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watchOS 3 - battery life?

I've also noticed a 30% extra battery usage over normal on 2.2.1. Usually on 2.2.1 after a normal day at work I'll get home between 60-70%. Last night was my first day on watchOS 3 beta 1 and I got home at 33%, well below normal. This was even after an unpair and repair.

Gonna see if today is better. I've noticed the watch will easily lose 10% just from wearing it and barely using it over the course of an hour or two.

However, yesterday was the update which skewed the battery life. So I'm gonna see how the full rested charge today holds up. So far it's been off the charger for almost an hour, checked the time twice, and it's still at 100% as expected. So I'll see what happens.
 
dictoresno said:
I've also noticed a 30% extra battery usage over normal on 2.2.1. Usually on 2.2.1 after a normal day at work I'll get home between 60-70%. Last night was my first day on watchOS 3 beta 1 and I got home at 33%, well below normal. This was even after an unpair and repair.
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Just out of interest: Are you using the same watch face and same complications on wOS3 as you used on wOS2?
 
teidon said:
Just out of interest: Are you using the same watch face and same complications on wOS3 as you used on wOS2?
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Yup, only difference is I ditched the alarm clock small complication for the new messages app one for easy access.

Then again, when you install a new OS, the first day is usually a battery hog. So far this morning, it seems more stable.

Last time I installed it on the watch, it was draining 10% in under an hour, not even being used and I wasn't wearing it.
 
Just my two cents...

The first couple days after I installed WatchOS 3, I really regret installing it... On wOS2, I would typically be at about 35-40% battery life by the end of the day... and the first couple days on wOS3 had me at 0% around 8pm. The next day, I "reboot" my Apple Watch, and the battery life DRASTICALLY improved. I was at about 52% battery life at the end of the day, and it stayed like that for a few days. Then, same thing happened... extreme battery draining. I "reboot", and again, drastic improvement.

So yeah... some process or something seems to get stuck and drains battery like crazy... but a reboot brings it back to better than wOS2.

TL;DR... battery life on wOS3 is better than wOS2, until it's not, then you have to reboot.
 
I've never tried just rebooting my watch but the past few days it's been dead by the end of the day. Normally I put it on around 8:30 am and on wOS2 it would be at about 40% by midnight. Sometimes I don't go to bed until 2 am and it would still be at maybe 30% or slightly below. It's been on wOS3 since shortly after release and I am still getting terrible battery life. Most days I go home after work and then go back out so I was putting it back on the charger to give it some more juice but on Thursdays I don't have time. Both last Thursday and yesterday I put it on at 8:30 am as usual and both days it was dead by 9:30 pm. I really need it to last longer than that so I am really hoping that this is just because it's a beta!

I just rebooted it so we'll see what happens today, I don't think I've ever actually manually powered it down, I think it's usually just been rebooted when the battery has died.
 
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It's got better since I unpaired and re-paired it.

I wore it today for my normal workday and used it as I usually would on watchOS 2 and I'm sitting at 64%. Usually on watchOS 2 I would be between this and 74%. So not as good as 2 but definitely better than it was before when I first installed it.
 
Re-paired and my battery life has gone down? Finished my day with 10% - i'm normally at about 40-50%.

Strange.
 
I repaired and today has been a disaster! I did the reboot - unpair - repair sequence around 11:00 am. At that time it had been on my wrist since 8:30 am so only 2 and a half hours and was already down to 62%. I dropped my boss at the airport at around 1:30 pm at which time the watch was at 10%, an hour later it was dead. I went to an Apple Store as I had already planned to go there since I was there and the closest AS to me is close to two hours away, I got them to let me charge my watch for a little while and shop so at 4:30 it was back up to 52%. By 9:30 it was dead again. I am really hoping that next beta comes out real real soon!
 
ladytonya said:
I repaired and today has been a disaster! I did the reboot - unpair - repair sequence around 11:00 am. At that time it had been on my wrist since 8:30 am so only 2 and a half hours and was already down to 62%. I dropped my boss at the airport at around 1:30 pm at which time the watch was at 10%, an hour later it was dead. I went to an Apple Store as I had already planned to go there since I was there and the closest AS to me is close to two hours away, I got them to let me charge my watch for a little while and shop so at 4:30 it was back up to 52%. By 9:30 it was dead again. I am really hoping that next beta comes out real real soon!
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Sometimes a bad third party app can also be the problem. Does the usage say 2-3 hours and you know that is too high? I had some rapid battery drop with a few third party apps in the dock. Also, after a workout that i saved seemed to keep dropping battery even though no workout was going and the lights were off. Had to reboot to fix.

