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Terrible battery life

DGGoingUphill said:
I will. To clarify, I was using the GPS and cellular on the watch — the phone was at home. I went for a ride last week, set up the same way, and the watch went from 100% into power saving mode at a little under four hours. On the S4 and WatchOS 5, that would happen around 5.5 hours.

One thing is for certain, the always on display transforms the utility of the watch when biking. It’s not only a lot more convenient, it’s dramatically safer, as I can keep my eyes on the road or trail more, vs fiddling to get the screen to turn on and stay on long enough for a peak on the S4.

I think there are a few things going on with the current battery issues, given my experience. First, I think that there can be background processes that get hung up in the upgrade process, as resetting the watch and phone made a profound difference on battery life. Second, I think the auto-brightness is too sensitive in the S5, ramping up too far and too fast outside. I am pretty certain AOD is not the culprit. I’m also pretty certain all battery life issues can be resolved with software updates.
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I was excited for the AOD for biking, but found everything was a bit too dim and small to see with my 40mm
 
deeddawg said:
My perspective is that if I'm getting certain results with a given usage pattern with one watch quoted at 18 hours, those same usage patterns should produce basically similar results with any other watch quoted at 18 hours.

Now is there basis for a formal complaint? No, on that you are correct.

Yet as a consumer I evaluate the benefits and costs of an upgrade to the S5 from an S4. Benefits of AOD, compass, extra storage, cost of the expense. A previously undisclosed / unknown "cost" in terms of requiring a change to my usage patterns would be a new factor to consider in that assessment.

So no, I'm not complaining per se, but I recognize that my previous evaluation may need re-thinking. I'm not yet sure if it'll be enough to change my mind about upgrading.
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I do see what you mean, and I agree completely. As I said, even with reaching 18 hours I would be disappointed somewhat, as the S3 manages much, much more - with a 2 year old battery.

deeddawg said:
In fairness this is also WatchOS 5 — I suspect much of the issue is WatchOS6 more than S4 vs S5.
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I'm really irritated by this whole mess. My S3 is also on watchOS 6, but performs just like before on watchOS 5. Granted, in terms of hardware it's much different from the S5 compared to the S4, so maybe there's something "SIP-related" causing this problems …
 
Mine is getting better.

Yesterday I managed 21 hours standby (i wasn't awake that long lol, I put it on at about 4am when i let the dogs out as it was charged). It was 25% when I went to bed

This consisted of:


4am-8am theatre mode
8am-10am no AOD, just raise to wake
10am-8pm Infograph Modular face, AOD, no raise to wake. Complications were world clock, activity, workout, rain and battery.
8pm - 1am Numerals Duo, AOD, raise to wake.

I did about 45mins workout and FWIW filled all three rings (it gave me move of only 884, stand 16 hours and exercise of 57)

Looking at touching 30 hours if that was a normal day, which isn't bad with AOD on most the day.

I didn't upgrade for AOD - I upgraded as I wanted to go Stainless, but I know in theory AOD is always on, but I find no use for it all day. The other thing to note is that from 10am to 8pm, my watch was mainly under a sleeve so AOD was so dim it is virtually off. 8pm - 1am it wasn't under any sleeve, but exposed.

I hope this helps
 
Mine is getting better.

Yesterday I managed 21 hours standby (i wasn't awake that long lol, I put it on at about 4am when i let the dogs out as it was charged). It was 25% when I went to bed

This consisted of:


4am-8am theatre mode
8am-10am no AOD, just raise to wake
10am-8pm Infograph Modular face, AOD, no raise to wake. Complications were world clock, activity, workout, rain and battery.
8pm - 1am Numerals Duo, AOD, raise to wake.

I did about 45mins workout and FWIW filled all three rings (it gave me move of only 884, stand 16 hours and exercise of 57)

Looking at touching 30 hours if that was a normal day, which isn't bad with AOD on most the day.

I didn't upgrade for AOD - I upgraded as I wanted to go Stainless, but I know in theory AOD is always on, but I find no use for it all day. The other thing to note is that from 10am to 8pm, my watch was mainly under a sleeve so AOD was so dim it is virtually off. 8pm - 1am it wasn't under any sleeve, but exposed.

I hope this helps
 
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Lots of reports of things improving. Difficult to say whether it’s the tweaks done in iOS since iOS13 or the batteries settling down and reaching optimisation.
My watch arrives on Monday so it will be interesting to see. What’s confusing is that I have had no issues with my one year old S4. Battery life has been as good as it was with ios12 and watchOS5
 
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After a few days of reasonable battery life on my S5, I went for a 1h bike ride this morning and used music and Strava (for the first time on this watch) without my phone. Battery down from full to 48% by 10am after taking the watch off charge at 7am. Ouch... it’s only dropped 5% in the last 90 minutes.
 
