Terrible battery life

[deeddawg]

S5 Cell Watch of the charger at 7.15AM. At 10PM the watch had 54%. This includes 30 minutes run with cell enabled. The rest of the time cell was off, and wifi was on. Originally the watch was restored from S2 backup and the battery life was terrible. After reset and restoring as new, I've nothing to complain about.

PS: The watch has got always on display off.

Need to lead with that tidbit since for many folks AOD is pretty much the main reason they’re upgrading...

 

[linusto]

Hopefully my experience with AW S5 is helpful to those of you who are encountering battery difficulties. I went through a similar phase with my AW S5 aluminum GPS where battery was extremely poor and I was thinking of returning the watch. However, now my battery is at least as good if not better than my S4.

Backdrop. Also have a Series 4 cellular. Battery experience very good to excellent. Got a new iPhone 11 Pro and decided to install everything from scratch and not restore from my previous XS backup. Did the same thing with Series 4 watch. Guess what? Battery life was horrible on series 4 for a few days. Then kept on charger for a full day and back to normal the following day.

Cue to 5 or 6 days ago. Bought Aluminum AW S5 GPS. Set up as new watch in addition to my AW S4. First day of use began at 6am. Watch battery died at 2pm. Second day of use began 6am, battery died at 3pm. Then fiddled with settings to ensure fall detection off, noise reception off, etc. but kept AOD on. However, I did not use it on the third day. Kept it on charger entire day, suspecting it may still be syncing and settling in similar to my S4 when was reset. Next day began at 6am and battery was at 25% by 9pm. Not too bad.

Yesterday, updated iPhone iOS to 13.1.1. Today, began using at 5:30 am and battery is now at 57% at 8:30 pm. I am thrilled. AOD on all day long.

I suspect the recent battery experience is not a failing of AW S5 or even AOD but rather unfortunate timing of IOS 13/13.1.1 coinciding with 'settling in' of new watches.

 

[LorQ1027]

Updated to 13.1.1 and my watch is doing better. Of course I have AOD off. I’ll turn it on tomorrow and see how it does. Took it off the charger (100% charged) at 12:10 pm and now it’s at 75%. Much better than the past few days!

 

[DeanL]

13% battery usage for 10.5 hours without the screen being on at all isn’t all that great. Plus, what was it doing for that 1 hour of use...? Do you have a sleep tracking app running?

The Watch doesn't do nothing. It still tracks the heart beat, movements and is still connected to the iPhone. 13% battery usage for 10.5 hours of sleep is about 1% an hour. That's nothing. It's actually better than the battery life I used to get with my Series 4.

 

[xraydoc]

The Watch doesn't do nothing. It still tracks the heart beat, movements and is still connected to the iPhone. 13% battery usage for 10.5 hours of sleep is about 1% an hour. That's nothing. It's actually better than the battery life I used to get with my Series 4.

Perhaps. My S3 would lose <8% overnight.
Anyway, I’ve had my S5 for less than 48 hrs and I’m worried about the battery life. My schedule hasn’t been normal this weekend, so I’ll have to wait until Monday to get a true sense of how it’s doing.
Really hoping the reports of watchOS 6.1 helping matters is true.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

My watch did better on 13.1.1 today too but I don’t get why that would have an impact. Maybe I just didn’t use it much.

 

[44267547]

Yup, I think the consensus is Apple needs to boost the brightness for the always on display. It’s not very readable in direct sunlight or under bright fluorescent lighting, I expect them to revamp that somewhat.

 

[DeanL]

Perhaps. My S3 would lose <8% overnight.
Anyway, I’ve had my S5 for less than 48 hrs and I’m worried about the battery life. My schedule hasn’t been normal this weekend, so I’ll have to wait until Monday to get a true sense of how it’s doing.
Really hoping the reports of watchOS 6.1 helping matters is true.

“Overnight“ doesn’t mean anything. Do you sleep 10½ hours like I did or 6?
I can confirm that 6.1 increased the battery life. Here’s another screenshot of the usage. AOD on and two 30 min workouts including an outside run (with GPS). Could have definitely gone another 12 hours.

 

[swamyg1]

I returned my AW5. My series 4 lasts for almost 2 days, and AOD doesn’t do that much for me. I figure next year’s watch will be awesome... so might as well wait it out!

