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Series 4 no longer charging fully overnight

I can’t decide if I can really contribute to the thread but I’ll give a try. One, my S4 Watch charges from around 20-30% to full charge very quickly, rarely more than about 90 minutes - an Apple watch battery is not very large, about like a postage stamp, so if it doesn’t charge quickly, the challenge is to find out why not. The tech specs say 1.5h to 80%, 2.5h to 100%.

Why not try charging it with the phone shut off? As I understand it, when they’re in bluetooth range they kind of work in tandem. If your apps are glomming your battery this might tell you something? Just an idea.

My charging hardware is a small APC battery backup plugged directly into a wall socket, followed by a small 4-socket TrippLite conditioner. Genuine Apple chargers and cables connect devices to the TrippLite.

Interesting, keep us posted please.
 
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Charged in the stand last night; don't remember what the battery was when I put it on the charger, but when I woke up this morning, it was at 100%

Also, I took some advice from this thread and turned off background app refresh for many many apps that I don't really need an immediate refresh on

Lastly, I had turned on grayscale in the accessibility options (didn't know that option was there - would've turned that on even without battery issues)

Not sure if all these things are helping, but it's worth a shot; I'll see how battery usage goes throughout the day - my series 4 used to be at 40% at the end of the day when I first go it, so let's see if these changes will bring back the good ole days
 
I'm having the same problem since 5.1 or 5.2... It just randomly does charge up overnight. I've changed pucks and wall adapters to no avail. Today I'm actually "WATCHING" it and it'll start to charge and then stop. I did notice that when it stops the watch is quite warm and the cellular icon is red indicating the watch is overheating and it's disabled cellular. I've restarted it and made sure no apps are running in the background (I have very few apps). Something is clearly up with 5.2... It's annoying as this AM I put my watch on and it's at 2% after being on the charger all night (and indicating it's charging when I first put in on the puck).
 
Went from about 13% to 100% overnight, charging in the stand on it's side

However, since the grayscale thing didn't work, I turned that off last night, but also deleted a bunch of installed apps, leaving only around 7 or 8 apps installed on the watch

Let's see if that helps in terms of getting me through the entire day without having to charge in-between (which is what I've been having to do for a long time now)
 
So I did one more test last night after noticing the "overheating" aspect during charging. If I put it on the puck it starts to charge, overheats and stops, never to restart unless I take it off and put it back on. I tried on my Belkin tower which I've used on my Series 2,3 and now 4 - plugged into a 1A port. Also tried on my laptop docking station (2A port).

However, I dug out my old 3/4" little 1A Apple charging cube from an old iPhone and it charged to 100% without overheating. I'm wondering if a software change has altered how it charges and the Belkin is actually putting out over 1A on the 1A port. Not sure, but at least I have a fix for now.
 
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maraudx said:
So I did one more test last night after noticing the "overheating" aspect during charging. If I put it on the puck it starts to charge, overheats and stops, never to restart unless I take it off and put it back on. I tried on my Belkin tower which I've used on my Series 2,3 and now 4 - plugged into a 1A port. Also tried on my laptop docking station (2A port).

However, I dug out my old 3/4" little 1A Apple charging cube from an old iPhone and it charged to 100% without overheating. I'm wondering if a software change has altered how it charges and the Belkin is actually putting out over 1A on the 1A port. Not sure, but at least I have a fix for now.
Click to expand...

Recently I have noticed that some charger manufacturers show an official "made for apple watch" logo and certification. Others just say "compatible with apple watch". And even more curious, some say compatible with apple watch series 0, 1, 2, and 3 BUT NOT WITH SERIES 4. Perhaps there has been both a hardware change in series 4 and a software change in the recent watch OS updates which affects how the watch charging is managed.
 
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Yes, if it’s a third party charger it has to say that it supports S4. I had one that didn’t, didn’t read the fine print and yes, the Watch began getting quite hot.
 
