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rdunlap

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 13, 2013
320
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Not sure what's going on but the last week or so my S1 Apple Watch's battery has been draining a lot faster than normal. Anyone else having this issue? Used to get home from an 8 hour day and have 75% or more battery left and now I get home and I'm at about 40% and can barely make it the night without it dying. I've tried a unpair and re-pair and I thought it was good but then it started again. Haven't changed anything with my iPhone 6s Plus or the Watch so not sure what's going on.

Is anyone else having similar issues?
 
I was having a similar issue on my first gen model. I ended up replacing it due to a really good deal I found on a Series 2, however I did notice that if I was receiving loads of messages and notifications during that particular day, the battery would go down much faster than if I had little coming through.
 
Not sure what's going on but the last week or so my S1 Apple Watch's battery has been draining a lot faster than normal. Anyone else having this issue? Used to get home from an 8 hour day and have 75% or more battery left and now I get home and I'm at about 40% and can barely make it the night without it dying. I've tried a unpair and re-pair and I thought it was good but then it started again. Haven't changed anything with my iPhone 6s Plus or the Watch so not sure what's going on.

Is anyone else having similar issues?

Try a hard reset by pressing side button and Crown simultaneously. Or you can erase all content and settings, set up as new Apple Watch.
 
Check the apps running in your dock. They try to stay updated / in memory so they are ready to go when you select them. Maybe you have a rogue app in there?

My Watch 2 only drops A little over 20% on any regular business day.
 
I suspect some rogue app or process might be draining battery in the background. Facebook messenger comes to mind. You have that on your watch?
 
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Will this erase all achievements? Both of my watches do not last 8 hours as of Saturday.

As long as your activity is synced to your iPhone (watch and iPhone activity app are displaying the same numbers) then restoring the watch will not result in losing health, activity or achievement data. Even if you setup the watch as new, as soon as you set up the activity app, it will sync.
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I suspect some rogue app or process might be draining battery in the background. Facebook messenger comes to mind. You have that on your watch?

This 100%. I installed Messenger on my watch about 6 months ago and for a week couldn't understand why the battery was so horrible. Once I deleted it, it went back to normal.
 
Does it have to be in the dock to run down the battery? I've been having issues with my battery all of a sudden, and wonder if that's what it is.
 
I've cleared my dock and also removed all the apps off of the Apple Watch to see if that changes anything. I've also removed the Facebook Messenger app off my phone as well. If this doesn't work I'll just have to restore my iPhone through iTunes with 10.2.1 again and then restore from backup and see if that fixes it. An Apple rep recommended I'd do that if I'm still having issues. I'll also try setting the Watch up as new.

I'm happy to see I'm not the only one noticing these battery drain issues all of a sudden. Hopefully Apple is aware of this and releases a fix soon. It's a huge inconvenience.
 
I've cleared my dock and also removed all the apps off of the Apple Watch to see if that changes anything. I've also removed the Facebook Messenger app off my phone as well. If this doesn't work I'll just have to restore my iPhone through iTunes with 10.2.1 again and then restore from backup and see if that fixes it. An Apple rep recommended I'd do that if I'm still having issues. I'll also try setting the Watch up as new.

I'm happy to see I'm not the only one noticing these battery drain issues all of a sudden. Hopefully Apple is aware of this and releases a fix soon. It's a huge inconvenience.


Hopefully that works for you. My series 0 was having massive battery drain and a hard reset worked for it. I've had it on for 2 1/2 hours now and lost 8%.
 
Hopefully that works for you. My series 0 was having massive battery drain and a hard reset worked for it. I've had it on for 2 1/2 hours now and lost 8%.

Now when you say a hard reset, what do you mean by this? Just holding down the crown and power button to reboot?
 
Now when you say a hard reset, what do you mean by this? Just holding down the crown and power button to reboot?

Yep, that was all it took for me. I know in the other thread talking about this some people have had to un-pair and pair again as well.

But I did this last.... Wednesday (I think) and it's been fine since.
 
Ok, so right before lunch today I uninstalled all my third party apps on the Apple Watch and boy what a difference that made. I came home today with 79% battery still left. One of the apps was definitely causing the battery to drain like crazy. I don't feel the need to have apps on my watch anyways as I continue to get notifications from my phone anyway.

Just wanted to update everyone with what my personal fix was. Hope this helps at least one of you with your battery drain.
 
This has happened to me as well this past week. I was shocked to see about a 50% battery decrease in about an hour

I'm running the most current developer beta, so I figured this was the reason. Reading the comments above I'm not so sure that is the issue now though.

Also Apple Pay seems to take forever now on my watch...
 
Ok, so right before lunch today I uninstalled all my third party apps on the Apple Watch and boy what a difference that made. I came home today with 79% battery still left. One of the apps was definitely causing the battery to drain like crazy. I don't feel the need to have apps on my watch anyways as I continue to get notifications from my phone anyway.

Just wanted to update everyone with what my personal fix was. Hope this helps at least one of you with your battery drain.

Third-party applications are huge contributor to battery drain loss. A lot of times I read threads, I see forum members concerns with battery drain on the Apple Watch. Then later on its suggested that they remove applications and it tends to correct the issue after an initial re-pair. These applications are not calibrated properly for the Apple Watch, which contributes to depleting the battery.
 
Third-party applications are huge contributor to battery drain loss. A lot of times I read threads, I see forum members concerns with battery drain on the Apple Watch. Then later on its suggested that they remove applications and it tends to correct the issue after an initial re-pair. These applications are not calibrated properly for the Apple Watch, which contributes to depleting the battery.

I'm just glad I was able to pinpoint the issue. I use the Watch for mostly notifications so I don't have to take my phone out as often. This isn't really a huge loss for me as I never actually use the apps that are on my Watch.
 
So removing the apps solved your issue? I'm willing to bet it was Facebook messenger like another poster mentioned. Facebook loves to play games with people using their site /apps. They admitted to intentially causing the mobile app to crash periodically to see if people were willing to launch it again.
 
I'm just glad I was able to pinpoint the issue. I use the Watch for mostly notifications so I don't have to take my phone out as often. This isn't really a huge loss for me as I never actually use the apps that are on my Watch.

Same here. Notifications are a huge advantage, where I can leave my 7 Plus stationary.
 
So... I can give advice on here if I think I might be wrong?

The Definition of advice is congruent with recommending and providing guidance. It doesn't necessarily state that has to be concrete evidence.

And, Absolutely you can give advice, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be right or wrong. That's the point of discussion, am I right? I challenge you to read through any of these other threads, you will find a litany of members offering opinions, insight, and feedback that may not necessarily be 100% accurate, but that's not the point, it's the point that they're offering their opinion based off what they have knowledge of to the best of their ability.

Not every answer has to be definitive and accurate. That's what discussions are for and feedback. Many times, forum members might post something they believe that might be accurate, with all likeliness it wasn't and another forum member will either correct them or advise of their differential of opinion.

And just to reassure you, My advice was entirely accurate what I posted.
 
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