Watch OS 4 battery life improved even more?

[kissmo]

After several days of using Watch OS 4 since it was released as a GM - I realised that the battery life is even better, at least by 4-5% each day.

I am using Apples Watch Series 2 Sports.

How I am using the watch:
- Wake up put it on around 6:45 am.
- Use it for messages replies or Notifications check.
- Raise to Wake enabled.
- Brightness at medium.
- Put it to charge back around 9:00 p.m

WatchOS 3.X - at the end of the day I had about 72-75% battery.
WatchOS 4 - at the end of the day I have around 79-81% battery remaining
Note that I use SiRI watch face.

I wonder what is your experience with it?

 

[angelofioren]

The battery life on my Series 0 used to end the day somewhere in the 30 to 40% range. Since the updated I've been ending my days at 15% on Wednesday and 13% on Thursday. I did a hard reboot last night, so I'll see where I'm at tonight. There's no way I can do a workout and still have the Watch working when I go to bed.

 

[basher]

The battery life on my Series 0 used to end the day somewhere in the 30 to 40% range. Since the updated I've been ending my days at 15% on Wednesday and 13% on Thursday. I did a hard reboot last night, so I'll see where I'm at tonight. There's no way I can do a workout and still have the Watch working when I go to bed.

I'm experiencing the same battery like as you on my series 0. It looks like our watches might be showing their age.

 

[angelofioren]

I'm experiencing the same battery like as you on my series 0. It looks like our watches might be showing their age.

I'm hoping it sorts itself out. With the way I use my watch, getting a series 3 would be an unnecessary expense.

 

[mavis]

I've got a launch day 1st-gen SS 42mm and since installing WatchOS 4, I've been getting 20% and 10% warnings every day. I've had as many warnings in the past week as I had in the past 2.5 years ...

 

[mdawid]

I've noticed a decline in my battery range as well. Last night I hit the critical 10% warning about a half hour before placing it in the cradle. Typically I'd be at least 30% with minimal usage. Was hoping to get another year out of my series 0 before upgrading. Don't think it or I will make it though. My 1st gen was a SS. Definitely won't make this decision again. Next go around will be the Sport series and I'll save myself a few hundred dollars.

 

[Cigsm]

Interesting. My series 0 is now a real champion givig me about 30% more then before

 

[mdawid]

Interesting. My series 0 is now a real champion givig me about 30% more then before

I wish I were this lucky! I unpaired my watch today and re-paired to see if that would help. Since doing so and recharging the watch some, I've lost 20% in 4 hours. I've been preoccupied, so I've literally paid zero attention to the watch other than to check the time on occasion.

 

[angelofioren]

I wish I were this lucky! I unpaired my watch today and re-paired to see if that would help. Since doing so and recharging the watch some, I've lost 20% in 4 hours. I've been preoccupied, so I've literally paid zero attention to the watch other than to check the time on occasion.

That's normal after pairing the watch again. You should notice a difference tomorrow after it does what it needs to do indexing -wise.

 

[michaelb5000]

My series 0 watch also died yesterday and today, so I was not getting normal battery life. I may have used it more yesterday with Os 4, but I hardly used it today. So it makes me suspicious that some setting is unset or some app is misbehaving.

I noticed in a S3 review that the article mentioned turning off location services for your "watch face" to preserve battery life. I don't remember knowing about that and had never seen that setting before. It is not under your watch setup, it is under your phone settings, privacy, location, there is an entry for "apple watch face". So no idea when that was first added, but mine was checked on. Maybe yours is checked on too. So I checked that to be "never". Not suggesting this is the solution, but it does seem like something like this; the siri face may use location services for example.

After recharging my watch to around 50%, it has now lost around 8% of the battery in two hours (which seems more normal, but hard to tell until I go a whole day tomorrow).

 

[Slowpc]

My Series 0 gives me the power res. about 3 out of 7 days now on Os4... Actually while typing this it just came up so lets make it 4 out of 7.

Guess I will have to grab a S3 like I was going to.

 

[angelofioren]

My series 0 watch also died yesterday and today, so I was not getting normal battery life. I may have used it more yesterday with Os 4, but I hardly used it today. So it makes me suspicious that some setting is unset or some app is misbehaving.

I noticed in a S3 review that the article mentioned turning off location services for your "watch face" to preserve battery life. I don't remember knowing about that and had never seen that setting before. It is not under your watch setup, it is under your phone settings, privacy, location, there is an entry for "apple watch face". So no idea when that was first added, but mine was checked on. Maybe yours is checked on too. So I checked that to be "never". Not suggesting this is the solution, but it does seem like something like this; the siri face may use location services for example.

After recharging my watch to around 50%, it has now lost around 8% of the battery in two hours (which seems more normal, but hard to tell until I go a whole day tomorrow).

I'm pretty sure the location has always been there, since I use it for my weather app. I unpaired it last night and will leave the setting on. If it still drains quickly again, I'll turn it off tomorrow and see.