 

[UBS28]

My s3 has never lasted two days on a charge no matter what I do or don’t do with it.

My S3 last for more than 2 days no problem.

 

[chanerz]

I say S5 is a flop. Turn off everything and it’ll last the whole day🤣. Love my S4

 

[ukbootlegs]

Try turning it off and back on. That's when things turned around for me. It's been fine for several days after that.

i did that and it made no difference

Try setting up as new.

I can’t, I’ll lose all my streaks etc

i unpaired and paired last night. Charged it to 99% and when I woke this morning (I wear it to sleep) it was still 99%

took the dogs for an hour walk this morning and it dropped to 89% recording an outdoor walk. Much much better. And what I’d expect

however, the activity stopped recording early and it’s stuck on the screen. I cant close the activity. I think I’ll have to reboot the watch. Even force closing the app, when I click to record an activity it goes back to the walk, and I can only see the top haof. Can’t scroll to the bottom half and click dismiss

 

[Bazooka-joe]

Hopefully my experience with AW S5 is helpful to those of you who are encountering battery difficulties. I went through a similar phase with my AW S5 aluminum GPS where battery was extremely poor and I was thinking of returning the watch. However, now my battery is at least as good if not better than my S4.

Backdrop. Also have a Series 4 cellular. Battery experience very good to excellent. Got a new iPhone 11 Pro and decided to install everything from scratch and not restore from my previous XS backup. Did the same thing with Series 4 watch. Guess what? Battery life was horrible on series 4 for a few days. Then kept on charger for a full day and back to normal the following day.

Cue to 5 or 6 days ago. Bought Aluminum AW S5 GPS. Set up as new watch in addition to my AW S4. First day of use began at 6am. Watch battery died at 2pm. Second day of use began 6am, battery died at 3pm. Then fiddled with settings to ensure fall detection off, noise reception off, etc. but kept AOD on. However, I did not use it on the third day. Kept it on charger entire day, suspecting it may still be syncing and settling in similar to my S4 when was reset. Next day began at 6am and battery was at 25% by 9pm. Not too bad.

Yesterday, updated iPhone iOS to 13.1.1. Today, began using at 5:30 am and battery is now at 57% at 8:30 pm. I am thrilled. AOD on all day long.

I suspect the recent battery experience is not a failing of AW S5 or even AOD but rather unfortunate timing of IOS 13/13.1.1 coinciding with 'settling in' of new watches.

I restored to my 11 Pro Max from my XS Max and set up WatchOS6 on my S4 and never had any battery issues....however I think you have a good point about possible syncing to the new watch and worth a try when my S5 arrives

 

[BillGates1969]

For those of you getting great battery life with AOD on, can I ask if your watch is under a sleeve or exposed the whole time. With AOD on and wearing a t shirt my AW5 44mm drains 3-5% an hour, but with a long sleeved shirt on it drains 1-2% an hour (if I am not doing any workouts etc).

If I have AOD on and move around the house I can watch it constantly changing brightness to adapt to the room brightness - maybe this is something Apple will address in software as I feel it is the constant changing that kills the battery. If i have AOD on, I always turn off raise to wake too.

 

[avkam]

I say S5 is a flop. Turn off everything and it’ll last the whole day🤣. Love my S4

There are problems sure, but the reason isn't S5. Problem is mix of somethings for some users. I have everything on (AOD/Noise/some of background tasks, raise to wake is off) in my S5 now and I'm getting similar battery usage than with my S4. Yesterday I had 22 hours before I put it to charger. Still 29% left. Autosleep 7 hours. 2h20min workout with a phone. Otherwise normal use. I'm on iOS 13.1.1/WOS6.

 

[Bazooka-joe]

There are problems sure, but the reason isn't S5. Problem is mix of somethings for some users. I have everything on (AOD/Noise/some of background tasks, raise to wake is off) in my S5 now and I'm getting similar battery usage than with my S4. Yesterday I had 22 hours before I put it to charger. Still 29% left. Autosleep 7 hours. 2h20min workout with a phone. Otherwise normal use. I'm on iOS 13.1.1/WOS6.

