Terrible battery life

[Westside guy]

People who are experiencing truly bad battery life might want to mention what their active complications are, as well as whether they've disabled the various background apps.

Yesterday after 18 hours of usage (6:30am - 12:30am; Always-on display = on; Raise to wake = on; noise monitor off; Infograph face w/ calendar, reminders, temp, battery, activity, date, timer, alarm) I was at 40%. I will note that, that morning, I turned the display brightness down to the 25% level - I actually find the display too bright at higher settings.

 

[mk313]

@mk313 - that kind of drain does sound like a "stuck" app.

Turns out that it was. I turned off audible this morning and now 3-4 hours later, I’m still at 73%. So in my case, after figuring that out, I’m seeing great battery life, even with always on display on.

 

[bevsb2]

LTE turned on last evening after trip to Verizon and battery life is worse today. I have AOD on and noise and Hey Siri off. Using the Meridian face with date, temp, activity and workout. I just turned some more apps off and hope that helps. Off charger at 8 am and at 3 pm I'm at 51% with 2 hours, 39 min usage and 7 hours, 2 min standby.

 

[MisterSavage]

Turns out that it was. I turned off audible this morning and now 3-4 hours later, I’m still at 73%. So in my case, after figuring that out, I’m seeing great battery life, even with always on display on.

I wonder if that was the case for me also. Powering off and back on seems to have fixed things for me.

 

[TRICKorDEVICE]

A few things. Give new watches a few days/battery cycles to ‘settle’ in.

Were the workouts mentioned here outdoors? If so, GPS will significantly impact battery life. Normal.

Also, if on 13.0 battery may be down a bit. There were a few betas that were really bad. 13.1 final PB was good.

Just to be clear, are you saying the Phone OS version effected your watch battery life. I'm hoping you're right with the release today.

Thanks ✌

 

[PBz]

Just to be clear, are you saying the Phone OS version effected your watch battery life. I'm hoping you're right with the release today.

Thanks ✌

100% yes. There were two versions of the iOS 13 beta that NUKED my AW4 battery. Others had the same issue.
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Just to be clear, are you saying the Phone OS version effected your watch battery life. I'm hoping you're right with the release today.

Thanks ✌

After a few days of 13.1 if you still have the issue it may be worth resetting your AW. A few notes... when you reset it keep your cellular plan if you have it. When you set it up, even if you say don’t install apps it ignores you. You have to go in as soon as you can and stop them from being loaded. Also, it automatically loads 100 images as well. I turn off lots of notifications. I also use Theatre mode while I sleep. I use 2 sleep tracking apps. My average battery life is about 48 hours.

 

[iGeek2019]

Put my Series 5 on whilst asleep for a couple of hours before work to charge my Series 3; ran the Pillow app and updated my iPhone XR to iOS 13.1. AOD off, Do Not Disturb on and in Theatre mode.

Went from 100% to 10% between 18:30pm and 20:15pm. Will be resetting my Watch tomorrow evening when I wake up after my night shift as the XR will be going on Thursday; really hope that clears whatever the problem seemingly is!

 

[drew0020]

My battery is still awful. Down to 60% by 3pm and am not as mobile as I typically am during the week. It’s back on the charger now. Just upgraded to iOS 13.1 so hoping that helps.

 

[emilydearest]

Usage: 30 minutes
Stand by: 1 hour 47 minutes

Battery: 78%

This is not looking good - in fact it seems to be dropping 2% every ten minutes. Charged to 100% this morning.

I've already done the unpairing and the resetting; does not seemed to have helped. Has anyone else seen battery life this terrible??

Update:

Usage: 1 hour 25 minutes
Stand by: 8 hours 3 minutes

Battery: 12%

Like honestly!! I cannot see how this is sustainable for real life. I only have 6 additional apps downloaded on to my watch outside of the factory apps.

Do we still think this is a software issue, or is it possible I just got a really bad series 5?

 

[djransom]

People who are experiencing truly bad battery life might want to mention what their active complications are, as well as whether they've disabled the various background apps.

Yesterday after 18 hours of usage (6:30am - 12:30am; Always-on display = on; Raise to wake = on; noise monitor off; Infograph face w/ calendar, reminders, temp, battery, activity, date, timer, alarm) I was at 40%. I will note that, that morning, I turned the display brightness down to the 25% level - I actually find the display too bright at higher settings.

Thanks for mentioning this. I just turned off Background App refresh.

 

[PBz]

Update:

Usage: 1 hour 25 minutes
Stand by: 8 hours 3 minutes

Battery: 12%

Like honestly!! I cannot see how this is sustainable for real life. I only have 6 additional apps downloaded on to my watch outside of the factory apps.

Do we still think this is a software issue, or is it possible I just got a really bad series 5?

I would reset the watch. Keep the cellular plan if you have it. FIRST, make sure you have iOS 13.1 installed on your phone. After that, setup your AW5 as new. Do not use a backup.. I don’t really understand AW backups personally as all my data is on the phone. If this does not work I would return the AW5 within the 14 days and buy again. I would NOT do the Genius Bar/warranty replacement.
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Thanks for mentioning this. I just turned off Background App refresh.

I keep a lot of apps on for Background Refresh... I turn off the ones that I don’t need or don’t make sense. I do not allow the AW to install all apps.
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My battery is still awful. Down to 60% by 3pm and am not as mobile as I typically am during the week. It’s back on the charger now. Just upgraded to iOS 13.1 so hoping that helps.