 

[SayCheese]

I updated my series 2 to OS 4 last night and this evening I noticed it has gone from 100% this morning to 30% tonight. I normally get 2 days out of it.
I'll see what I get tomorrow but if that's it I won't happy.

 

[mdawid]

Went to my local Apple store today to look around. Talked to someone about the battery life on my S0 since updating to watch OS4. He mentioned that he’s heard a lot of people complaining about this. I asked if there’s a way to downgrade from 4 back to 3 and was told there isn’t. Does anyone know if this is true or not? I literally lost 5% of battery life in the time I was there. Really disappointed.

 

[ScottNWDW]

I have a Series 3 with Cellular and today my watch didn't even last a full day. During Hurricane Irma, we lost power for 3 days and my Apple Watch Series 2 lasted a full day and almost half of the next day before I put it on one of those mope battery packs.

Today my Series 3 gave me a low battery notification at 4pm and it was down to 10% battery. With the Series 2 I'd usually go to bed with 40-60% left.

 

[ross7777]

I have a Series 1 and my battery life is horrible. It was fine on iOS11 with my iPhone 6 but I just got the iPhone 8 and after getting everything setup I was at 5% at about 7:00pm today. I got the iPhone 8 yesterday so maybe this stuff will work itself out.

 

[crazee928]

ever since i updated to wos4 my series 0 has been running out of juice after 8 hours, and i don’t use it for anything other than time and notifications. i used to go to bed with maybe 20-30% left after a 15 hour day.

went to the apple store and talked to two employees who confirmed the same thing with theirs. pretty disappointed with the update and am tempted to get the non cellular series 3, but i’ll wait a few weeks to see if apple addresses this before i blow $400 just to solve the battery issue (i don’t really use the apps other than the workout app).

 

[mgroot]

I too have the S0 and am running out of power during the day, without any workouts and raise to wake set to off. I really wish I could go back to watchOS 3. Until I updated to 4 I hardly ever had a problem making it through the day.. Hope they fix this soon (and yes, feedback has been left on the apple site as well)

 

[haruhiko]

I’ve been wearing my new series 3 (GPS only) watch for 12.5 hour today and my battery level is at 79%. Another side of the craziness. I guess Apple did some good optimisation work on the S3 chip in order to enable LTE.

 

[michaelb5000]

At least for me, for my S0 watch, changing the phone setting to turn location services off for Apple Watch Faces restored my battery life back to what it was before. As I noted above, my watch died on Thurs/Friday, but yesterday after making that change I went 16+ hours and had 30% remaining. So hopefully that was the issue.

Googling for this issue, I see this was discussed on the developer forums. So this issue was possibly identified back in June in the betas. They also talk about turning off the setting in Workout to "Detect Gym Equipment". But I can't find the setting so I am thinking the S0 watch doesn't offer that.

 

[mdawid]

At least for me, for my S0 watch, changing the phone setting to turn location services off for Apple Watch Faces restored my battery life back to what it was before. As I noted above, my watch died on Thurs/Friday, but yesterday after making that change I went 16+ hours and had 30% remaining. So hopefully that was the issue.

Googling for this issue, I see this was discussed on the developer forums. So this issue was possibly identified back in June in the betas. They also talk about turning off the setting in Workout to "Detect Gym Equipment". But I can't find the setting so I am thinking the S0 watch doesn't offer that.

How do you turn off the watch face location services?

 

[xraydoc]

At least for me, for my S0 watch, changing the phone setting to turn location services off for Apple Watch Faces restored my battery life back to what it was before. As I noted above, my watch died on Thurs/Friday, but yesterday after making that change I went 16+ hours and had 30% remaining. So hopefully that was the issue.

Googling for this issue, I see this was discussed on the developer forums. So this issue was possibly identified back in June in the betas. They also talk about turning off the setting in Workout to "Detect Gym Equipment". But I can't find the setting so I am thinking the S0 watch doesn't offer that.

But does this kill weather watch face complications (if you travel from one location to another)?

 

[mdawid]

I thought I found how to switch off location services on my watch but then I got a msg stating it would switch off location service on my iPhone as well.

 

[michaelb5000]

How do you turn off the watch face location services?

I posted this above. So under your phone settings, privacy, location, there is an entry for "apple watch faces". I toggled that to never. I haven't noticed that change impacting Dark Sky, so it doesn't seem to affect apps, since they have their own individual privacy setting. it may be this feature existed before Os 4, but with the Siri watch face it is being used more, and/or is hitting the battery harder.

I can't say for sure this is the solution, but I have 34% left after a full day, and that seems normal, so what I would have expected before Os 4.

 

[ScottNWDW]

Restarting tha Apple Watch seemed to have fix the battery issue on my S3 (Cellular) At the time it ran out (4pm) the day before, yesterday when I went to bed and put the watch on the charger (10pm) the watch was at 65%. Both days the watch was taken off the charger and put on at 4:25am