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Terrible battery life

DavidQPR

DavidQPR

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 25, 2017
222
108
Leighton Buzzard UK
Hello. I upgraded from series 1 to series 6 gps a week ago and can’t believe how poor the battery life is. Please see screenshot. Seriously thinking about returning it to Amazon as faulty or maybe performance not adequate.
I would add that it has barely been used today.
The battery on my series 1 that was several years old used to last me a day and a half minimum.
Very disappointed as I had been looking forward to getting it
8C528626-0AD8-4593-BF5E-CA1AD9DCCDF7.png
 
Hardly use the watch at all to be honest. Today a few times the hand washing timer came on, read a couple of message notifications, set a dinner cooking timer. That’s it. Due to poor weather today the step counter didn’t even hardly get used.

I have it on charge overnight and today I forgot take it off the charger til almost midday. The battery is tending to be at around 10-15% by the time I put it on charge at night but today it’s even worse since I forgot to take it off the charger til late.

It’s now two hours since the screenshot and it’s on 16% so gone down 16% in two hours and I’ve not even looked at it.
I will try restoring it tomorrow
 
You should be able to expect one and a half days out of a Series 6. If a reset does not change anything, I'd ask Apple for a replacement.
 
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I have been somewhat pleased with the battery life of my non-cellular SE. I was expecting to charge it every day, and I do, but I usually charge it to 75%-80% and then it gets down to 30% or so and I charge it again.

I did ensure I have spurious notifications turned off. I’m pleasantly surprised it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Which apps have you installed onto the Watch? Could it be one of those is draining power?
 
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Might try a pair and unpair. My mums watch battery plummeted after a software update and this resolved it completely. As a point of comparison, I usually end the end day with about 40% battery left. And that includes reasonable usage including running with music streaming via cellular through Bluetooth headphones.
 
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Howard2k said:
I have been somewhat pleased with the battery life of my non-cellular SE. I was expecting to charge it every day, and I do, but I usually charge it to 75%-80% and then it gets down to 30% or so and I charge it again.

I did ensure I have spurious notifications turned off. I’m pleasantly surprised it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Which apps have you installed onto the Watch? Could it be one of those is draining power?
Click to expand...
Only got a few apps installed,a voice recorder, radio app, grocery list and football scores
 
andrewstirling said:
Might try a pair and unpair. My mums watch battery plummeted after a software update and this resolved it completely. As a point of comparison, I usually end the end day with about 40% battery left. And that includes reasonable usage including running with music streaming via cellular through Bluetooth headphones.
Click to expand...
I’m going to try the unpairing and see how it goes today then if necessary reset and start from new. I did restore from the series 1 backup when I got this watch last week which maybe wasn’t a good idea
 
I had similar problems with a new series 5 I just purchase. Unpairing and repairing never seemed to help but using “erase all content and settings” from the watch itself and then repairing seemed to do the trick. It’s been two days since then and i average between 3-4% battery drop per hour. I was around 10% per hour before.
 
Yes, I am going to try that tomorrow. Doesn’t seem quite so bad today- I took it off charge 6 hours today and it’s on 55%, still not great though
 
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Howard2k said:
I have been somewhat pleased with the battery life of my non-cellular SE. I was expecting to charge it every day, and I do, but I usually charge it to 75%-80% and then it gets down to 30% or so and I charge it again.

I did ensure I have spurious notifications turned off. I’m pleasantly surprised it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Which apps have you installed onto the Watch? Could it be one of those is draining power?
Click to expand...

That’s my experience on most days too. I can get through two nights before having to recharge.
 
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The Apple Watch will also use more battery if it cannot maintain a Bluetooth LE connection to your iPhone (BLE takes very little energy). It will then try to connect to wifi and will use its own GPS (instead of the phone's GPS). Just to eliminate this as a possible cause, suggest keep your phone paired and reasonably close to your watch during the day while you are testing your battery life. (Check that the phone connection icon is green in the control center).
Obviously you will not wish to constrain yourself this way all the time, but just to eliminate one excuse for rapid battery drain. Also, if it is downloading an update or something this may increase battery usage. The point is that the battery usage may increase some days for other "behind the scenes" activities that you are not aware of, so should not make a judgment based on a single day usage.
 
