The watchOS 10 battery life thread [MERGED]

[The_Madhatter]

Well guys, I did it... I reset my iPhone settings (this automatically causes the watch to unpair and reconnect with the phone). It's been 4 hours and the battery went from 85% down to 66%. But I did a 45 min. workout and used the watch quite a bit. So I lost 19% in 4 hours. That's about 4,75% per hour but including a workout.

This morning I lost 35% in 6 hours - that was nearly 6% per hour without working out or doing anything.

So maybe I'm on the track back to a decent battery life. 😀

But as a heavy Apple user since 2005 (MacBooks, iPods, the first iPhone in 2007...) I've never expereinced such bad software before... it seems like it's getting worse. 🙁

EDIT: Wow... and battery drain is back! Lost 10% in the last 30 minutes! This sucks. I'm about to throw this ****** watch away.

Ditto, watch S5 here. I suspect one culprit might be the weather app. I deleted the weather widget, removed all locations and disabled "background app refresh" of the app. After that, battery usage was back to normal. Today I decided to return the weather app to its original state, and boom...the battery drain is back 🤬.

 

[Tevosn]

We’re knocking on a week since the update (I updated mine on Monday). Indexing seems far fetched.

I’ve tried going back to my pre OS10 watch face and while that helped a little I’m barely getting 1.5 days out of my ultra.

Ill try pre OS10 watch face as well. I also barely get 1.5 days out of the ultra, i hope Apple is going to fix it soon!

 

[rvalemann]

Ditto, watch S5 here. I suspect one culprit might be the weather app. I deleted the weather widget, removed all locations and disabled "background app refresh" of the app. After that, battery usage was back to normal. Today I decided to return the weather app to its original state, and boom...the battery drain is back 🤬.

I also have the problem in my AW5. The weather app is neither installed on the AW nor on the connected iPhone since many years.

 

[revs]

Add me to the list of people who have seen WatchOS 10 (and iOS 17) absolutely destroy the battery.

Barely used the watch today and 28% remaining. Always used to be way above that before.

 

[ManicMarc]

Noticing this too on the Series 8.
(Side note: wish they'd add GPS tethering back (I know this is not new in iOS 10) - it was a useful way to save battery when doing long hikes and inevitably have your phone. )

 

[Canyda]

Only down to 77% from fully charged this morning (at 7 am Mountain Time) as of 1:48 pm Mountain time. That's probably my best result yet for the new watch operating system with essentially "no use" today of anything out of hte ordinary (i.e., no workouts). As previously noted, I've deleted all the new Siri-face type widgets.

 

[pedzsan]

I logged in to see if what I thought was happening was true and I guess it is. I have a watch 7 and updated the OS a few days ago. My usual habit is to charge it while I nap in the afternoon and I always wake up with it at 100% but today it is at 94% and this is after a marathon charging yesterday evening.

I'll see if there are things to turn off, etc but this seems to be rather bad.

 

[robman74]

I was hoping to come here and find an easy fix, but doesn't seem to be the case (unless I'm missing something)? I have a Series 6 and battery life is atrocious. I was full charged at 7:30am and was at 20% at 5pm and I have barely used it. It has been this way since updating. I'm really disappointed.

 

[techtechtech]

Series 6 here, battery by 10pm was 37%, normally it would still be 60% at 11pm, sounds like a patch will be incoming.

 

[Wanted797]

S5 would get me though the day easily before. Now I don’t think it will.

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

Mine too. I used to be left with 80% by EOD. Now I"m down to 70% by EOD. Currently at 75% 1440 hrs. Took off the charger this morning @ 0640. So about 8 hrs. I don't have always on enabled. ANd I disable Wifi on the watch.

 

[xDKP]

My Ultra is also down to effectively 24 hours and then 30-40% left at the maximum with around an hour of run daily. Could stretch it to two days initially but not since WatchOS 10

 

[MacDaddyPanda]

My phone I'm hoping is just still indexing and will settle in by EOW. Does AW OS do similar indexing?

 

[Sema]

WatchOS 10 has completely ruined the battery life on my S4 watch.

