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Ultra Battery Life: Is yours not lasting as long as it was?

T

TendiesFourLyfe

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 15, 2022
11
19
I picked up my ultra watch on launch day and have really liked it. I was able to get 3 full days out of the battery as advertised and it was great.
Normal use for me was to just do 10min daily charges and then a longer charge once a week to get it back up, I thought this would maintain the battery the best as its always between 20-80%.
But lately it has been needing longer charge times and the once a week top up is needed twice a week.
A colleague of mine also bought the ultra on launch day, they cannot get 24 hours from 100% charge, so much worse than mine.

Just wondering if its just us or anyone else noticing the battery life fading badly less than 6 months after purchase?
 
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If I had to guess, it's more than likely software related. The watch has had quite a few large updates over the past few months & I wouldn't be surprised if something is taxing the battery a bit.

Not getting 24 hours from a 100% charge is another story though. That definitely should not be the case. I would be curious to see what his everyday usage is like.
 
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Try rebooting it. I still get 3 days life with modest use, and mine is also a launch day unit.
 
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I've had mine some time now Sep 22. I use it with brightness turned right down and screen off. I get 3.00-3.5 days appoximately from 100% charge to about 20% (the lower figure when it hits 25% or so percent just before bedtime so I give it a charge to get it through the night) and thats been on most charges except the first couple when the battery meter was still calibrating and the battery needed some exercise. Its running the latest watch os. I have noticed no difference at all. Its rock solid.Battery health is stil showing 100% too. I wear it all day every day except for the shower 24/7. On a heavy day with the GPS the battery life reduces but is still good.
 
Only comment I have is that just like the rest of the users here, my Ultra has been rock solid. Except for 1 day. Yesterday.

For whatever reason, both my phone and my watch decided to drop 50% in 1 day despite showing no usage whatsoever. There were no apps showing utilizing the battery (on the iPhone) - just a steep battery drop on both graphs.

Today they're acting 100% normal, just like the day before yesterday. lol. Charged to 100% at 9am and it's 1pm and still at 100% (my Ultra) - I can easily get 4 days with my usage.

Like GMShadow recommended - hold both the crown and the button down (when in an unlocked state) and it'll reboot the watch. Worked for me. Probably software related.
 
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Had my Ultra since launch, put it on the charger every other night, have seen battery at like 10% to 30% or so at the end of the 2nd day. Battery usage depends on so many things, upgrades sometimes cause more drain, sometimes they don’t. I reboot AW and phone around 1 week after the last upgrade, that typically takes care of things drain related.
 
I've had my AWU since launch, and I did indeed note a drop in battery life recently. Rebooted the watch and the battery life improved. I don't know if it's back to Day 1 levels, but it's improved. YMMV.
 
Yep, it’s definitely gotten worse for me and I’m chalking it up to Apple’s always wonderful software updates. Now I’m draining at a rate of ~2.5%/hour. When I first got it (launch) it was draining at ~1.5%/hour
 
TendiesFourLyfe said:
I picked up my ultra watch on launch day and have really liked it. I was able to get 3 full days out of the battery as advertised and it was great.
Normal use for me was to just do 10min daily charges and then a longer charge once a week to get it back up, I thought this would maintain the battery the best as its always between 20-80%.
But lately it has been needing longer charge times and the once a week top up is needed twice a week.
A colleague of mine also bought the ultra on launch day, they cannot get 24 hours from 100% charge, so much worse than mine.

Just wondering if its just us or anyone else noticing the battery life fading badly less than 6 months after purcha
Click to expand...
What’s your battery health?
 
TendiesFourLyfe said:
I picked up my ultra watch on launch day and have really liked it. I was able to get 3 full days out of the battery as advertised and it was great.
Normal use for me was to just do 10min daily charges and then a longer charge once a week to get it back up, I thought this would maintain the battery the best as its always between 20-80%.
But lately it has been needing longer charge times and the once a week top up is needed twice a week.
A colleague of mine also bought the ultra on launch day, they cannot get 24 hours from 100% charge, so much worse than mine.

Just wondering if its just us or anyone else noticing the battery life fading badly less than 6 months after purchase?
Click to expand...
Every user is not going to get the same daily battery life as another user. There are too many variables involved. As the battery slowly ages, it will take longer to charge and will not make it as long as it used to. There is nothing you can do to stop the normal aging process.

Charging to 100% and then running the battery to empty where the watch shuts off is very bad for the life of the battery. That was not a good thing to do nor does it calibrate the battery.
 
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100% not getting the same battery life as I was, and its most significant with GPS and Cellular enabled. I could almost get 4 days with use, and now its about half that.

With Cellular disabled the watch is like it was, and for example 6am to now 2 pm, I've only lost 5%. I'm back to the solid 4 days with those disabled. There is 100% something going on with the updates and software changes, and I'm not impressed since there have been no actual improvements.
 
Check the charging max. Mine changed from 100% to, I think, 73% recently. That might be the cause of your problem. Sort of defeats the purpose of doubling the battery size when they artificially limit the charge

This can be reset to 100% when charging. I'm not sure if there's a setting in the app that makes it permanent or changing it on the charger also make the change permanent.
 
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