Series 4 no longer charging fully overnight

[pinkoos]

Series 4, updated to the latest watchOS paired with iPhone updated to the latest iOS

I've noticed for the past couple of weeks that the watch doesn't always fully charge overnight like what it used to do.

It doesn't happen every night, but lately has been happening more often than not.

Even if I haven't received the low battery warning before going to bed (ie, the watch hasn't even hit 20% battery remaining), I'll get up 6 or 7 hours later and it will only be at 80-85%. A few times, it was only in the 60% range.

I've rebooted the watch multiple times over the course of the last couple of weeks to see if this helps, but it's difficult to tell if it does or not.

Again, some nights it will charge fully over the same length of time, even if it had dropped below 10% charge remaining.

Has anybody seen similar behavior?

Along the same lines, I've noticed that I've hit the low battery warning more in the last couple of weeks than what I used to, with generally the same or similar usage (ie, I'm not doing anything that would burn through the battery).

 

[coldwaves]

Have you checked the wall outlet, the power adapter, and the cable to make sure nothing is loose and it is continuously charging the watch? Maybe you can try a different outlet, different cable or different power adapter to see if any of these is the culprit?

 

[pinkoos]

I did check everything and they all seem fine, but maybe I'll try moving to a different outlet or cable

Thanks for the suggestion

 

[748s]

I'm having the same issue since the 5.2 update.
I've got Series 4 cellular, 6 months old.
Pre 5.2, I'd take it off at night battery shows Approx 50%, put it on charger and in the morning battery level indicated 100%.
After 5.2 some mornings battery at 86% and watch very hot. It also uses power a lot quicker after the update instead of 50% at midnight it hits low power mode 10% around 2pm.
Some mornings battery hits 100%, but burns through battery quickly, hits low power mode approx 2pm. Some days 100%, goes to 50% by midnight. My usage has not changed from pre 5.2

I've tried charging by mains and computer, done restarts and resets, tried another charger.
Going to have to start a process of time wasting with a genius (who'll deny there is a problem).
Genius will report back to Apple, new update will fix the issue.

 

[coldwaves]

I'm having the same issue since the 5.2 update.
I've got Series 4 cellular, 6 months old.
Pre 5.2, I'd take it off at night battery shows Approx 50%, put it on charger and in the morning battery level indicated 100%.
After 5.2 some mornings battery at 86% and watch very hot. It also uses power a lot quicker after the update instead of 50% at midnight it hits low power mode 10% around 2pm.
Some mornings battery hits 100%, but burns through battery quickly, hits low power mode approx 2pm. Some days 100%, goes to 50% by midnight

I've tried charging by mains and computer, done restarts and resets, tried another charger.
Going to have to start a process of time wasting with a genius (who'll deny there is a problem).
Genius will report back to Apple, new update will fix the issue.

Interesting. Hope your issues gets figured out and resolved. It might be a series 4 specific issue. I have a series 3. I did not notice any charging issues or battery life issues after the watchOS 5.2 update. Keep up posted on what you eventually find out. I'm curious to know the cause of the issue.

 

[GeekyGrannie]

This is a long shot but it happened to me: Sometimes when you place the watch on the charger, the band holds it slightly away from the puck. When this happens the watch struggles to charge and gets very hot. I now remove the band completely before charging my watch at night, and I haven't had a problem since I started doing that.

 

[pinkoos]

This is a long shot but it happened to me: Sometimes when you place the watch on the charger, the band holds it slightly away from the puck. When this happens the watch struggles to charge and gets very hot. I now remove the band completely before charging my watch at night, and I haven't had a problem since I started doing that.

Interesting - I have my charger standing on its side (in a stand), so it's possible that gravity may be pulling the watch down and off the charging face slightly. But, I'm wondering why I'm just starting to have this problem in the last few weeks and not before.

 

[Akrapovic]

S3 here. Since the update mine does t charge beyond 97%. Whilst this isn’t a major issue, it does suggest that this is an actual problem that could be worse for others.

 

[jschnee21]

Since 5.2 I’m having similar issues on my series 4 with not always full charging and battery life greatly reduced. On 5.1.3 I would usually finish the day at 65-75%. Now on 5.2 it’s more like 35-45% with no change in usage.

It does seem that the raise to wake feature is more sensitive. It seems like the screen turns on much more easily and frequently — usually when not needed — like many times while driving

 

[cynics]

Had this issue before with a bunch of other people back in WatchOS 4.x.

There is a very high probability there is a rogue app or sync process that isn't playing nice with WatchOS 5.2 or just stuck because of the update. Good news this definitely isn't currently effecting me so it can be fixed.


-Make sure the watch and charger are making direct contact. If its in a hold thing make sure it hasn't pushed out causing a gap.

-Make sure WatchOS AND iOS are up to date.

-Reset the watch AND the iPhone.

-Goto settings AppleID and verify your AppleID is logged in.

-Verify your watch is connected to your iPhone and sync'ing, check your mail, messages, notes, reminders, calendar and just make sure everything is up to date.

-Verify all your apps match up.

-Force quit active apps before charge (just to test), hold the button when off appears release and then hold down the digital crown.

-Remove any 3rd part apps from the dock.

-Before putting it on the charger swipe to a-- simple watch face, one without exercise telemetry.

Other things to try.

-Sign the watch out of and back into iCloud.

-Completely remove 3rd party apps.


I would try doing one thing at a time to help pin point the issue. When I had this problem it just went away one day. Might have been something I did might have fixed itself. I do know another user had this issue (along with other issues) and there was a 3rd party app not playing nice with WatchOS.

 

[MorphMan]

Series 3 - Same. Put watch on to charge, confirm it is charging and then later on find it hasn't been charging.The timing of this does align with the new WatchOS.