I've been trying to collect more data over several days before reporting back with an update, so here goes:

-The last several days, the watch has charged fully overnight (morning charge has shown 100%), without reboot before charging, and on it's side in the stand
-For a few days over the weekend, I needed the watch to have a good charge for evening plans, so I had to put it on the charger before going out in the evenings to ensure that it would not die while I was out and about. So, it's difficult to state what my true battery life has been
-However, yesterday, for example, it started at 100% in the morning when waking up around 4:45 AM for work and by the time I put it on the charger around 10:30 PM, it was 12%
-So, it seems battery life has also improved, though still nowhere approaching the 30 to 40% (by bedtime) it had been when I first got it
 
Ihave the AW4 aluminum 40mm some times the battery drain very fast in few hours checked and removed all Apps exclude the health, phone and text i need to charge it over night much over the time that its shaw 100% dont use the LTE
 
Follow-up - problem seems to have mostly gone away now, I guess owing to a combination of deleting a ton of apps off the watch (at least one of them must have been contributing to the battery drain) and, possibly, the latest WatchOS update, though it will be difficult to tell now whether the main factor was a bug in the previous WatchOS version or a power-sucking rogue app
 
pinkoos said:
Follow-up - problem seems to have mostly gone away now, I guess owing to a combination of deleting a ton of apps off the watch (at least one of them must have been contributing to the battery drain) and, possibly, the latest WatchOS update, though it will be difficult to tell now whether the main factor was a bug in the previous WatchOS version or a power-sucking rogue app
Click to expand...

They really need a battery feature similar to what is on the phones
 
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pinkoos said:
Follow-up - problem seems to have mostly gone away now, I guess owing to a combination of deleting a ton of apps off the watch (at least one of them must have been contributing to the battery drain) and, possibly, the latest WatchOS update, though it will be difficult to tell now whether the main factor was a bug in the previous WatchOS version or a power-sucking rogue app
Click to expand...
Well there’s a surprise ;0
 
One day last week my watch died at like 11am. Usually I check my watch battery life before I put it on but I didn’t. Saturday I had the same issue. Hope there is a software patch coming out tomorrow at the WWDC.
 
Finally took mine to see a genius about it sometimes only charging to 96/98% and being hot. He didn’t know much about it, only suggestion was fresh install. Seemed like too much hard work, left it as it is. About a week later a watch OS update was released, mines back to normal, 100% charge every time
 
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Same issue for me : AW series 4 Cell. Randomly it doesn't finish to charge up to 100%. I've checked that the charger is indeed close to the watch (no band interference I mean), changed the charger itself to a new one, the plug for a new one.
But anyway I had the AW 3, and 2 before and never got the issue....

Also in the morning the AW4 is frequently pretty warm/hot (not pleasing to put it on your wrist in the summer). But my concern is that heat kills the battery longevity sooner over months. Mine is fairly new as every one I guess and it already last significantly less. an other example of battery starting to age is when at 8% it suddenly shut off.

So if they had poor engineering on the 4 for battery management, that's crap for us cause after a year or 2, autonomy will be bad...
Not happy at all with this! I think I'll have a walk to the Genius Bar with that
 
I was having some random battery issues (running out of battery when working out on a full charge, random glitches) and took it to Genius Bar. They ran diagnostics and recognized the problem. Had a new watch 4 days later. You might even be able to get it in less time if you handle it with a rep on the phone.
 
My problem seems to have returned over the past week. Same issue - watch not charging fully overnight, usually reaches somewhere between 75 to 85% despite being on the charger for at least 6 to 8 hours.

I haven't installed any new apps on the watch and have kept the apps that I do have installed the same 7 or 8 that I had trimmed down to back in May.

It feels like the problem slowly crept back up somehow around the same time that Apple released the most recent watchOS update for the watch, though I didn't install it until last night.

Even after installing the update overnight, the watch only reached about 85% when I got up this morning.

I'll continue to monitor over the new few days but it's an understatement to say that I'm bummed that I have to deal with this all over again.
 
Yes - you would probably have to read through the whole thread to understand the nuances of this issue and all the things that were tried the first time around and what seems to have finally fixed the problem a few months ago

It's a long thread so I understand not having the time to do so

But, yes, I'm using the original charger
 
I read it originally but just reading up again to refresh myself of the issue.

Not sure if this has been mentioned but when they replaced the Watch did they replace the charging cable? It could be a faulty cable.
 
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