Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Terrible battery life

I took it off the charger at 100% at 10am, it is now 1pm and it’s at 68%.
says usage 2hours 5 min
Standby 3 hours 2 min.

how is that possible, it’s been off for 3 hours. So usage 2 hours standby 1 hour to total 3 it should be. I did a workout and music with LTE.

I have a S5 6.0.1
 
Renho said:
I took it off the charger at 100% at 10am, it is now 1pm and it’s at 68%.
says usage 2hours 5 min
Standby 3 hours 2 min.

how is that possible, it’s been off for 3 hours. So usage 2 hours standby 1 hour to total 3 it should be. I did a workout and music with LTE.

I have a S5 6.0.1
Click to expand...

The way it reports hours is weird. Standby is the total time off charger, usage is... active time within that? But they shouldn’t be summed together to get total time... standby _is_ the total time.
 
bwb said:
The way it reports hours is weird. Standby is the total time off charger, usage is... active time within that? But they shouldn’t be summed together to get total time... standby _is_ the total time.
Click to expand...

ya they messed that up! Has it always been like this or just on OS6?
 
My day 3 is much better so far, not sure if it’s the update or the restart from when my watch battery died yesterday.

Put on at 6:30am, one-hour walk during lunch, AOD on, modular display, weather, Fidelity, stocks, and activity. Yesterday watch was dead by 6:00pm, now it is 2:50pm and I’m at 71%.

Do note that while on the outdoor walk activity the display when dimmed does show seconds. The hundredths of a second goes away, but the display is refreshing each second.
 
Renho said:
ya they messed that up! Has it always been like this or just on OS6?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure, I think it was this way before (I remember being confused by usage back in S0), but I haven't analyzed it nearly as much until S5/OS6 since my watch battery life hadn't ever regressed until now.
 
My S3 battery life was great even when running OS6, most nights would have around 60-70% left
but since changing to the S5 it’s struggled to have 20% left and most nights was down to 5%.

But gave it a reboot last night and updated, currently have 60% left, with only an hour left.

Lets hope this sorts it.
 
So I took my series 5 off the charger at 5:15 am today ... and I still stand at 42% at 7:38 pm.

This is with noise turned off, raise to wake off and AOD on.

The difference though has been me having my phone with me all day ... on previous days, I’d ditch my phone at work for a couple hours and I’d be where I’m at now at around 2 pm.

Starting to think getting a cellular version isn’t worth it if I can’t be sans phone for a couple hours without the watch lasting me until I hit the hay.
 
lexikon318 said:
So I took my series 5 off the charger at 5:15 am today ... and I still stand at 42% at 7:38 pm.

This is with noise turned off, raise to wake off and AOD on.

The difference though has been me having my phone with me all day ... on previous days, I’d ditch my phone at work for a couple hours and I’d be where I’m at now at around 2 pm.

Starting to think getting a cellular version isn’t worth it if I can’t be sans phone for a couple hours without the watch lasting me until I hit the hay.
Click to expand...
Active LTE data connection uses a lot of power, but this is no different than it was on the S3 or the S4. No way to run a data connection all day without chewing thru the battery.

An LTE data connection probably uses 2x as much power as the watch without running the cellular circuits.

Power use is: LTE >> WiFi >> Bluetooth
 
I updated to 6.0.1 last evening...over night I wore my watch to track my sleep and woke up with less drainage than I’ve been seeing. Today I avg 2.6% loss per hr. Just updated my iPhone to 13.1.2 I hope it doesnt mess things up!!
 
Final check before bed on my 44 S5/cellular with the latest updates is attached. 54% at 10:50PM off the charger at 9:00AM. AOD on, regular usage and no workouts. About 3.2%/hour discharge.
 

Attachments

  • B479C401-EC73-4A83-8886-0822ECCB8FA3.jpeg
    B479C401-EC73-4A83-8886-0822ECCB8FA3.jpeg
    79 KB · Views: 171
Left charger on
7:30am @ 99%,
9:28am @ 97%
10:35am @ 92%
11:42am @ 89%
13:06pm @ 83%
14:26pm @ 79%
17:18 @ 70%

Apple watch 6.0.1, iPhone on 13.1.2
AOD - ON
Cellular - ON
Raise to wake - ON
WIFI - OFF

Will update again in the evening if you guys want the updates
 

Attachments

  • photo6098138044994529557 (1).jpg
    photo6098138044994529557 (1).jpg
    247.1 KB · Views: 215
  • photo6098138044994529558.jpg
    photo6098138044994529558.jpg
    26.6 KB · Views: 224
Last edited:
As a first time Apple Watch owner I was not happy with the rate my battery was draining on my AW5. I read through this thread yesterday and made a few changes.

