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WatchOS 3.1 GREAT battery life

I think I know what's causing the sub-par battery on my S0 42mm. On 3.1 they seem to have improved the algorithm that turns on the screen. Previously when I was laying in bed it was difficult to get the screen to come on in most conditions. Now it comes on easily, and all the time. This is both good and bad - easier to see the watch when I need it, but as I wear the watch overnight it's now draining a ton of battery overnight I believe just due to the screen coming on as I sleep - up to 50% in 8-9 hours as opposed to maybe 20-30% before. Previously I was going 36, up to even close to 48 hours on a charge - never a sweat to make 24. Now it barely makes 24 every day.
 
You might be right, as I have noticed the same thing on my 42mm AW S0. My Watch display did not turn on easily prior to 3.1, but now I see it coming on multiple times when I am stretching before my run and at other odd times during the day.

It should be the same higher battery usage for the S2s, unless the older displays consume more battery even though they are not as bright.

TxWatch
 
tromboneaholic said:
With my Series 1, the screen seems to turn on just as easily on 3.1 as it did on 3.0.
Click to expand...

I could be mistaken, but like I say, I wear my watch to bed every night. Previously when I was laying down in bed, lifting my arm up in front of me would never turn the screen on - I always had to tap it. Now it comes on quite easily. It also feels to me like it comes on easier in general - that it takes a smaller roll of the wrist to activate it.

I had the previously really good battery life under 3.0 even with all the same apps in the dock, and my usage hasn't changed in the slightest - it's extremely consistent - and had been extremely consistent for me to go 36 hours + for most of the last year. It's only with 3.1 that I'm seeing consistent 24 hours of life.
 
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zhenya said:
I could be mistaken, but like I say, I wear my watch to bed every night. Previously when I was laying down in bed, lifting my arm up in front of me would never turn the screen on - I always had to tap it. Now it comes on quite easily. It also feels to me like it comes on easier in general - that it takes a smaller roll of the wrist to activate it.

I had the previously really good battery life under 3.0 even with all the same apps in the dock, and my usage hasn't changed in the slightest - it's extremely consistent - and had been extremely consistent for me to go 36 hours + for most of the last year. It's only with 3.1 that I'm seeing consistent 24 hours of life.
Click to expand...
It's entirely possible that 3.1 introduced a tweak to make it easier for the screen to turn on for 1st gen watches without affecting Series 1 or Series 2. The battery improvement for my Series 1 was so drastic that I assume it's possible the battery optimization was something specific to the 2nd gen processor.
 
I haven't read the whole thread, so excuse if this has been stated before, but I get such good battery life (and I sleep with it on, to measure sleep) that I'm starting today to go 2 days before recharging.

BTW, S2 WatchOS 3.1.
 
For the ones getting good battery life do u guys have weather on your clock face?

I must be the only one here with poor battery.

My watch was full yesterday at 3am at 100%

When I put it on at 8.30am it was still 100%

It held steady till about 5.30pm where it was 80+%

Then all of a sudden it started draining fast

Used it till 1am now and it's reporting 57%

I have 2 more days to decide if I should return this or not
 
garethjs said:
For the ones getting good battery life do u guys have weather on your clock face?

I must be the only one here with poor battery.

My watch was full yesterday at 3am at 100%

When I put it on at 8.30am it was still 100%

It held steady till about 5.30pm where it was 80+%

Then all of a sudden it started draining fast

Used it till 1am now and it's reporting 57%

I have 2 more days to decide if I should return this or not
Click to expand...

I have "Storm" on my modular watch face, which is a free weather app that uses data from Weather Underground.

Did anything change after 5:30pm that could have affected battery drain (location, usage, apps, etc...)?
 
garethjs said:
For the ones getting good battery life do u guys have weather on your clock face?

I must be the only one here with poor battery.

My watch was full yesterday at 3am at 100%

When I put it on at 8.30am it was still 100%

It held steady till about 5.30pm where it was 80+%

Then all of a sudden it started draining fast

Used it till 1am now and it's reporting 57%

I have 2 more days to decide if I should return this or not
Click to expand...

