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

The watchOS 10 battery life thread [MERGED]

Got a new series 9 yesterday. Coming from series 6. Mainly got it because my battery kept dying by the time I got back from work. Been walking a lot more last 2 months. Figured battery degradation on my S6 plus battery efficient bump (I think S7 & S8 last a tiny bit longer?) should allow me to go all day with a few walks in there.

Went for a 1 hour walk this morning with the brand new series 9. I'm at 87% now. Seems a bit extreme? I would think it should still be around 80% at noon?

I was listening to a podcast with AirPods in (for the first half hour). I started it from my phone. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that shouldn't really add more drain unless my phone is not with me and im streaming straight from the watch.

is 10% for an hour walk normal?
 
My Ultra1 on OS 10 was dropping a percentage point, what seemed like every few minutes yesterday. I upgraded to OS 10.0.1 last night, unpaired and repaired the watch and left it on the charger all night. I also noticed the cellular was turned on. It‘s not supposed to connect to cellular unless it’s away from the phone…but I keep it off anyway and only turn it on when I need it. So turned it off, made sure the weather app was closed and will see what happens today.
 
  • Like
Reactions: viking_01
Maybe removing permission for background refresh for the Weather app is also worth trying. But then it is a bit useless. :cool:
 
My Series 5 drained completely in about 2 hours yesterday. Incredible. I hope they fix it. I refuse to buy a new watch because of a software update.
 
I'm getting 2 different percentages, one on the face complication and another on the control center. Watch face is usually 2 or 3% higher. It was doing that on my S7 and thought it was the watch. It's doing the same thing on my new S9 so it's got to be OS 10. Tried restarting and didn't help. Any suggestions?
 
Widgets don't refresh in real time, only a certain number of times a day. It's a system limitation.
It explains why you don't have the same values.
 
No this is not the same thing. There was a slight time delay on the last OS but not like this. Something is just not calculating like it did before.
 
DustinJohns said:
My Series 5 drained completely in about 2 hours yesterday. Incredible. I hope they fix it. I refuse to buy a new watch because of a software update.
Click to expand...
this was my stance entirely. when I went on live chat with apple and they told me my watch needs a new battery at a cost of £95 I refused to go through with it because it is clearly their issue with watchOS10 that made my watch unusable. Why should I pay for a new battery or buy a new watch because of their software issue. just ridiculous. another instance of their diminishing pro-consumerism. using software to trick people into an upgrade is a disgusting practice imo.
 
  • Like
Reactions: whap, Antoniosmalakia and Saludos
My go to face before 10 was California. After updating to 10 I switched to the new Modular Ultra face. My battery drain was crap all week. I’d normally run 2.5 days between charges but I was barely making it through 1 day on 10 with the new face. I switched back to the California face late yesterday and my battery drain is back to normal. FYI … this may help some of you.
 
An update after my post here #78

I waited another day to see if it would improve but it didn't, so I decided to reset the watch and start fresh (without restoring a backup) to see what would happen.

Now instead of dying after 8 hours I'm getting through a full day with some to spare. Not as much to spare as watchOS 9.6, but I expected watchOS 10 would be a bit more power hungry. I set up my watch face the same as previously: Solar Dial with complications of Calendar, Weather (temperature), Activity and Things app.

So I think this is more evidence that it's a bug and only some people are experiencing it - maybe a sync issue, background process that's stuck, or something like that.

Edit: One last thing - I should say that I don't think I'm out of the woods yet, because if it's being caused by a rare bug related to syncing data or state (like syncing apps' location privacy permissions or something obscure) it's of course possible that I'll run into it again. If that happens I'll post an update!
 

Attachments

  • watchOS 10 battery life update.png
    watchOS 10 battery life update.png
    55.5 KB · Views: 103
Last edited:
apaschea1819 said:
Got a new series 9 yesterday. Coming from series 6. Mainly got it because my battery kept dying by the time I got back from work. Been walking a lot more last 2 months. Figured battery degradation on my S6 plus battery efficient bump (I think S7 & S8 last a tiny bit longer?) should allow me to go all day with a few walks in there.