I upgraded phone to 13.1.2, watch to 6.0.1, did a hard reset and turned off background app refresh. Previously I was losing 8%-10% hourly and now it is just slightly over 3% today.

Going to give it another day then try with background app refresh on.

edit:wAOD on and noise off.
 
  • Like
Reactions: deeddawg
Final day 3 update. My day 2 must have had something wrong, it died by 5:45pm. Today at 11:30pm I was at 30%, off charger at 6:30am this morning. Had a one-hour walk at lunch, AOD on, background app refresh mostly off, decibel meter off (I’ll turn on tomorrow and see how it does), cellular not activated.

I upgraded from a S2 which had about 30-40% remaining at this time. So I can’t say the battery for me improved with the S5, but the battery if definitely better because of the AOD.
 
S5 titanium. Updated to 6.0.1.

My battery life was awful for the first few days, but suddenly became amazing. Took it off the charger at 5pm Monday. Wore it until 4am Tuesday (11 hours). Took it off for 13 hours (not on the charger). Put it back on at 5pm Tuesday. Now it’s 2am Wednesday (9 hours) and it’s still got 29% left. So 20 hours of wear time, plus 13 hours of idle time (powered on, but not worn, and not charging), and still has 29% remaining. Not bad at all!

Everything is on. Always-on display, WiFi, sound levels, etc... all of it. No cellular though (don’t want to pay the extra monthly). No workouts or anything, beyond walking my dog a few times.

This easily matches my usual 2-day battery life of the s4.

3FD390CA-E36D-4F26-821E-8E4C666CDD0F.jpeg
 
So my summary having followed this thread from the beginning is that many of us have had satisfactory AW5 battery performance from day 1 that got better (l am in that camp), some have had poor performance that got better, and a few have had performance that doesn’t work for them. And that’s in a specialty forum where people tend to come to report problems. So my hunch is that the Watch with all its functionality options could be working fine for a majority of purchasers?

Battery-wise, my AW5 is working just like my S0 did for 4 and a half years: on in the early morning and off at bedtime to charge overnight with half-charge left (better than my S0 at the end) and far more functionality and speed in the new Watch. I’m happy. No battery-gate for me.
 
Last edited:
Yep I'm with the above poster. Got a bit paranoid about battery and even put back on the battery complication that I removed from S2 onwards.

I'm just enjoying the watch now, using the features I want and before i go to bed I put on charger - with about 30% left.

FWIW, the software update for me 6.1 definitely did something to the battery (in a positive way). looking at the release notes it was bug fixes, but these bugs could have been causing battery drain. Also having the iPhone on 13.1.1/2 helped. Again, bug fixes there may have helped communications between the phone and watch.
 
Easttime said:
So my summary having followed this thread from the beginning is that many of us have had satisfactory AW5 battery performance from day 1 that got better (l am in that camp), some have had poor performance that got better, and a few have had performance that doesn’t work for them.
Click to expand...
For sure, and I think it is the reality that the Watch is doing more now than it has in the past. So there is an adaption period. Watch OS 5 > 6 is a bigger change than S4 display > AOD, in my opinion.

This launch has been poor, and many people were getting stunningly bad battery life, but I think we’re mostly past that with the latest software releases. And people need to keep in mind that the Watch is intended to be charged every night, even if you could previously eke it out for a couple of days with care.
 
It's not a problem to charge every night if you are able to do what you want during the day.
I am affraid it will be difficult to have a 2/3h running session and a full day battery.
It was very easy with my previous S2/S3
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nütztjanix and lexikon318
rbart said:
It's not a problem to charge every night if you are able to do what you want during the day.
I am affraid it will be difficult to have a 2/3h running session and a full day battery.
It was very easy with my previous S2/S3
Click to expand...
When I do a long run on a weekend, I pop the watch on the charger while I jump in the shower.

Did that with my S2, S3, and S4 as well.
 
My final update (I hope) - AW5 44mm GPS: my 24hr cycle with automatic sleep tracking now used <50% battery (from 97 to 51) so this definitely matches or surpasses my AW3 42mm experience. And the topping on the cake is - much faster charging speed of the watch! It charged back to "100%" in about 40 minutes in the morning with the apple watch charger cable connected to a "12W" Anker multi port charger. I am now satisfied with the battery usage and will soon turn on AOD again :) I just wish AOD would detect sleep or such..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back