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Series 6 Battery Health

M

Merlin_the_mog

macrumors member
Original poster
So I checked my series 6 battery health today and noticed that it had already dropped to 98%. That seems like quite a big drop in less than a month - especially since I've been really careful with the battery. How is everyone else's battery health doing? My 2 year old Series 4 is at 88% which seems reasonable after 24 months.
 
Mine's still on 100% and haven't taken any particular care with the battery.

I'm not sure it'll change anything, but have you restarted the watch at all?

Have you noticed any issues in performance with the battery? If not, it may not be an issue at the moment, but keep an eye on it and if it drops below 90% quickly, it might be worth reaching out to Apple Support.
 
Thanks for the follow up. Yes, I tried restarting my watch and even re-paired. Still shows 98%.

My battery doesn't seem to last as well as many on here which is one of the reasons I checked it. Was surprised to see it had dropped to 98% already. If it's going to lose 2% a month then that's not good...
 
Perhaps not, but there might be a small degree of variation with the firmware that reads the battery health (although I'm just speculating here).

Give it a couple of months to see if it drops anymore before speaking to Apple - I suspect they won't do much after just a couple of weeks.
 
It's been discharged to 0% once (as in it ran out on my wrist), but otherwise I've just been keeping it topped up by charging it at my desk when I'm working.
 
Merlin_the_mog said:
So I checked my series 6 battery health today and noticed that it had already dropped to 98%. That seems like quite a big drop in less than a month - especially since I've been really careful with the battery. How is everyone else's battery health doing? My 2 year old Series 4 is at 88% which seems reasonable after 24 months.
Click to expand...
Chances are that two years from now your Series 6 will be about the same as your Series 4.
 
Merlin_the_mog said:
It's been discharged to 0% once (as in it ran out on my wrist), but otherwise I've just been keeping it topped up by charging it at my desk when I'm working.
Click to expand...
I was asking because discharging a Li-ion battery is one of those things that can damage it quickly.

Oher things are:
Keeping it at full charge for long periods of time.
Putting the battery under load when it’s (the batterys internal temperature) below 0 degC
 
Spindel said:
I was asking because discharging a Li-ion battery is one of those things that can damage it quickly.

Oher things are:
Keeping it at full charge for long periods of time.
Putting the battery under load when it’s (the batterys internal temperature) below 0 degC
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm aware of the best way to look after Li-ion batteries. I've been more careful with this watch as far as discharging and overcharging than I was with my series 4 (or any other device I've had!)

That's why I'm concerned that the maximum capacity has dropped 2% already. Has anyone else seen this or does everyone else still have 100%?
 
I bought my S5 on release, so that is just a bit more than a year and my battery is at 99%. Never off my wrist other than to charge. That said, wait and see if it continues to drop and if it does return it. I am sure Apple has a line it must cross before being considered 'faulty'.
 
I’ve had my Apple Watch 6 for 8 months now. It’s worn all day and comes off for a few hours to charge in the evening. After that, I put it back on. I have been noticing that my battery performance has been declining. I just checked my battery health and it’s at 91%. This does not seem right at all. I am going to reach out to Apple to see what they say.

Is there anyone else having this issue?
 
Last edited:
linsam said:
I’ve had my Apple Watch 6 for 8 months now. It’s worn all day and comes off for a few hours to charge in the evening. After that, I put it back on. I have been noticing that my battery performance has been declining. I just checked my battery health and it’s at 91%. This does not seem right at all. I am going to reach out to Apple to see what they say.

Is there anyone else having this issue?
Click to expand...

That’s about the speed that my series 5 has deteriorated. I don’t think it’s reasonable to lose that much capacity in under a year. I sometimes get less than 12 hours of battery life in a day. Of course, Apple won’t do anything because it says 91% battery health.
 
I once drove three hours to an Apple store with an iPhone to get the battery replaced because it would only last a couple of hours of usage before needing a charge. It was out of warranty and I was ready to pay the $100-120 or so (CDN$) to get it replaced then and there. They ran their diagnostic on it and said my battery health was supposedly still 80% or whatever (I guess this was before battery health was viewable in settings) and that standby usage was still good enough so they refused to replace the battery.

I was like first of all, I’m ready to hand you the money to change the battery. Since when does Apple not want my money. Secondly, what good is standby time to anyone? I want to be able to use my phone, that’s the whole point. I’m not even a heavy user and I couldn’t go a day without having to charge it twice. They basically told me my battery will be fine as long as I’m not using the phone. Well no $&#@.

All this to say Apple needs to see a pretty severe battery defect to agree to change one. Maybe other Apple stores are more lenient with it than others but if their diagnostic spits out a number that they deem acceptable, even if it doesn’t reflect your actual real world usage of the device, it might be a fight to get them to do anything about it.
 
My SS AW S4 which I purchased in November of 2019, (after it got discontinue) is now at 89%. I don’t use it for sleep tracking, so at this point the battery is mostly still sufficient for me to comfortably last me whole day And I usually end the day with about 25-35% remaining. i have few battery optimizations enabled to make sure it does not die like background app sync is off, handoff is off, auto launch audio apps is also off - that last feature was killing my battery the most as I use Apple Music and podcasts a lot throughout the day.
I will most likely request battery service on this watch in a year or so and pass it onto my daughter. She is still using my old SS AW S2. So far I skipped S5 and S6 as neither one has any appealping feature that I would want. I am guessing S7 won’t be any different but will will see. I don’t mind waiting for S8 as my S4 is still plenty fast and does everything I need it to do.
 
When I bought my 6 series, I gave my brother my 3 series (bought October 2017). I checked the battery health of the 3 series today. It’s 87% (over 3.5 years old) compared to my 91% (only 8 months old). Needless to say, I’m in shock.
 
I have the Apple Watch 6 Nike edition and have no issues with battery life. Sure, we all wish the battery would last all week without charging, but I am very active with my watch and have no complaints. I bike 30 miles a day and use the watch to monitor my heart rate, stats and distance traveled. I also use my watch at night to monitor my sleep. When do i charge my watch you ask? Well, when i first wake up in the morning after the watch was used to monitor my sleeping heart rate...the battery is usually at 97%. I then place my watch on the charger while i eat breakfast. By the time i finish, it’s fully charged, and I go on my 30 mile bike ride. This usually takes 3 hrs. When i return home my watch is usually in the 70%- 80% range. I can charge it then if I want, but i usually don’t. I am an artist & work from home. I then go about my day wearing the watch as a watch. Occasionally checking the time or messages. By the evening it is in the 50-60% range and I charge it sometime before bed. Usually while eating dinner. And then I monitor my sleep all night and repeat the routine. No hassle at all.
 
I've got a S4 that I bought at launch. September 2018. So it's going on 3 years. It's at 85%. It still lasts all day, even when I do multiple workouts. No problem. Yesterday I put it on at 7:00 AM. I fell asleep with it on and didn't take it off until about 2:30 AM and it was just under 20%.
 
I got my Series 5 in April of last year and it's at 88% maximum capacity. I'm definitely feeling the degradation already. Used to end the day at ~40% with AOD enabled and now beginning to end in the high teen to low 20% range. I was hoping to use it for a bit longer than a year.
 
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Yeahbsolutely said:
I usually don’t charge past 80%-ish and never go below 20%, so my S6 still has 100% battery health 🙂 I do the same with my phone and observe similar results there.
Click to expand...

on my watch I’ve been aiming for 35% to 75%. Sometimes it‘s 30% to 80% but I’m reasonably consistent. After 4 1/2 months I’m still at 100%.
 
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