Went for a 1 hour walk this morning with the brand new series 9. I'm at 87% now. Seems a bit extreme? I would think it should still be around 80% at noon?

I was listening to a podcast with AirPods in (for the first half hour). I started it from my phone. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that shouldn't really add more drain unless my phone is not with me and im streaming straight from the watch.

is 10% for an hour walk normal?
Click to expand...

I have the same concerns. My 45mm S9 was taken off the charger at 7:28 this morning and now, at 1:19 PM, it’s at 41%.

This includes a 55 minute outdoor walk during which I was using my AirPods Pro 2 to listen to a downloaded podcast from the watch. It’s about the same as what my S5 (replaced ~1.5yrs ago, 89% battery health) has been giving me on WatchOS 10.

I will definitely be returning my S9 if this does not improve in the next several days.

Edit: For reference, the S9 was set up as new and I’m using a basic face with no complications and background app refresh turned off.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JulianL and InAustralia
Richardlench said:
No chance. There’s zero chance it drained from 100 to 0 in two hours
Click to expand...
I can believe him because my S4 drained from 100 to 0 in 3 hours. whatever this bug or stuck process is, it's causing very high hardware utilisation by the looks of it, likely GPS related I'm thinking
 
S5 on WiFi here went full charge to 53% in eight hours including about 90 minutes of swim/walking activity app (only). Device in Power Saver mode; battery health reporting @100%. Battery drain definitely up. S5 model particularly susceptible?
 
Upgraded to WatchOS 10 last night, today my 44mm Series 4 watch was dead in eight hours. Great work Apple! 👍🏼
 
Series 5. Battery health is 84%. With watchOS 9 I would usually finish the day with 20-30%. Now my watch dies well before I go to bed. I’ve had watchOS 10 for 5 days now, and has been bad every day.

watchOS 10.0.1
iOS 17.0.1
 
I'm having the same issue with my Apple Watch SE (almost 3 years old) it was fine last week and would get me through the day with about 40% battery left. I usually charge it in the evenings from 4pm and leave it until about 9 or 10pm to put it on before I go to bed, so about 18 hours, not bad considering the battery health is now down to 70%. Now its in the red with less than 20%, sometimes 10% at the end of the day after WatchOS 10 was installed, currently with 10.0.1 on and no improvement.

Also recently noticed when I'm using the Watch without my iPhone so its running on 4G the battery drain is even worse, down to less than 30% by lunch time!

I'm considering the Series 9 but I just got the 15 Pro so I'm tapped out for this month. Was gonna do a battery replacement (watch replacement) but not sure if I'm covered anymore even though I got AppleCare+ should it be covered for 3 years?
 
Apart from my Battery dying quicker than it has (yes did all the usual stuff to fix it) I'm also having issues with the weather app no syncing with my phone, so showing the wrong places and going back to 12h format and not 24 which its set on, plus a few other things like that and that was before I got a new 15 Pro.

Bring on WatchOS 10.1!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Yptcn, Diopter and realphilan
The Weather app won’t let me select Current Location as the Default City on the watch, even when I set it that way using the iPhone’s Watch app.
 
  • Like
Reactions: realphilan
I’m not really noticing much difference with my ultra 2 compared to my ultra 1. I did a full charge yesterday until 1.30pm and then wore it during the afternoon and evening and I lost 12% in seven hours. I took the watch off and left it on the dressing table and I’ve checked it at 11 o’clock this morning so that’s an additional 14 hours off my wrist and it’s reading 79% since I charged it 21 hours ago
 
Last edited:
I have massive issues with my Series 5 as well. Can’t make it through the day anymore (even with “Always On” off). Never had issues on watchOS 9.

This is disappointing
 
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