Yesterday:
01:01 - 100%
18:00 - 9%

Today:
02:28 - 100%
09:00 - 5%

Never had such issues with previous OS updates.

Seems like my issue is fixed, or at least significantly improved, now back to lasting entire day. Maybe it was the last update, or just some temporary after-update processing that finally finished.

 

[galenmd]

I am at 8 hours since a full charge this morning. At 83%, albeit with very light usage.
Hopefully, this issue is gone now.

 

[st90ar]

Made an account to share my solution. This is definitely an issue with the Weather app/widget/complications. Here's what I did:

(Please note to have both devices charged to 100% and stay connected to power through these steps.)

1. Unpair and reset Apple Watch. DO NOT SET UP AGAIN!
2. Back up iPhone.
3. Factory reset iPhone.
4. Set up iPhone while restoring from backup.
5. Wait for all your apps and everything to finish syncing and downloading from the restore. DO NOT PAIR WATCH YET!
6. Once your phone is done (it should still be connected to power) set up Apple Watch AS NEW. Do NOT restore from a backup.
7. Once Watch is set up, immediately go in to the Weather app and delete the pre-populated locations.
8. Tap the + icon and manually set your location on the watch. (Do NOT set this on your iPhone in the Watch app as it seems the weather data trying to sync is what causes this hangup.)
9. Enjoy longer battery life and hope that Apple fixes this issue sooner than later.

Since doing this, my Apple Watch Ultra (Gen 1) seems to maintain the same battery life it did before this issue started. From what I can tell, the Weather app is either trying to pull location data locally and gets hung up (whether you launch the app or not) or it is trying to pull data from your iPhone to sync your saved city lists/location/etc.

Also note that, even though you manually set your location, the complications seem to still have an issue populating the data set. You can tap the complication and launch the app and the data will be there, but it won't be on the complication itself reliably. This work around at least un-sticks whatever processes are broken in the Weather app that cause the battery drain.

This was my solution and I hope it works for you!

 

[Tikatika]

I have a 2 year old 7. Off charger at 6am, on at 11pm…battery at 35%. It has been that way for 2 years, aod on, same complications, same apps. Battery health on 9/1 was at 89%.

‘Updated to os10 last Monday at 10am.

Now at 7pm I am getting red battery alerts, @10%. And even worse, my battery health is now at 84%🤬🤬🤬in one week!

I’ve used an Apple Watch since launch in 2015 and have never seen anything like this before.

 

[st90ar]

I have a 2 year old 7. Off charger at 6am, on at 11pm…battery at 35%. It has been that way for 2 years, aod on, same complications, same apps. Battery health on 9/1 was at 89%.

‘Updated to os10 last Monday at 10am.

Now at 7pm I am getting red battery alerts, @10%. And even worse, my battery health is now at 84%🤬🤬🤬in one week!

I’ve used an Apple Watch since launch in 2015 and have never seen anything like this before.

Check my post above yours

 

[Soybomb]

I wish I'd checked here before upgrading, another s5 thats demanding charging way too early.

 

[largefarrva]

Update for my Ultra I bought earlier this year. The first discharge cycle of my watch had me at around 20% (if memory serves me correctly) after about 45 hours, whereas prior to watchOS 10 it would be in the 30-40% after 48 hours.

Then that night I charged it back up to full while I was at my desk at work and the drain seemed to be back to pre-watchOS 10 levels. It stayed at 100% for 2-3 hours and seemed good to go.

Then the next update came out later that day so I went ahead and updated it. Big mistake. I am sitting at around the 43 hour point and my battery level is at 14%. So somehow it has gotten even worse for me. I hope Apple can get this figured out soon.

 

[dcell]

I've updated my S7 two days ago because i had to reset and re-pair it with my new iPhone. I charged it to 95% and turned it off. Yesterday i turned it on, put it on my wrist and did not pay attention to it during work. Then i noticed it was draining quite fast when i got home from work.

Normally i would lose about 30-35% of charge when wearing the watch for about 12 hours. Yesterday i lost 55% of charge after 12 hours.

Battery health itself is still on 94% so i can make it through the day but it seems like there is something really wrong with WatchOS10.

