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The watchOS 10 battery life thread [MERGED]

Debauch said:
Can you clarify what you reset for location and privacy? And is that under iPhone settings or the watch settings? Thanks.
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About privacy and Location Services in iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS - Apple Support

Learn how privacy settings and Location Services help protect your personal information on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

If you would like to reset all of your Location Services settings to the factory default, go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset [device], tap Reset, then tap Reset Location & Privacy. When your location and privacy settings are reset, apps will stop using your location until you grant them permission.

I just did that, hopefully the Watch battery life improves. I will report back in a day or two.
 
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So unpairing and then re-pairing the watch seemed to do the trick so far. I charged over night to 100% and come to work on my 70min commute and it's still showing 100%. Fingers crossed it stays that way now. Before it was dropping 6%-8% by the time I got to work. Especially with Apple music playing. I had AM playing on my commute today as well.
 
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So I think my watch is regressing again and it appears to be workouts that are still killing the battery. Took my watch off the charger at 100% about 5:30 this morning .Walked for 35-ish minutes today at 6:45 and when I got back to my condo around 7:20 I was down to 86%, which seems like that's more than usual.
 
Canyda said:
So I think my watch is regressing again and it appears to be workouts that are still killing the battery. Took my watch off the charger at 100% about 5:30 this morning .Walked for 35-ish minutes today at 6:45 and when I got back to my condo around 7:20 I was down to 86%, which seems like that's more than usual.
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I'm thinking the issue is down to the GPS firmware or link between phone and watch, because all the issues seem to lead down that path, weather.. fitness app etc. I'm wondering if there's a bug in the watch getting a location and shutting off gps, it's fixated for too long on location which will no doubt kill the battery, especially with older less efficient gps chips.

Could also be the watch is supposed to get location data off the phone whenever possible so maybe this is also an issue with the link as some have experienced (myself included) worse battery life on phone when the watch is playing up.

Whatever it is I find it rather comical it wasn't picked up in the beta versions. It tells me all the energy is focused on newer devices and the majority of beta testers are Apple enthusiasts who predominantly buy the latest devices year on year.
 
It's weird. After I get into work. THe watch started draining. I got in at 0745. It's now 0941. I haven't been doing anything that should involve the watch, but it's down to 94% now.
 
MacDaddyPanda said:
So unpairing and then re-pairing the watch seemed to do the trick so far. I charged over night to 100% and come to work on my 70min commute and it's still showing 100%. Fingers crossed it stays that way now. Before it was dropping 6%-8% by the time I got to work. Especially with Apple music playing. I had AM playing on my commute today as well.
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I would do this except it would mean having to call my credit card company to re-establish my credit card on my Watch's Wallet, and that sucks.
 
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Canyda said:
I would do this except it would mean having to call my credit card company to re-establish my credit card on my Watch's Wallet, and that sucks.
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Does unpairing do that? I thought only signing out of AppleID does that? I don't use my watch for Apple Wallet, but I do use my phone. ANd signing out of my Apple ID definitely does that. So I hear ya.
 
Did a lot of testing today.

Disabling Bluetooth gives me exactly the same battery life (both on iPhone and Apple Watch) as before. As soon as I turn it back on, the draining goes on and on and on… Also on iPhone BTW, because not only the Apple Watch is affected by this problem. My iPhone also drains a lot faster.

Only disabling weather location does not seem to make any difference (as suggested by some).

I reset ALL location and privacy services (as suggested a few posts back) an hour ago but it also does not seem to make a difference.

My next (and final) step was going to try to unpair and re-pair, but if I understand correctly that also does not solve things for most people, so I rather save myself the trouble.

I really hate this. I think this will also affect the long term battery life of both devices (just have a brand new iPhone 15), certainly if it is not fixed and this goes on for weeks/months.
 
Major Foster said:
Did a lot of testing today.

Disabling Bluetooth gives me exactly the same battery life (both on iPhone and Apple Watch) as before. As soon as I turn it back on, the draining goes on and on and on… Also on iPhone BTW, because not only the Apple Watch is affected by this problem. My iPhone also drains a lot faster.

Only disabling weather location does not seem to make any difference (as suggested by some).

I reset ALL location and privacy services (as suggested a few posts back) an hour ago but it also does not seem to make a difference.

My next (and final) step was going to try to unpair and re-pair, but if I understand correctly that also does not solve things for most people, so I rather save myself the trouble.

I really hate this. I think this will also affect the long term battery life of both devices (just have a brand new iPhone 15), certainly if it is not fixed and this goes on for weeks/months.
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My findings are the same as yours. Except my battery is behaving now and the only thing I can think was the privacy reset.

I too experience exceptional battery life on the phone and watch with Bluetooth off. But that’s not a solution long term.
 
Canyda said:
I would do this except it would mean having to call my credit card company to re-establish my credit card on my Watch's Wallet, and that sucks.
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I appreciate someone pointing this out, I don’t have to call (usually… sometimes I do) but it’s still a pretty big hassle, just the steps that are required to re-set that up…and then they sent you a postal mail letter about it…. especially considering how many times I’ve had to do it in the past few months. Each time adding cards back to the Apple Pay, and many other things I can’t remember right now, each “thing” being semi-minor by itself but it’s annoying how nonchalant Apple Support and Apple Store reps are about this. Telling me “reset the settings, unpair and re-pair,” as if that doesn’t waste signficant amounts of my time…. and most recently, after doing a diagnostic at the Apple Store, a rep claims that I didn’t “power it down” (his words) often enough or recently enough (which actually I have done) but nonetheless his only advice was to let the watch drain to zero battery “at least one a month.” Ugh!