I think that's not too bad. Considering at 57% you can probably go another full day until it reaches 0. I got my Series 2 Nike plus about two weeks ago. Battery life has been a decent consistent 2 days usage .Definitely not 3-4 days like everyone is saying lol.
 
I took it of the charger at 9am and it was on my wrist from 9.30. I'm on my feet and move quite a bit the whole time at work. It stayed at 100% till 11.30am and it's trickle down since. It's 10pm now and it's 78%

Edit: Dropped only 3% between 10pm and 12am

In short from 9am to 12am it used 25%

I guess that sounds pretty good
 
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garethjs said:
I took it of the charger at 9am and it was on my wrist from 9.30. I'm on my feet and move quite a bit the whole time at work. It stayed at 100% till 11.30am and it's trickle down since. It's 10pm now and it's 78%

Edit: Dropped only 3% between 10pm and 12am

In short from 9am to 12am it used 25%

I guess that sounds pretty good
Click to expand...
This mirrors my experience with an S2 42mm, while previously I'd be at 40-something percent. Fell asleep wearing it and am still at 70% Pretty good jump in battery life here.

I had some concerns on my wife's S2 38mm, as it had died more than once in a single day, but the update similarly improved her watches ringtone as well.
 
garethjs said:
For the ones getting good battery life do u guys have weather on your clock face?

I must be the only one here with poor battery.

My watch was full yesterday at 3am at 100%

When I put it on at 8.30am it was still 100%

It held steady till about 5.30pm where it was 80+%

Then all of a sudden it started draining fast

Used it till 1am now and it's reporting 57%

I have 2 more days to decide if I should return this or not
Click to expand...

I've only had my Apple Watch S2 for 6 days now. The first full day ended with the battery in the low 40% range after approximately 16 hours. The battery seemed to improve each day since then...until today.

I pulled it off the charger at 5am with it at 100%. By 5:18am it was down 1%. 5:25am it was at 98%. At ~6:45am it was down to 95%. It's now 1pm, right at 8 hours off the charger and the battery is at 68%.

In contrast, last Friday the battery had only dropped 10% in the first 7 hours. On saturday I removed it from the charger at 9:30am and at 5:30pm it was at 77%, even after an hour+ workout (outdoor cycle ride) with the GPS tracking me.

I have no idea what may be causing this. I've restarted both my phone and the watch. Closed all apps on my phone, turned off nearly all the apps from refreshing in the background. Nothing else that I can think of that I changed on the watch or phone.
 
klymr said:
I've only had my Apple Watch S2 for 6 days now. The first full day ended with the battery in the low 40% range after approximately 16 hours. The battery seemed to improve each day since then...until today.

I pulled it off the charger at 5am with it at 100%. By 5:18am it was down 1%. 5:25am it was at 98%. At ~6:45am it was down to 95%. It's now 1pm, right at 8 hours off the charger and the battery is at 68%.

In contrast, last Friday the battery had only dropped 10% in the first 7 hours. On saturday I removed it from the charger at 9:30am and at 5:30pm it was at 77%, even after an hour+ workout (outdoor cycle ride) with the GPS tracking me.

I have no idea what may be causing this. I've restarted both my phone and the watch. Closed all apps on my phone, turned off nearly all the apps from refreshing in the background. Nothing else that I can think of that I changed on the watch or phone.
Click to expand...
You didn't mentioned if you had updated to 3.1.
 
tromboneaholic said:
Really? That's interesting since 3.1 was only released to the public 3 weeks ago.
Click to expand...

Yup. I was a little surprised also. I checked the nearest Apple Store's supply of available watches, they got a few in last Tuesday, so I went and picked one up. One of the first things I did was make sure it was up to date. This is what I saw when I checked for a software update.

IMG_3605.jpg
 
klymr said:
Yup. I was a little surprised also. I checked the nearest Apple Store's supply of available watches, they got a few in last Tuesday, so I went and picked one up. One of the first things I did was make sure it was up to date. This is what I saw when I checked for a software update.

View attachment 672324
Click to expand...
That's pretty surprising! I guess Apple really is shipping/selling S2 as fast as they can make them.
 
tromboneaholic said:
That's pretty surprising! I guess Apple really is shipping/selling S2 as fast as they can make them.
Click to expand...