I was beginning to think my watch was faulty.

 

[ryanapple]

Using a Series 3 running watchOS 5.2. I can confirm there's some bug that's making the watch not charging to full. Since installing 5.2, I will wake up to times when the watch stopped charging at 99%. A hard reset will make it go up to 100%. Just yesterday, I woke up to 99% and did the same thing and it went up to 100%. Left it on the charger for a while and somehow it dropped to 98%. What's worst is after doing another reset, battery percentage dropped to 92%!

 

[Akrapovic]

-Make sure the watch and charger are making direct contact. If its in a hold thing make sure it hasn't pushed out causing a gap.

This is actually one of the issues I'm having. I have a little stand. However it was never a problem until this update. Now it's a problem every time. It appears that the update has made it more sensitive to charging somehow.

 

[reggavegga]

I have the Belkin travel stand. Never had a problem with it charging all the way to 100 %. I also DL the newest os for the watch. Since then I put it on stand and the last 3 times on different outlets it has not charged all the way. I look to make sure it starts charging but in the morning it hasn't fully charged. I did charge it the last time laying flat and that worked. By the way I have a series 3.

 

[GeekyGrannie]

I have a series 4 running 5.2 and use the same chargers I used for my series 0. I don't have any charging problems. (See my previous post for my method of charging.)

HOWEVER, I have been reading up on various wireless chargers that claim to charge the Apple watch and have found something curious. Some have a disclaimer in their description which says they work with series 1,2,3 but not series 4. Why would this be? Perhaps Apple changed something in 5.2 to address this difference.

All of you having this charging problem need to provide feedback to Apple.

 

[waw74]

I've got a series 3 (no LTE) and have had the same problem, put it on the charger, it starts, but doesn't get very far.
sometimes it's ok, once or twice a week though, it doesn't charge.
I don't remember when the update was, but power problem has been happening for a few weeks.

I'm using the base station by nomad.

I might try an unpair and re-pair when I have the time, that's cleared up power issues for me in the past (Series 0, would go from 100 to 0 in about 3 hours, it's been a couple years, but think a software upgrade started that problem too)

 

[GeekyGrannie]

,,,

I'm using the base station by nomad.

...

Which Nomad device are you using?

Only their latest one, the one with a built-in watch charging puck, carries all the Apple and Qi certifications. If that is what you are using, then this certainly points to a software problem.

 

[eclipse01]

I had this problem with my Wife's watch, I think it turned out to be the "stand" that i bought for it, the puck charger wasn't completely inside of it, so some nights it would get enough to charge and other nights it would not.

Try reseating or adjusting the charger in your stand

 

[pinkoos]

After waking up yesterday with my watch only at 14% (after being on the charger all night long), I decided to swallow the bitter pill that is unpair and repair from backup. I did that yesterday evening and will monitor how overnight charging goes (this morning it was at 100% after being on the charger all night) and how daily battery drain goes (when I first got the series 4, I would still be at 40% by bed time).

 

[iDuel]

I am having the same issue with my series 3. I placed it on the charger and this morning it was only at 10%. I noticed this happening right after updating to 5.2.

 

[pinkoos]

So I put my watch on the charger last night at about 30% battery and when I woke up about 6 hours later, it was only at 59%.

However, something dawned on me this morning - I've been using the charger that came with my series 3. I looked online to see if there was a difference between the series 3 (or 0, 1, 2) chargers and the series 4 charger (b/c the series 4 has a different size and thickness) and came across a thread in the Apple discussions forum. And, although the consensus was that the chargers are listed as all being compatible with each other (ie, there's only one SKU), some people have posted that the series 4 charger is "deeper" and others have posted that using the series 4 charger fixed their charging problems. Here's an example:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8536509?answerId=250352081022#250352081022

So, I'm going to try the series 4 charger tonight and see what happens

 

[pinkoos]

So I had high hopes after coming home, putting the series 4 charger on my nightstand and then putting my watch on the charger around 10PM when the battery was at 9%. Checked around 11PM before going to bed and the battery was at 80%!

I was up for another hour or so and the battery was down to maybe 70ish% (I can't remember exactly). Put the watch back on the charger, went to bed at midnight and was up at 4:45AM to see the battery at only 77%. I reboot the watch, put it back on the charger and checked around 5:10 when getting out of bed and it was down to 73%. WTH.

Anyway, all this time, my charger has been in a stand and on its side. Tonight I'm going to try taking the charger out of the stand, laying it flat and putting the watch on it to see if that makes a difference.

 

[Knight3]

So I had high hopes after coming home, putting the series 4 charger on my nightstand and then putting my watch on the charger around 10PM when the battery was at 9%. Checked around 11PM before going to bed and the battery was at 80%!

I was up for another hour or so and the battery was down to maybe 70ish% (I can't remember exactly). Put the watch back on the charger, went to bed at midnight and was up at 4:45AM to see the battery at only 77%. I reboot the watch, put it back on the charger and checked around 5:10 when getting out of bed and it was down to 73%. WTH.

Anyway, all this time, my charger has been in a stand and on its side. Tonight I'm going to try taking the charger out of the stand, laying it flat and putting the watch on it to see if that makes a difference.

It's most likely that the Watch isn't close enough to the puck. Remove the cover on the puck, if there is one, and let us know of the results after charging it flat.

 

[dotzero123]

Mine doesn't charge all the way when I put it on wireless charging station. It charges fine with OEM charger. YMMV.

 

[pinkoos]

Placed mine on the charger, laid flat, last night around 10PM with 13% charge...woke up 7 hours later and it's only at 83%

I guess next step will be to change the wall wart and see if that makes a difference tonight