For the last two days I have put my S5 watch on at around 7 am and taken it off 14 hours later at around 9 pm. All options (AOD, Noise monitoring, background refresh) were turned on. Both days battery was just over 50% when I took it off. So I figure I would get about 28-30 hours out of it. My S3 would get around 36 hours on a charge. I am ok with this trade off for the AOD.
 
I have turned noise alert off on my watch. Not because of the battery, but because every time I use a hot-air hand drier it thinks I stuck my head in a jet engine!
 
Well my watch died at about 11pm after taking it off charge at 7.30am which included a 40 min workout

Weekends will last longer due to getting up later
 
Jarrodbcall said:
I was excited for the AOD for biking, but found everything was a bit too dim and small to see with my 40mm
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Interesting, this would be the only reason for me to upgrade but I was thinking it might be too dim in AOD mode outdoors, especially as I would want the more reflective sapphire.
 
Same here battery life seems to be much better with 13.1.1 !
Still 86% at 2PM, took the watch off the charger at 9 o’clock this morning , did 40 minutes bike.

much better than it was before.
 
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AhRiHmAn said:
Same here battery life seems to be much better with 13.1.1 !
Still 86% at 2PM, took the watch off the charger at 9 o’clock this morning , did 40 minutes bike.

much better than it was before.
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Good results. Still morning here, going to check on a bike today .
 
So I’m still using mine before my return window ends next week to see if I see any improvements.

Today usage is attached. This includes a 90 minute workout. AOD has been off the whole time. Battery is at 85%.
 

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Yesterday I took the watch (cellular, 44mm, 6.1b1 and 13.1.1 midday) off the charger at 7am and put it on the charger at 1:30am at 10% in line with my S4. In that time, tons of notifications, a 7 mile outdoor run with cellular streaming music via my PowerBeats the whole time (not downloaded music) and run tracking independent of my phone on a sunny day.
 
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13.1.1 here. I charged mine full last night. Went to bed 8:35 with 100% and woke up 6:30am and my watch was at 86%. WTF was that?!

with my AW4 before, it only eats 3-4% battery overnight.
 
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MrInquestador said:
13.1.1 here. I charged mine full last night. Went to bed 8:35 with 100% and woke up 6:30am and my watch was at 86%. WTF was that?!

with my AW4 before, it only eats 3-4% battery overnight.
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That's why those claiming that 13.1.1 fixed battery issues are incorrect. That update has nothing to do with the WatchOS and how its going to perform battery wise.
Nikhil72 said:
Yesterday I took the watch (cellular, 44mm, 6.1b1 and 13.1.1 midday) off the charger at 7am and put it on the charger at 1:30am at 10% in line with my S4. In that time, tons of notifications, a 7 mile outdoor run with cellular streaming music via my PowerBeats the whole time (not downloaded music) and run tracking independent of my phone on a sunny day.
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Thinking of installing 6.1. Can you let me know which watch faces are removed in this beta? I'd hate to lose the California face as its my favorite one.
 
I decided to install 6.1 beta today.
AOD on
Refresh background off
Noise off

I did one hour workout and some calls. AW always connected to my iPhone

Still 89%

3 hours on battery and use 1h30

really good instead of 6.0
 
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Monkswhiskers said:
Interesting, this would be the only reason for me to upgrade but I was thinking it might be too dim in AOD mode outdoors, especially as I would want the more reflective sapphire.
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On my 40mm, I find it quite readable, brightness set to lowest level. Need to do raise to wake for detail, but the big stuff easy to get in a glance.
 
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I thought something was really wrong with the battery of my AW5 because it did not initially last for a day but after trying the restart method, the battery started working well. It now lasts for more than a day of normal use.
 
Donnation said:
That's why those claiming that 13.1.1 fixed battery issues are incorrect. That update has nothing to do with the WatchOS and how its going to perform battery wise.
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I think it has something to do , yesterday at this time (18H15 in France) my watch was at about 30% battery left , and today after 13.1.1 last night I’m still at 68% , and I did 40 minutes biking this morning.
During the iOS 13.1 beta , I remember one of the beta killed the battery life, and one other put it back normal.
 
Noticed something interesting last night. In a dimly lit room with the solar watch face, the screen actually got brighter when it shifted into AOD mode. I restarted twice, with no change. Also, the wake with a crown turn is messed up and can ramp the screen all the way up (beyond the brightness setting), so I turned it off. I'm on 6.1 with a 40 mm AW5.
 
I always like doing the math.

AW4 WiFi. iPhone XS 13.1.1. watchOS 6.

currently getting 2.2% per hour battery drain on non workouts day. The average loss on workout days is 4%

this is with everything on, carrot weather doing its awesome thing in the background. Background app refresh on. Medium brightness.

this is on par with watchOS 5.

was bad first few days but it does settle down
 
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