watchOS 4 beta 2 Battery Life

[rwilliams]

This morning, I removed Carrot Weather from my watch. In my 40-minute commute, my battery still went down from 100% to 88%.

None of my other third-party installed use location, as far as I know. I currently have these installed:

• 1Password
• BetterDay
• Due
• Feedbin
• Instagram
• MyQ LiftMaster
• Overcast
• Things
• TipCalculator
• Tweetbot

It’s not a third party issue, so to speak. After trying all kinds of things, I firmly believe that the issue is that iOS 11 Beta 2 has a bug that is causing it to utilize Location Services way too often or too long. On my phone, I found that it’s using LS for HomeKit, Maps, and Weather way more than it should. That’s draining both the phone and the Watch (even with all third party apps removed).

 

[john991]

It’s not a third party issue, so to speak. After trying all kinds of things, I firmly believe that the issue is that iOS 11 Beta 2 has a bug that is causing it to utilize Location Services way too often or too long. On my phone, I found that it’s using LS for HomeKit, Maps, and Weather way more than it should. That’s draining both the phone and the Watch (even with all third party apps removed).

I wonder if you turn off location services for weather, HomeKit and maps does the watch battery drain fast? A good way to test!

 

[ItsGavinC]

I have series 0 (had it since launch day) and have re-paired, turned off Hey Siri, heart rate monitor, and detect gym equipment. My watch is hardly making it 3 hours - it spent most of the day yesterday on the charger. I hope beta3 comes out soon....at this point I may have to leave watch at home if I go out this weekend

Cheers,
B

Same. And it's actually getting worse for me day by day. My watch now lasts about 2 hours before it hits 10% and vibrates telling me it is low. This is with me not using it at all.

 

[batristain]

My iPhone 7+ was also draining like crazy so I turned off just about everything under location services and now the battery has stabilized. The watch is still draining after removing 3rd party apps and re-pair and even a few reboots. I may try turning off location services completely on the phone too see if that helps the watch - I still have that arrow in my control center of the watch....I think this is to blame.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Same. And it's actually getting worse for me day by day. My watch now lasts about 2 hours before it hits 10% and vibrates telling me it is low. This is with me not using it at all.

I couldn't take it anymore. This morning my watch went from 100% to 12% in 2.5 hours. I repaired it earlier this afternoon and I've now gone 2.5 hours and it's at 97%.

So, 2.5 hours for 88% drain or 2.5 hours for 3% drain. Something is clearly wrong and the repair process helps...for a day or so.

 

[john991]

I couldn't take it anymore. This morning my watch went from 100% to 12% in 2.5 hours. I repaired it earlier this afternoon and I've now gone 2.5 hours and it's at 97%.

So, 2.5 hours for 88% drain or 2.5 hours for 3% drain. Something is clearly wrong and the repair process helps...for a day or so.

What repair process? (Unpair and repair or resync data)

I put my iPhone on airplane mode and my watch battery lasted normally until I took my iPhone out of airplane mode...

 

[Napoli Lasagna]

I wonder if you turn off location services for weather, HomeKit and maps does the watch battery drain fast? A good way to test!

I’ll try it
[doublepost=1498914365][/doublepost]My phone and watch is same as everybody, very hot and drain power. My iPhone’s location services is always visible on status bar, and I turned off this few switches (these is: [advice base on location, notice base on location, time zone, compass, ???frequently location]. I’ll keeping eyes on battery of phone and watch in recent days.

 

[Defender2010]

Despite reports here my Watches have not started draining after a couple of days. I explained what I did when i re-paired them in a previous post. I put my watch on today at 7am and it’s now 3pm. I’m at 91%. I re-paired the watch 3 days ago. No noticeable drain compared to previous software.

 

[batristain]

Despite reports here my Watches have not started draining after a couple of days. I explained what I did when i re-paired them in a previous post. I put my watch on today at 7am and it’s now 3pm. I’m at 91%. I re-paired the watch 3 days ago. No noticeable drain compared to previous software.

I didn't set up as a brand new watch - so now I'm doing the re-pair again and following your instructions from Thursday's post. I hope I have the same luck as you. Last night after re-charging 4x I gave up and just put it on my night stand charger. I'm hoping this method allows me to wear it all day again. Cheers!

 

[john991]

I think I’ve solved my battery drain!

What I did was remove all third party apps, unpair/ repair, turn off gym equipment, changed Apple Watch faces, weather, maps and HomeKit to never in location services.

Still early to see if it completely solves the battery drain, but so far it’s going good.

I was draining 10% per hour, right now my battery is at 97% for the hour.

2 hours in and I’m at 85% so a slight improvement.

I sure hope Apple comes out with a fix this coming week.

 

[batristain]

I think I’ve solved my battery drain!

What I did was remove all third party apps, unpair/ repair, turn off gym equipment, changed Apple Watch faces, weather, maps and HomeKit to never in location services.

Still early to see if it completely solves the battery drain, but so far it’s going good.

I was draining 10% per hour, right now my battery is at 97% for the hour.

I made sure to follow this to do this too....just finished setting up my watch as a new one - let's see if this helps with battery drain (fingers crossed again).