 

[Selandia]

Made an account to share my solution. This is definitely an issue with the Weather app/widget/complications. Here's what I did:

(Please note to have both devices charged to 100% and stay connected to power through these steps.)

1. Unpair and reset Apple Watch. DO NOT SET UP AGAIN!
2. Back up iPhone.
3. Factory reset iPhone.
4. Set up iPhone while restoring from backup.
5. Wait for all your apps and everything to finish syncing and downloading from the restore. DO NOT PAIR WATCH YET!
6. Once your phone is done (it should still be connected to power) set up Apple Watch AS NEW. Do NOT restore from a backup.
7. Once Watch is set up, immediately go in to the Weather app and delete the pre-populated locations.
8. Tap the + icon and manually set your location on the watch. (Do NOT set this on your iPhone in the Watch app as it seems the weather data trying to sync is what causes this hangup.)
9. Enjoy longer battery life and hope that Apple fixes this issue sooner than later.

Since doing this, my Apple Watch Ultra (Gen 1) seems to maintain the same battery life it did before this issue started. From what I can tell, the Weather app is either trying to pull location data locally and gets hung up (whether you launch the app or not) or it is trying to pull data from your iPhone to sync your saved city lists/location/etc.

Also note that, even though you manually set your location, the complications seem to still have an issue populating the data set. You can tap the complication and launch the app and the data will be there, but it won't be on the complication itself reliably. This work around at least un-sticks whatever processes are broken in the Weather app that cause the battery drain.

This was my solution and I hope it works for you!

This is very interesting, as I myself have considered weather app could have an influence on power drain. My new ultra II shows the weather icon on the screen, not the temperature it showing 2 small lines?

But on my series 4 it's shows the temperature in the icon.

If touch the weather icon on Ultra II, it's bring on the locations I have on my iPhone.

My Ultra II is on 58% after about 35 hours with 2 hours running total and a lot of walking etc.

 

[The_Madhatter]

I also suspect that the weather program is having trouble retrieving the data for the current location, as the weather for the current location was completely missing when I checked the app on the watch. After I removed all the preset locations, the list was completely empty, which shouldn't be the case because at least the weather for the current location should always appear.

I don't understand why Apple omitted the "battery usage per app" feature on the Apple Watch.

 

[st90ar]

This is very interesting, as I myself have considered weather app could have an influence on power drain. My new ultra II shows the weather icon on the screen, not the temperature it showing 2 small lines?

But on my series 4 it's shows the temperature in the icon.

If touch the weather icon on Ultra II, it's bring on the locations I have on my iPhone.

My Ultra II is on 58% after about 35 hours with 2 hours running total and a lot of walking etc.

Seems to resonate with the root issue I found. It's something to do with how the app pulls over the Weather data. From my iPhone, it won't pull over any of my saved cities or anything. If I prevent the Watch from trying to pull that data from my iPhone, the Watch still has battery drain when trying to pull data from the "current location" flag. But when that option is replaced by manually setting it to a static location, the main battery drain issue goes away. The fact that it's not effecting EVERYONE with an Apple Watch is what's most peculiar.

Edit: I will also add that I know Apple bought Dark Sky and has been integrating some of Dark Sky into the native Weather app over the last couple of years, so that could be a primary culprit. Incompatible code.

Edit edit: And yes, mine just has lines where the temp should be on the Watch face complication. I got them to show up but immediately noticed battery drain and had to repeat my troubleshooting steps again, opting to not try to get the complication working until Apple issues a fix.

 

[st90ar]

I also suspect that the weather program is having trouble retrieving the data for the current location, as the weather for the current location was completely missing when I checked the app on the watch. After I removed all the preset locations, the list was completely empty, which shouldn't be the case because at least the weather for the current location should always appear.

I don't understand why Apple omitted the "battery usage per app" feature on the Apple Watch.

You are describing exactly what I am experiencing. As a work around to regain battery life until a fix is issued, give my "fix" a shot. I'm curious if it works for you too.

In terms of "battery usage per app" my guess is that reporting each apps usage is more battery demanding to log all that data rather than a simple general timestamp and percent graph. Although I wish I could see this data from my iPhone in the Watch app..