks around the campus to get some exercise in. I typically charge my watch over night and take it off the charger around 7:00-7:20AM every weekday. At the end of the work day my battery percentage is usually in the 80's and by midnight or later is in the 70's.

On weekends, I don't charge my watch much, so it can ( and has) gone two full days without being charged. This includes some workouts, sleep tracking, walks etc. But there are times my watch will just randomly drop 2-3% within 5 mins of being off the charger.

I do have the following turned off

-AOD
-Background refresh
-Handwashing
-A good chunk of app notifications turned off

 

[0906742]

I have a 44mm Space Grey Nike AW6, my wife has a 40mm AW5 that seems to use more but since i got my watch and became more familiar with them i've set hers up in a similar way to mine and its got better.

Basically turned off background refresh and set the weather app to use a static location rather than using GPS all the time to show weather for your current location.

So you see this nearly 4% drop per hour with AOD on and with the mentioned things disabled?
Mine seems to be around 4% AOD on, really not big difference to AOD off but what I don't get is that why our other AW6 40mm uses only about 2.5% per hour with AOD off?
That is a huge difference! Both are brand new and the same settings. I would expect 44mm being better or at least equal but this uses like over 50% more battery for the same task as 40mm. Can it be normal?

 

[Cheefy]

I’m just approaching 24 hours since charging last night. Two workouts totalling just over 60 minutes and I’m on 76% battery left - using Unity Watchface with one complication (date) as an experiment and AOD is off. AW6 40mm.

 

[0906742]

I’m just approaching 24 hours since charging last night. Two workouts totalling just over 60 minutes and I’m on 76% battery left - using Unity Watchface with one complication (date) as an experiment and AOD is off. AW6 40mm.

Funny but 40mm really has much better battery life than 44mm. I've been comparing our 40 vs 44 last 24 hours and it seems 44mm uses around 30% more battery for the exactly the same functions as 40mm in the same time.
Is the battery just dud or are they like that?

I guess I need to do full reset for my 44mm but I did start it fresh and set it up as new when I got it, so no old backup or similar should cause problems.

 

[BigMcGuire]

My Cellular Apple Watch Series 6 (44 MM) does pretty well. I work in an office so I am at desk for most of the work day. I do take an hour lunch and 15 mins breaks and during those times, I often take walks around the campus to get some exercise in. I typically charge my watch over night and take it off the charger around 7:00-7:20AM every weekday. At the end of the work day my battery percentage is usually in the 80's and by midnight or later is in the 70's.

On weekends, I don't charge my watch much, so it can ( and has) gone two full days without being charged. This includes some workouts, sleep tracking, walks etc. But there are times my watch will just randomly drop 2-3% within 5 mins of being off the charger.

I do have the following turned off

-AOD
-Background refresh
-Handwashing
-A good chunk of app notifications turned off

My cellular AW 6 (44mm) does really well too. I have AOD off, most notifications turned off, hand washing off, Siri off (unless I hold crown)... and I can easily get 2 days if I wanted. I’ve used all my Apple watches this way. So far the AW6 is on par with my 3 and 5. I don’t have oxygen sensor or background refresh turned off.

It does seem like the charger will continue to charge to a true 100% despite reporting 100% - I’ve noticed leaving the watch on the charger a bit longer, it’ll sit at 100% for hours and hours sometimes and other times within a few minutes it’s 99%.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Funny but 40mm really has much better battery life than 44mm. I've been comparing our 40 vs 44 last 24 hours and it seems 44mm uses around 30% more battery for the exactly the same functions as 40mm in the same time.
Is the battery just dud or are they like that?

I guess I need to do full reset for my 44mm but I did start it fresh and set it up as new when I got it, so no old backup or similar should cause problems.

Agreed, my wife’s 40mm had a massive jump in battery life from the old 38mm.

Interested to see how your refresh goes!

 

[0906742]

My cellular AW 6 (44mm) does really well too. I have AOD off, most notifications turned off, hand washing off, Siri off (unless I hold crown)... and I can easily get 2 days if I wanted. I’ve used all my Apple watches this way. So far the AW6 is on par with my 3 and 5. I don’t have oxygen sensor or background refresh turned off.

It does seem like the charger will continue to charge to a true 100% despite reporting 100% - I’ve noticed leaving the watch on the charger a bit longer, it’ll sit at 100% for hours and hours sometimes and other times within a few minutes it’s 99%.

