Unexplained overnight battery drain from 100% to 10%

[vanhalen26]

Hello. I went to sleep wearing the watch with a full charge, woke up and it’s 10%, and continued to drain to zero over the next 45%. I had do not disturb and theater mode on, but it was on WiFi.

That’s how I normally set it at night and it usually goes down 5% or a little more give or take.

Anyone else experience occasional drains like this? I’m running a marathon in 2.5 weeks and plan to use it for the run, but will be quite upset if that happens the night before (so I’ll probably just leave on the charger that night!).

 

[nippyjun]

It’s happened to me occasionally. I reboot when that happens

 

[beernut]

do you have music or pics syncing between phone and watch? if it's constantly trying to sync, it will drain

 

[waw74]

As has been said, try a reboot,

if that doesn't work, try an unpair and repair, I and others have had that fix strange battery drain issues
something just gets wonky, and the reloading of info straightens it out.
You shouldn't lose anything, as it should backup when you unpair.
https://9to5mac.com/2017/06/02/how-to-restore-apple-watch-from-icloud-backup/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204518

If you do a full unpair/repair, I would do this a few days before your race, just to make sure it's going to play nice.

Do Not disturb and theatre mode just relate to alerts and screen, but the watch is still working fully in the background.

If your phone was near, it should be on bluetooth to the phone.
If the phone is in bluetooth range, even though wifi is "on", the actual wifi radio in the watch is powered down
Wifi uses more power that bluetooth, so you should leave bt enabled.
if wifi is actively being used, the top of control center will have the name of wifi network in blue
if it's on bluetooth, you'll have a green phone icon.
If it looses the phone on bt, you'll have a red phone icon momentarily while it's looking for wifi.

 

[CaptMarvel]

Also, make sure you didn’t accidentally turn on the walkie-talkie feature. I did that one time last week for the first time and my battery drained faster than ever within a matter of hours.

 

[jbachandouris]

Funny. Not funny. This issue JUST happened to me today. My watch was on the Apple Watch charger (the white hockey puck). Took it off this morning and never looked at the charge (why would I?). Went to the gym and used the elliptical workout for 41 minutes and left. Went to visit mom's apartment and lounged on the couch. The watch dinged and told me I was at 10%. WTH?

I turn my watch off every night. I never see it lower than 30%. My guess is the AW4 didn't sit right on the charger and I missed it. How annoying.

As for the unpair/repair, I will almost never do that because of the idiotic way the Apple Health app responds to that. The 'sources' section creates a new occurrence for the SAME watch every time you unpair. That is BEYOND stupid. The watch has been out for several years now, this should have been fixed long ago.

 

[waw74]

My guess is the AW4 didn't sit right on the charger and I missed it. How annoying.

There was another thread here, and I've experienced this multiple times in the past few weeks. Although I have a series 3.
not sure if it's related to the last software update, but the timing seems correct.
I've have had several (more than once a week) where it doesn't charge overnight, I'll put it on the charger, and it indicates it's charging, but 5 minutes later I look, and it has stopped charging.

I've taken to knocking on the nightstand I charge it on, just to check.

 

[Knight3]

I turn my watch off every night. I never see it lower than 30%. My guess is the AW4 didn't sit right on the charger and I missed it. How annoying.

Why would you want to turn off your Watch every night? Why not just leave it on the charging puck so it’ll be ready for you the next day?

 

[jbachandouris]

Why would you want to turn off your Watch every night? Why not just leave it on the charging puck so it’ll be ready for you the next day?

Gee, and how many issues on the Apple Watch are solved by rebooting? ALL my idevices are shut down every night.

 

[Knight3]

Gee, and how many issues on the Apple Watch are solved by rebooting? ALL my idevices are shut down every night.

Exactly! It's a troubleshooting measure and not a cure for all.
Still a little curious though. What is the long list of issues that you believe could be solved by just a reboot if not every night?

The only good that comes out of this is for the planet.

 

[nburwell]

It’s happened to me occasionally. I reboot when that happens

This is exactly what I do whenever I see that my AW battery is draining quickly. Usually a reboot fixes the issue.