Cheers,
B

 

[perezr10]

In desperation I deleted every single app possible on my watch. It didn't help. My series 2 is dying by 2pm now. I'm going to try the John991 method and see if that helps.

 

[kevingaffney]

Hardly worth the panic. Next beta probably in a week and battery will be resolved anyway

 

[batristain]

So far so good after a repair and setting up like a new watch. The only 3rd party app I'm using is Carrot. I also turned off gym equipment - never allow location services for Apple Watch faces, weather (only exception is Carrot Weather), maps and HomeKit. This morning I put it on at 10:40 am and it's 12:20 pm and I'm at 99% after 1 hour 40 mins. My battery was draining at close to 20% each hour. I have a 38 mm Series 0. We will see how it changes as the day goes on....since this is a weekend I don't have that many notifications or alerts like a normal day.

Cheers,
Bobbie

 

[john991]

So far so good after a repair and setting up like a new watch. The only 3rd party app I'm using is Carrot. I also turned off gym equipment - never allow location services for Apple Watch faces, weather (only exception is Carrot Weather), maps and HomeKit. This morning I put it on at 10:40 am and it's 12:20 pm and I'm at 99% after 1 hour 40 mins. My battery was draining at close to 20% each hour. I have a 38 mm Series 0. We will see how it changes as the day goes on....since this is a weekend I don't have that many notifications or alerts like a normal day.

Cheers,
Bobbie

Let me know, as my battery was good using the above setup, but eventually during the day my battery started draining fast again yesterday.

 

[Zadigre]

my battery was also good for a few hours after disabling location for weather, watch faces, maps and Homekit...
then I realized that my activity (steps...) was not synchronized with my iPhone... rebooted both iPhone and Watch... and battery drain is back.

 

[batristain]

Let me know, as my battery was good using the above setup, but eventually during the day my battery started draining fast again yesterday.

Yeah it was short lived - I charged my watch to 100% while in the shower - put it back on at 4 pm and it was at 9% by 10 pm - had to put it on the charger for the night. I was at dinner and then watering the garden when I got home....not sure if all my activity caused it to drain faster or not. I'm going to see what happens today.

Cheers,
Bobbie

 

[antnee]

Very weird for me the more active I am the longer it lasts. It is more short lived when I’m Working from my desk!

 

[batristain]

Very weird for me the more active I am the longer it lasts. It is more short lived when I’m Working from my desk!

I will see on Wednesday when I'm back at work and get tons of meeting reminders....not sure what effect that will have on the watch. Generally my watch lasts longer on the weekends because I don't get meeting reminders and less text notifications.

Cheers,
Bobbie

 

[Napoli Lasagna]

I have some words must say. I had done any method of everybody says before, include I killed all the way on iPhone to located on watch, and it doesn’t any work in next day. And when the day before the NEXT DAY, it’s today, I wore my watch at 9am and till 1pm, the battrey is still 100%. I hold my excitement and start test. So sad, any features about “watch to phone” or “phone to watch” was not working. I noticed whole morning I hadn’t any notifications received by watch. Features like “ring my phone” is don’t work. Finally I open remote camera on watch, and it broke the situation. The battery start drain as normal, 4pm 70% ➡️ 10pm 10%.

I just wanna say, let’s do not waste our time on this.

 

[perezr10]

I just wanna say, let’s do not waste our time on this.

If you don’t like it maybe you should stay out of threads with BATTERY LIFE in the title.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Very weird for me the more active I am the longer it lasts. It is more short lived when I’m Working from my desk!

Also the case for me, at least anecdotally. Sitting at my desk it drains 5% every 10 minutes. I can do a 90 minute HIIT workout and it drains only 10%. Bizarre.

 

[rwilliams]

I have some words must say. I had done any method of everybody says before, include I killed all the way on iPhone to located on watch, and it doesn’t any work in next day. And when the day before the NEXT DAY, it’s today, I wore my watch at 9am and till 1pm, the battrey is still 100%. I hold my excitement and start test. So sad, any features about “watch to phone” or “phone to watch” was not working. I noticed whole morning I hadn’t any notifications received by watch. Features like “ring my phone” is don’t work. Finally I open remote camera on watch, and it broke the situation. The battery start drain as normal, 4pm 70% ➡️ 10pm 10%.

I just wanna say, let’s do not waste our time on this.

Yeah, I’m just waiting for Beta 3 at this point. I’m done with tinkering and testing with Beta 2.

 

[lolkthxbai]

Update from my previous post: apparently, apple hasn’t finished creating a diagnostics suite for watchOS 4 devices so i couldn’t find anything out about battery usage.

i’m going to unpair and then pair the watch again. as soon as i do i’ll be doing these things
- Turn Off Background App Refresh
- Turn of Raise to Wake
- Set Screen Timeout to 15 seconds
- Install only about 5-10 watch apps
- Remove all apps from dock/multitasking (watchOS leaves these apps running in the background to make them ready for you)

i’ll post again with my results after a day or two

 

[RamGuy]

I'm going on vacation for 14-days this Saturday. I'm having my fingers crossed and hoping for a dev beta 3 to release before I go as this battery life is killing me.