Any detailed info about percentages vs time your uses with AOD off and on?

Anyway, what I don't get is that my AW3 has been using the same settings as this and battery life was great in that.
It easily got 48 hours with 1/3 battery still left. This one hardly ever sees 48 hours (AOD off) and practically battery is dead by that... Probably bad battery but it claims 100% health. And it seem to charge normally, I guess (went from 18% > 90% in about 55 minutes, do it sound right)?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Any detailed info about percentages vs time your uses with AOD off and on?

Anyway, what I don't get is that my AW3 has been using the same settings as this and battery life was great in that.
It easily got 48 hours with 1/3 battery still left. This one hardly ever sees 48 hours (AOD off) and practically battery is dead by that... Probably bad battery but it claims 100% health. And it seem to charge normally, I guess (went from 18% > 90% in about 55 minutes, do it sound right)?

I do not - sadly. I’ve never liked AOD because it bugs me so much when the time falls behind then updates when I raise up my watch. It’s possible you just got a below average battery on your watch? I’d be happy with my watch if I got through the day with >40%. I charge it every day regardless if it needs it or not.

I’ve noticed with my iPhones - some come 100% capacity from factory, others 108%, 105%, etc. That’s why some may have stellar life. I also think it is heavily dependent on how much you use your iPhone. I don’t do social media and my watch rarely if ever gives me notifications. Meanwhile my better half (my wife) - has friends, social media, and gets tons of emails - her watch is constantly buzzing and she uses it a lot. She can’t get through 1.5 days with the 40mm even if she tried. So on that note, I wouldn’t feel bad if I was you if you aren’t getting what some of us get (2 days).

18-90% in 55 minutes seems about right but I usually charge a little in the morning, then again in the evening so my watch spends most of its life between 70-100%. I’m not a good one to talk to about exact percentages/times.

 

[Bazooka-joe]

Apple have never come claimed that battery life on the Apple Watch would be more than 18 hours. If you get 18 hours from one full charge then that’s within the parameters.
I’ll just leave this here.

Apple Watch - Battery

Find out more about the battery life of Apple Watch. Learn about charge time, power reserve and other battery metrics too.

www.apple.com

 

[mostro900]

Be interested to know if those with issues have a complication showing weather info set on their watch face? I did for a bit and then i changed to a watch face that didnt and noticed a change in battery life. I then went back to a weather complication but had it set to my local town without using GPS to find where i am and show local to me weather. I found that previously the weather complication led to the watch using GPS all the time as if brought up the control centre on the watch the green GPS arrow showed that GPS was being used.

I've set weather on my watch to never use GPS and then the complication just shows the weather for whichever town i set it show for. 99% of the time my local area is fine for this and i can just change it if i need to or check my phone for weather elsewhere.

I bought a Series 6 44mm to replace my Series 3 42mm - mostly as the battery was no longer giving me 2 days worth. For the last month, I've had to recharge my Series 6 every night as it ends the day between 20-30% battery remaining. I was not happy. I did the usual things and turned almost everything that I could think of off. I'm also using a couple of the watch faces with more complications, so figured maybe that was causing my battery issues.

Nothing seemed to work, until I read this thread/post. I had a weather complication that was set to 'follow my location'. As soon as I set that to a fixed location, I've been finishing the day with anywhere between 60-80% battery left. Huge improvement and now I might set AOD back to On. Thank you bransoj!

 

[0906742]

Apple have never come claimed that battery life on the Apple Watch would be more than 18 hours. If you get 18 hours from one full charge then that’s within the parameters.
I’ll just leave this here.

You are missing the point here. Why AW6 40mm has much longer battery life than AW6 44mm in precisely the same use? Both brand new connected to new 12 Pro's and with the exactly the same setting.
There is something seriously wrong with the 44mm or there are faulty batteries in these.

 

[Bazooka-joe]

You are missing the point here. Why AW6 40mm has much longer battery life than AW6 44mm in precisely the same use? Both brand new connected to new 12 Pro's and with the exactly the same setting.
There is something seriously wrong with the 44mm or there are faulty batteries in these.

No I’m not missing the point at all. You’re saying that your current Watch doesn’t reach 48 hours. Apple say that the expected battery life of a watch is 18 hours. They don’t state different battery ratings for the two different sizes.
As long as your watch is meeting apples expectations then it’s not faulty. If you really think you have a case then put a call into Apple but I bet they’ll tell you the same. If it’s lasting 18 hours then it’s fit for purpose