Just some ideas. Battery for me has been pretty solid. About 10% worse than previous OS2.
 
BlueMoon63 said:
Sometimes a bad third party app can also be the problem. Does the usage say 2-3 hours and you know that is too high? I had some rapid battery drop with a few third party apps in the dock. Also, after a workout that i saved seemed to keep dropping battery even though no workout was going and the lights were off. Had to reboot to fix.

Just some ideas. Battery for me has been pretty solid. About 10% worse than previous OS2.
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Unfortunately I didn't think to look at the usage in the iPhone app, I was too mad that my watch died twice in one day! LOL

Today has been much better. I put it on around noon, it's now 8:20 pm and I'm at 46%. I did take all third party apps off my dock and stopped notifications from several apps that I don't really need watch notifications on anyway so maybe that did something. Since I'm not working or really doing anything else today I'm just going to leave it on and see if it lasts till bedtime. Still love the watch, just gotta figure out these little issues.
 
Some interesting points made! Might try removing any 3rd party apps from the Dock and see if that improves things - i'm still about 20% down on WatchOS 2 life.
 
ohms12 said:
Some interesting points made! Might try removing any 3rd party apps from the Dock and see if that improves things - i'm still about 20% down on WatchOS 2 life.
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Makes sense. Third-party complications may go a little nuts, too. I remember having trouble with Dark Sky's complication for a while.

I'll keep watching this thread even though I've got no plans to install the beta. I don't want to bork my daily-use hardware.
 
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ladytonya said:
Unfortunately I didn't think to look at the usage in the iPhone app, I was too mad that my watch died twice in one day! LOL

Today has been much better. I put it on around noon, it's now 8:20 pm and I'm at 46%. I did take all third party apps off my dock and stopped notifications from several apps that I don't really need watch notifications on anyway so maybe that did something. Since I'm not working or really doing anything else today I'm just going to leave it on and see if it lasts till bedtime. Still love the watch, just gotta figure out these little issues.
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Also, the new Activity watch faces really burn through battery so I don't use it. It's got to be more than complications because I use the modular face 90% of the time. It's possibly the background rings or just poorly written for now. Plus those activity faces are slow to turn on and refresh. Great idea, poor execution right now.
 
Two more hours have passed and I'm at 32% so only down 14%, not bad especially compared to yesterday! I do have 3rd party complications, Carrot and MLB At Bat, but I took both of these off of my dock. I want both there so hopefully future updates help with this issue. For now though I think the unpair - repair actually did work.
 
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BlueMoon63 said:
Also, the new Activity watch faces really burn through battery so I don't use it. It's got to be more than complications because I use the modular face 90% of the time. It's possibly the background rings or just poorly written for now. Plus those activity faces are slow to turn on and refresh. Great idea, poor execution right now.
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Hmm. I've been using the new activity faces, which I guess coincides with my reduced battery life. I'll try running today with some other faces. Cheers!
 
Forgot to post last night but ultimately it ended up dying at about 1:15 am so it lasted almost 14 hours. Not great really but much better than the previous two days. Before installing the beta it would last me 17 or 18 hours most days so still hoping the next beta improves this.
 
ohms12 said:
Hmm. I've been using the new activity faces, which I guess coincides with my reduced battery life. I'll try running today with some other faces. Cheers!
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I did the re-pare and I'm noticing a much better battery life With the activity watch face. Watch on at 9am and it's 5pm only burned 20% battery. Dock: at bat, messages, calendar, reminders, mail, weather, HeartWatch. pedometer ++weather complications.
Addition: it's now 11:30pm watch battery 50%. I'd say the battery isn't a problem (activity face).
 
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