I went and checked them out on Saturday, 05 Nov. Before I left to the Apple Store the website was showing them as being in stock for pick up that day. By the time I got there they were sold out. Granted, it was 8pm.

The Apple employee told me they get shipments of them in Monday through Saturday. I checked Monday and they were showing them in stock again (at all 3 Apple Stores in Utah). By that afternoon they were supposedly sold out again (all 3 stores).

Again, on Tuesday morning the Apple website was showing them in stock, so I ordered online and went and picked it up that night as a birthday present to myself.

It really is amazing how quickly they are selling. I'm rather curious to see what the numbers are after last quarter was showing sales of the Apple Watch down so low.
 
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Ok so I used my 42mm ceramic for 51hours straight taking it off during showers only.

Summary

Day 1 - 9am - 100% balance
Day 1 - 11.30am - 99% balance
Day 1 - 12am - 75% balance

Day 2 - 9am - 59% balance
Day 2 - 12am - 29% balance

Day 3 - 9am - 17% balance
Day 3 - 11am - 12% balance
Day 3 - 12pm - 9% balance

Charged it then 51 hours to go from 100 to ~10%

This is normal usage with everything enabled. as I mentioned I'm constantly moving apart for after 10pm. Most used feature of the Watch is replying to messages. Didn't Use it for any activities.

Phone by my side or in my pocket so range of pairing very short

I notice though that changing Watch faces sometimes messed up the battery meter. A restart is required to fix it
 
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I had to return my last Nike+ watch, and been waiting for almost 2 weeks, finally I got one on last Friday. It is AW2 42mm 3.1. On the first day, it seems it used 1% per hour but it was not much activities AT ALL. The 2nd fully charged reflects around 8 hrs with 14% drops with lot of notifications, and 1 call called in (i rejected the call, SPAM).

I think I can charge it on every other night. I will take the watch for a 5-7 miles on Thursday morning to see how the battery life will be.
 
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garethjs said:
Ok so I used my 42mm ceramic for 51hours straight taking it off during showers only.

Summary

Day 1 - 9am - 100% balance
Day 1 - 11.30am - 99% balance
Day 1 - 12am - 75% balance

Day 2 - 9am - 59% balance
Day 2 - 12am - 29% balance

Day 3 - 9am - 17% balance
Day 3 - 11am - 12% balance
Day 3 - 12pm - 9% balance

Charged it then 51 hours to go from 100 to ~10%

This is normal usage with everything enabled. as I mentioned I'm constantly moving apart for after 10pm. Most used feature of the Watch is replying to messages. Didn't Use it for any activities.

Phone by my side or in my pocket so range of pairing very short

I notice though that changing Watch faces sometimes messed up the battery meter. A restart is required to fix it
Click to expand...

Holy! That's some amazing battery life. Did you have all/most notification turned on ?
 
I've got an S0 watch that I remove at night and usually charge every other night. It used to only lose 5-10% overnight while not charging, but now with WatchOS 3.1 it will go from 70% to 0% overnight if not charging. This means I have to charge every single night. Is anyone else experiencing this?
 
I'm here to post a quick update. Monday ended with the battery sitting at 43% after 16 hours. Tuesday ended at 59% after 16.5 hours. Both days saw nearly the same amount of activity.

Today it held at 100% for 3.75 hours. Much better than the 15-18 minutes I saw on Monday! More on par with what I was seeing last week. I wonder what was going on with it Monday.
 
I noticed an unusual amount
klymr said:
I'm here to post a quick update. Monday ended with the battery sitting at 43% after 16 hours. Tuesday ended at 59% after 16.5 hours. Both days saw nearly the same amount of activity.

Today it held at 100% for 3.75 hours. Much better than the 15-18 minutes I saw on Monday! More on par with what I was seeing last week. I wonder what was going on with it Monday.
Click to expand...
Yesterday morning I had to put my watch on do not disturb. When I swiped up the control center, I noticed the battery was a lot lower than usual (dropped 12% in an hour). I had just put my iPhone in airplane mode, so the watch was too. I enabled do not disturb on the watch as well. A couple hours later I turned the settings back to normal, and for the rest of the day the battery drain was a lot less, closer to what I have been seeing.
 
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