My 44mm Series 6 also struggles to make it through a day without getting into the “red zone” below 10%. I still have a 42mm Series 2 on watchOS 6 and that gets better battery life.
 
perezr10 said:
My 44mm Series 6 also struggles to make it through a day without getting into the “red zone” below 10%. I still have a 42mm Series 2 on watchOS 6 and that gets better battery life.
Click to expand...

I’ve been having similar issues with my 2 week old series 5 44mm. (I bought it new and the battery health is still 100%.) My old 42mm series 2 lasted me all day with zero issues as well. And it was over 4 years old!

I’ve tried unpairing and re-pairing, restoring from backup as well as starting new. I’ve tried to erase the watch using erase all content and settings from the watch and started new and from a backup. I even went a full day after setting up as new with no 3rd party apps, no AOD, and no raise to wake. No luck. i end my day in the red.

Anyone have any other ideas of what to try? From reading on here it doesn’t seem like this is a normal user experience for a new series 5.

Edit: forgot to mention that I contacted Apple support and they ran diagnostics that have all come back saying everything is fine.
 
Last edited:
Food for my thought My series 6 on a normal working day

off charge at 7am and by 23:30 it’s on about 10%. That’s with a 3.5 mile walk each day.

so yeah battery life isn’t amazino but least it lasts me a full working day
 
Mine goes on the charger at 6:15am every morning when I wake up and then back on my wrist around 7am or so when it's at 100%. I get anywhere from 30-60 or so minutes of outdoor cycling in during the day, and on certain days about half an hour of weight training after work. Go to bed with the watch on my wrist and typically at 6:15 the next morning when I wake up it's still got around 35% battery remaining.
 
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DavidQPR said:
Hello. I upgraded from series 1 to series 6 gps a week ago and can’t believe how poor the battery life is. Please see screenshot. Seriously thinking about returning it to Amazon as faulty or maybe performance not adequate.
I would add that it has barely been used today.
The battery on my series 1 that was several years old used to last me a day and a half minimum.
Very disappointed as I had been looking forward to getting it
View attachment 1743392
Click to expand...

Which WatchOS version does it have?
 
The Game 161 said:
Food for my thought My series 6 on a normal working day

off charge at 7am and by 23:30 it’s on about 10%. That’s with a 3.5 mile walk each day.

so yeah battery life isn’t amazino but least it lasts me a full working day
Click to expand...
That seems pretty poor for an S6. Running it down to 10% everyday is going to be hard on the battery, too.

My 1.5-yr old S5 (non-cellular) with 88% battery health does better than that, using AOD all day, 2-hr bike rides with podcasts, Spotify, map tracking, several phone calls, etc.; I seldom have less than 20% left by midnight.

Is yours cellular? If so, that might explain it.
 
wilberforce said:
That seems pretty poor for an S6. Running it down to 10% everyday is going to be hard on the battery, too.

My 1.5-yr old S5 (non-cellular) with 88% battery health does better than that, using AOD all day, 2-hr bike rides with podcasts, Spotify, map tracking, several phone calls, etc.; I seldom have less than 20% left by midnight.

Is yours cellular? If so, that might explain it.
Click to expand...
What is the range you should charge it at? I charge mine when it is down to 15-20% and charge to 100% or almost 100%.
 
1CaesaR1 said:
What is the range you should charge it at? I charge mine when it is down to 15-20% and charge to 100% or almost 100%.
Click to expand...
The greater the depth of discharge, the fewer cycles it will last. It is also best not to fully charge a Li-ion battery, or if you do, not to hold it at fully charged for too long.

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

Discover what causes Li-ion to age and what the battery user can do to prolong its life
batteryuniversity.com

In practice, you don't realistically have much choice or control. Just be aware that (nearly) fully discharging it every day is not the best recipe for long battery life.
 
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I would try doing a factory reset and set up the AW from scratch, *NOT* restore from a previous backup.
Don't install any third party apps (automatic app install - off)
In the Watch app, go into General, Wake Screen and ensure "Wake on Wrist Raise" and "Wake on Crown Up" are turned off. Also ensure "Listen for Hey Siri" and "Raise to Speak" are turned off under Siri.
Swipe up from the bottom of your Watch and activate Theater Mode (double mask icon) so that the display is not always on while you are asleep/not actively using your Watch.
With the settings I listed above and wearing it overnight (sleep tracking on) I have easily gone up to 36 hours between charges. I typically have 30-45% remaining before I put it on the charger every morning when I get up.
 
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