Those are good stats. although think we may see a patch from Apple soon for WatchOS6

 

[smr]

For those of you getting great battery life with AOD on, can I ask if your watch is under a sleeve or exposed the whole time. With AOD on and wearing a t shirt my AW5 44mm drains 3-5% an hour, but with a long sleeved shirt on it drains 1-2% an hour (if I am not doing any workouts etc).

If I have AOD on and move around the house I can watch it constantly changing brightness to adapt to the room brightness - maybe this is something Apple will address in software as I feel it is the constant changing that kills the battery. If i have AOD on, I always turn off raise to wake too.

Last weekend (wearing a t-shirt so watch exposed) I was getting 12-13hrs battery life. Monday-Friday I had long sleeves (shirt and also a jacket a lot of the time) and I still had approx 20% battery after 16hrs use (which I'm happy with). Yesterday, t-shirt again, and my watch died in a bit under 12hrs. AoD on; sound monitoring and Hey Siri off.

My drain is approx 8%/hr in short sleeves and 4%/hr in long sleeves so about twice your drain... I have a second watch ordered (due Tuesday) and I will send this one back. If the new one can't meet the 18hr spec when I'm wearing a t-shirt it will be returned and I will go back to my Series 3 and then see what Series 6 brings...

 

[The Game 161]

Ya but other people have seen a difference, including myself. Also, it’s not really disputable that OLED screens use more power when there’s more colour being displayed…that’s just a fact.

Whixh watch faces seem better?

 

[Radeon85]

I actually think the AOD brightness is ok, and even under direct bright lighting I think they could turn the brightness down a tiny bit. And this is on the SS version where the sapphire is a little bit dimmer than the Aluminium one.

 

[germaocruz]

My s5 battery sucks. I have the AOD on as it was one of the reasons to getting the s5. I hope they will launch and update soon

 

[Nonentity]

Here’s my S5 battery life experience so far, I’ve had three different S5 watches all 44mm, ALU, with Cellular (I’ve returned two because of what I thought was a defective screen on both) and all of them have had really bad battery life compared to my S4 — but not as bad as a lot of people here, they’ve all got me through the day (6.30am-10.30pm) with 10% left when placing on the charger at night.

My daily routine includes 45 minute tracked dog walks, 30-60 minute tracked work out, plenty of notifications, AOD on, noise on, and occasional cellular use but mostly off. On my S4 I’d have around 40-50% battery left at the end of the day with occasional cellular use.

I’ve now had my third watch setup (as new) and in use since Thursday evening, and updated my phone to 13.1.1 On Friday evening which didn’t appear to make any difference to my watch on the Saturday — down to 10% by the time I went to bed.

One thing I did do before putting it on charge last night was do a complete power cycle.

Today is looking a bit more promising, off the charger at 9.40am, and after my usual 45 minute tracked walk this morning (no cellular but everything else on) I was down to... 98% — a HUGE improvement as yesterday I was down to 80% after walking. It’s now 12.40pm and I’m at 88% I’m going to see how the rest of the day plays out but hopefully this is the start of the watch settling down for me.

 

[Rogifan]

On John Gruber’s podcast both he and Joanna Stern said they wake up with battery at 15% to 25%. OK are they not charging the watch at all before they go to bed? On a full charge wearing my watch while I sleep (6-7 hours) I wake up with battery life at 90% or so.

They too wondered if always on display is causing battery life issues. I could see maybe a slight hit to battery life but no way would Apple have shipped the feature if it would degrade battery life that much. My guess is there are software bugs causing this not always on display.

 

[AhRiHmAn]

My S5 is still pretty solid here , took off the charger this morning a 7h15 AM , I did 65 minutes bike and received a lot of notifications from messenger , I’m now at 71% at 2PM , it is not bad I think.

 

[baddj]

Doing pretty good today taken off the charger at ~6am and its now 9:23pm with 35% left

AW5 GPS
Always on display: Enabled
Wake Screen On Wrist Raise: Disabled
Environmental Noise: Disabled
Workouts: Outdoor walk 44Min, 17 Min Elliptical

Long sleeve jumper covering watch in the morning then just t shirt from midday.

 

[N54TT]

I actually think the AOD brightness is ok, and even under direct bright lighting I think they could turn the brightness down a tiny bit. And this is on the SS version where the sapphire is a little bit dimmer than the Aluminium one.

I agree. on the lowest setting I can easily see the display In the mid day sun.