/rant
 
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jsangil said:
Launched 10.1 beta 2 . Installing in my series 5. In 24 hours I will tell you news about battery issue.
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Update: 100% at 6:00am and 5% 20:00 pm. There may be an improvement with the new beta (10.1 beta 2) but I can't assure and I can't quantify it because I did two hours of cycling workflow.

Battery life is still lower compared with watchOS 9 but without a doubt with a slight improvement.
 
Just installed the new iOS 17.0.3. We will see if that makes any difference.

Since I don’t wear my Watch at night and always charge it to 100% before I go to sleep, I’m in the best position to ‘quantify ’ any changes to battery drain. The last week I’m always waking up with a percentage around 20-30% (obviously with no use at all during the night). So +- 70-80% drain in +- 8 hours. As opposed to 10% drain during the night the last 3 years.
 
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Major Foster said:
Just installed the new iOS 17.0.3. We will see if that makes any difference.

Since I don’t wear my Watch at night and always charge it to 100% before I go to sleep, I’m in the best position to ‘quantify ’ any changes to battery drain. The last week I’m always waking up with a percentage around 20-30% (obviously with no use at all during the night). So +- 70-80% drain in +- 8 hours. As opposed to 10% drain during the night the last 3 years.
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This is my next step but with IOS 17.1 beta 2, since I have read in this same thread and many other forums that it could be a solution. I will be attentive to your experiences.
 
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So how much are your batteries draining on average per hour? I have been testing and measuring the last couple of days, and my S7 cellular 45mm is draining a constant of 5% per hour. Resetting privacy, weather or restoring to factory does not make a difference for me at all. Always just the 5% drain per hour.
 
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107655 said:
So how much are your batteries draining on average per hour? I have been testing and measuring the last couple of days, and my S7 cellular 45mm is draining a constant of 5% per hour. Resetting privacy, weather or restoring to factory does not make a difference for me at all. Always just the 5% drain per hour.
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A ridiculous 15% every hour over here (SE1). And that is without even using it. Only using my iPhone.
 
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So, my S4 also is getting abnormal battery usage (~6%) without doing anything.

However, I installed the 17.0.3 iOS update and rebooted the iPhone and the watch, and in the last 2 hours the battery consumption went down to 1.5% per hour. Let’s hope that continues that way.
 
Debauch said:
Can you clarify what you reset for location and privacy? And is that under iPhone settings or the watch settings? Thanks.
Click to expand...
It’s in the phone settings.
Settings->general->transfer or reset iPhone ->reset->reset location and privacy.

IMG_0230.jpeg
 
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I have removed all Apple Weather complications from my Watch and replaced with Weather Network complications instead. We will see if that makes a difference.
 
This on the original Ultra with optimized charging enabled and battery health still at 100%.

Since version 10 both charging and battery usage have been erratic: sometimes it charges overnight (in nightstand mode) to 100%, sometimes to 80% and sometimes to 70%.

On Monday it was 100% when I got up. I cycled 60K with the WorkOutDoors app and the battery was only down to 60% when I had finished lunch five hours later.

This morning it was also charged to 100%. After cycling only 12K it is already down to 65% and it’s not even 9:00 AM yet.

My wife’s 6 is even worse. Normally she has battery to spare at bedtime. Last night it died by 7:30PM. She was quite upset as she was only a few calories away from meeting her monthly challenge goal. She charged it to 15% and jumping jacked her way to her goal. (Quite annoying for me, BTW.)
 
Major Foster said:
Just installed the new iOS 17.0.3. We will see if that makes any difference.

Since I don’t wear my Watch at night and always charge it to 100% before I go to sleep, I’m in the best position to ‘quantify ’ any changes to battery drain. The last week I’m always waking up with a percentage around 20-30% (obviously with no use at all during the night). So +- 70-80% drain in +- 8 hours. As opposed to 10% drain during the night the last 3 years.
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Update: not the exact result I wanted, but there has definitely been a change after 17.0.3.

When I woke up my Apple Watch lost 35% (as opposed to losing 70-80% last week). So, a small improvement for sure, but nowhere near the 10% loss/night as it used to be.

Same goes for my iPhone. Lost around 10% during the night (as opposed to 15-20% the last week). It’s a brand new iPhone, so difficult to compare, but I think around 5% loss is what it should normally be.

Mind that all of this is in airplane mode, so no mobile connection/Wi-Fi interfering. Battery drain is caused solely by some Bluetooth process between Apple Watch and iPhone.

So all in all there is a slight improvement for the first time, but still very far from ideal…
 
jsangil said:
Update: 100% at 6:00am and 5% 20:00 pm. There may be an improvement with the new beta (10.1 beta 2) but I can't assure and I can't quantify it because I did two hours of cycling workflow.

Battery life is still lower compared with watchOS 9 but without a doubt with a slight improvement.
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Update2: Confirmed, WatchOS 10.1 beta2 and IOS 17.0.3 don't solve the battery issue in a series 5. 100% at 6:00am and now at 10:30am is 60%. Too much battery drain.
 
Before I take the final step: is there anyone who’s battery problems have been (fully) solved by unpairing and re-pairing the Watch? I’m very hesitant to do it if there is not even 1 clear positive experience.
 
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