You may have to reset the AW and setup as new.. if these don’t work I would return and buy again (14 day period).

 

[Carac]

Just as a "control" with WatchOS6, my SBSS Series 4 has been running 6.0 and battery life is identical to WatchOS5. I use the Infograph with a black face running weather, activity, sound, heartrate, battery, sunset/sunrise, moon phase, exercise, and date complications. I usually receive 50-100 notifications a day from hangouts, texts, etc. and end up with ~60% battery left after wearing for 16ish hours, good enough to wear it for two days of work if I turn it off overnight.

By contrast, I bought my mother a Series 5 SBSS that has yet to make it through a full day without going to low power mode since she put it on Friday. By comparison she's using the Minnie Mouse face with no complications and less than 50 notifications a day.

 

[Aniseedvan]

Not sure how many are 40mm, but my stats for today: usage 2hrs 39m, standby 18hrs, it’s on 15%. Couple of times it would have been on cellular for 5-10mins at a time, I’ve left everything on, background app refresh, AOD, noise (it told me the toilet hand dryer was over 95 decibels!), using infograph modular with the following complications: battery, carrot weather, calendar, activity rings, strava, bring!, omnifocus and cycle tracker. I’ve done an indoor walk using the exercise app for about 25mins of that usage.

I never got two days out of my 38mm SS3 and regularly by this time of the evening it’d be moaning roughly 50% of the time that it was on low battery.

Watch was set up as a new one on Saturday, and I’ve added back in apps as I’ve needed them.

All in all this is what I’d expect; I’ve got a very long lasting GPS watch for long walks (I’ve had it running for nearly 25 hours on per second recording), and it would last days not on charge, but it’s not a daily driver watch for me.
Cautiously so far so good... planning in the morning to take it for a swim which would mean 30mins on cellular in a poor signal area...

 

[BLuRRnAWAY]

I think you guys have defective watch or a bad update, mine is phenomenal! Battery is excellent!!

 

[pirarre]

I was getting good battery life after i factory reset my watch Saturday night. Nonetheless, I noticed all my workout progress in the "Activity app" never synced over. So yesterday I factory reset my watch again, to try and get my previous "Activity" info to populate. In doing so, I then noticed that my Apple Wallet app was not installed on the watch this time around. So again I factory reset the watch.

After the reset, I got everything back except my "Activity" info. Which i later found out that I had to wait and hope that it populates. But i did notice that my battery was really bad again. I went for a 35 minute workout..using the "Strength Training" tracking on the watch and I streamed music to my corded Apple buds. In doing this, my battery went from 70% down to like 39% in that time frame. I did check facebook occasionally along with my email and messages. But i didn't think it was anything i did that would justify my battery draining so fast.

So I turned my watch and my phone off and then turned them back on. After about 30 minutes, I noticed that battery was draining much slower than it was before I turned the watch and phone off. I popped the watch on the charger and fully charged it. It's now been at 100% almost for the past hour.

i know that with Android, wake locks used to occur when an app don't fully close or shutdown. Thus it continues to drain the battery. I'm not sure if iPhones get wake locks or not, but I do know that on Android turning the phone off and then back on, fixes wake locks. Which I did with the iphone and watch today.

 

[Westside guy]

Thanks for mentioning this. I just turned off Background App refresh.

For whatever it's worth - I haven't completely disabled background app refresh, but I have turned the vast majority of the listed app toggles to "off".

I'm finding I like the always-on screen a lot more than I expected (what I "expected" was it would be nice to have, but only marginally useful). I hadn't really thought about just how often I was looking at my old Series 1, apparently just to see what time it is.

 

[imlynxy]

I think you guys have defective watch or a bad update, mine is phenomenal! Battery is excellent!!

May I ask what update you are talking about? There is only one WatchOS available besides beta that came out yesterday.

May be you are right I got 2 defective or may be I “wear it wrong”.

My decision I’m going to stick with SS4 for one more year. They fix the battery life may be I upgrade later. I see no rush to spend 800 dollars.

 

[pirarre]

Mine is still at 100% haven’t budged at all. It’s strange. It I’ll take it lol

 

[estabya]

I’m currently sitting at 38% with the above usage. Seems about right to me.

 

[atlchamp]

So anyone come up with any fixes? 13.1 def does not fix it

 

[Allyance]

Mine appears to be working fine. 67% remaining after 11 hours.

 

[Donnation]

Mine is much much better now and on par with what I was getting with my S4. A major improvement over the first few days.

 

[DGGoingUphill]

It's been getting better for me day by day, and today, finally it's like my S4. I'm at 50% after 10 hours, about the same as what I was getting on my S4. AOD is on, but I turned off the listening for sound level. One thing that may have helped was restarting the watch before taking it off the charger this morning. Also, noticing it's charging much, much faster now.

 

[cwosigns]

I’m at 38% after this usage. Okay, I guess. But nowhere near what I was getting on my S4. Normally I’d still be above 50%.

 

[Strangedream]

My first full day with my S5 was horrible battery-wise. I picked up my watch from the charger at 8:00am (100%) and when I crashed home at 8:30pm it was nearly dead (2%).

My good old trusty SS S2 could hold up 2 full days without work out on a single charge. I do hope it's a WatchOS 6 issue and not hardware related.