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WatchOS 4 - battery life half what it was

6

66gonzo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 16, 2012
109
25
Am I the only one getting half the battery life on their watch? I have a series 2 Nike + watch and ever since upgrading to OS4, I haven’t been able to get through a day on the same use which I used to get me about 18hrs.

This past weekend I tried resetting the watch to stock, but that didn’t work. Last night I decided to remove all apps and just run on the stock apps. Here it is 1:30p and I’m already at 43% (losing an average of 7% an hour).

Anyone got any trouble shooting that has worked for them other than a reset?
 
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66gonzo said:
Am I the only one getting half the battery life on their watch? I have a series 2 Nike + watch and ever since upgrading to OS4, I haven’t been able to get through a day on the same use which I used to get me about 18hrs.

This past weekend I tried resetting the watch to stock, but that didn’t work. Last night I decided to remove all apps and just run on the stock apps. Here it is 1:30p and I’m already at 43% (losing an average of 7% an hour).

Anyone got any trouble shooting that has worked for them other than a reset?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you took the necessary measures to troubleshoot the battery drain. The only thing I can recommend, is wait until the next WatchOS update to hopefully clear any issues.
 
66gonzo said:
Am I the only one getting half the battery life on their watch? I have a series 2 Nike + watch and ever since upgrading to OS4, I haven’t been able to get through a day on the same use which I used to get me about 18hrs.

This past weekend I tried resetting the watch to stock, but that didn’t work. Last night I decided to remove all apps and just run on the stock apps. Here it is 1:30p and I’m already at 43% (losing an average of 7% an hour).

Anyone got any trouble shooting that has worked for them other than a reset?
Click to expand...

My S2 same. Great battery life before OS 4, now significantly less. I turned off the background app refresh, that seems to be the only thing that has helped some. Even with the background app refresh off, notice a big difference. Hoping the next update will address this.
 
Experiencing same thing with original series 1 watch 38mm. One setting helped quite a bit but not completely:

From the Apple Watch directly, click the Digital Crown from the watch face to find the app launcher, then look for the Settings app, find General, then Wake Screen, and toggle Auto-Launch Audio Apps off.

Try it. It's not the answer but it is a significant drain. I noticed it runs every time I'm playing music or other content on the phone so depending on how much you do this it could be the culprit. I'm still going into power reserve by 8-10pm but at least i'm getting through the day.
 
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Turns out it may have been a hardware thing. Friday the watch took a crap: random restarts, dropped connection to my watch, then couldn’t repair to the phone after wiping again.

Picked up a “replacement” while they work on the internals and my battery life is exactly what it was before. Hopefully, the work they do on my actual watch brings me the same results.
 
66gonzo said:
Am I the only one getting half the battery life on their watch? I have a series 2 Nike + watch and ever since upgrading to OS4, I haven’t been able to get through a day on the same use which I used to get me about 18hrs.

This past weekend I tried resetting the watch to stock, but that didn’t work. Last night I decided to remove all apps and just run on the stock apps. Here it is 1:30p and I’m already at 43% (losing an average of 7% an hour).

Anyone got any trouble shooting that has worked for them other than a reset?
Click to expand...

Agreed, noticeable difference, drains much faster while idle...
 
Ok, I'm late to the party here, but happy (kind of) to know that it is not only me. I have a Series 1, and after updating to OS4 battery life seems to be almost half of what I was getting previously.

When I received the low power warning early in the evening, I was really surprised. I immediately thought I might have forgotten to charge it the previous night, but I know for certain it was charged and at 100% earlier in the morning. I don't remember seeing the low power warning hardly before (only when I didn't charge it over night) - but as of OS4 I see it almost every night...
[doublepost=1508972337][/doublepost]
MazG said:
Experiencing same thing with original series 1 watch 38mm. One setting helped quite a bit but not completely:

From the Apple Watch directly, click the Digital Crown from the watch face to find the app launcher, then look for the Settings app, find General, then Wake Screen, and toggle Auto-Launch Audio Apps off.

Try it. It's not the answer but it is a significant drain. I noticed it runs every time I'm playing music or other content on the phone so depending on how much you do this it could be the culprit. I'm still going into power reserve by 8-10pm but at least i'm getting through the day.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I also noticed this, but wasn't sure how to disable it. Great post...
 
66gonzo said:
Am I the only one getting half the battery life on their watch? I have a series 2 Nike + watch and ever since upgrading to OS4, I haven’t been able to get through a day on the same use which I used to get me about 18hrs.

This past weekend I tried resetting the watch to stock, but that didn’t work. Last night I decided to remove all apps and just run on the stock apps. Here it is 1:30p and I’m already at 43% (losing an average of 7% an hour).

Anyone got any trouble shooting that has worked for them other than a reset?
Click to expand...
Have you installed the Siri watch face by chance? My battery life was fine after I upgraded but took a big hit after I ninstalled the Siri face. Even if I’m not actively using it, it still seems to draw more power.
 
I just got my iPhone X and before I didn’t update to watch os4 before on my 6 plus because I didn’t want to update to iOS 11, and after pairing with this phone and updating I can definitely see the difference, before the watch could last forever, now ive only been wearing it for about 2 hours now and I’m down to 69%, the only thing I haven’t taken off is raise wrist detection, that’s easily one of my fav features, I can’t believe how bad the life is this time around
 
bgj887 said:
I just got my iPhone X and before I didn’t update to watch os4 before on my 6 plus because I didn’t want to update to iOS 11, and after pairing with this phone and updating I can definitely see the difference, before the watch could last forever, now ive only been wearing it for about 2 hours now and I’m down to 69%, the only thing I haven’t taken off is raise wrist detection, that’s easily one of my fav features, I can’t believe how bad the life is this time around
Click to expand...
watchOS 4 battery life on my two series 0 watches is terrible. On my s3, it’s amazing. Go figure.
 
I just got an iPhone X. Set the phone up as new since I was syncing health through iCloud. After unpairing my watch and pairing it to the new iPhone, battery life was noticibly improved. Only 24 hours since I did this, so I can’t be sure of long term effects...
 
xraydoc said:
watchOS 4 battery life on my two series 0 watches is terrible. On my s3, it’s amazing. Go figure.
Click to expand...
Ok I see I really hope that I don’t need to go out and buy a new watch now as the series 0 fills all my current needs, I’m hoping after a few cycles it goes well
[doublepost=1509809249][/doublepost]
tromboneaholic said:
I just got an iPhone X. Set the phone up as new since I was syncing health through iCloud. After unpairing my watch and pairing it to the new iPhone, battery life was noticibly improved. Only 24 hours since I did this, so I can’t be sure of long term effects...
Click to expand...
Interesting I started from new too but I was ok with losing my health data since I didn’t update my old phone to iOS 11
 
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