watchOS 4 on S0 - Sluggish

[uknation87]

Mine is as fast as before. What I see now is that the battery lasts longer! How is this even possible?
It's been on my wrist for 16 hours and it shows 82% battery! O_O

Same notification settings and so as before.

That's good news... from most of the other posts, it seems the battery life is taking a big hit.

I have the S1 watch and my battery life is pretty good (heavy usage and I will still have between 30% - 40% after a very long day) but I typically only use my watch for notifications, some texting, and workout data.

I have yet to upgrade to OS4 and plan on waiting another day or two to see the real world reviews.

 

[danmart]

I find the vertical dock to be MUCH worse - MUCH slower. The left/right swiping felt more natural, the up/down is awkward, and I'm not accustomed to seeing apps that way. Most everywhere you go, carousels are implemented left/right not up/down.

Ever use a Rolodex?

I found the horizontal dock difficult when using the Digital Crown - I could never remember if up was left or right. A vertical action will eliminate this complication.

 

[Jayne Doe]

I used my S0 this morning for roadwork. Pulled it off the charger and headed out. Was gone for about two hours. Also used AirPods for streaming. The reaction time was faster. Loved the way to control music through the workout app. However, when I made it home, I had less than 10% battery left. Dunno if it was still downloading stuff in background but that’s bad. I’d say, I’d normally have about 40%.

I have a S3 arriving Friday and will gift this to my sister who thinks the only reason to run is if being chased by something undesirable so it might not be a big deal to her. But I was surprised.

Oh, and I couldn’t double tap on the earbud to bring up Siri. How weird but I admit to not having read instructions.

 

[mizzourah]

In theory I liked the horizontal dock better, but in practice I found swiping between the apps really cumbersome. It was slow and somewhat unresponsive at times, and I always felt like I had a hard time locating the app I wanted if it wasn't one of the first ones in the list. The vertical dock is much more responsive for me and I'm finding it really natural to hit the side button to launch the dock and then move directly to the scroll wheel to navigate it rather than having to make relatively large swiping gestures.

This is exactly what I am finding with it - it is a much more natural experience and I like it so much better.

 

[sean000]

Remember that updates involve more then just installing the new OS. Your watch has to re-sync some previously cached data, databases have to re-index, etc. I would give it a couple of days. Hopefully performance will improve. I'm going to hold off until i hear how things are going after a few days.

Despite my own recommendation to wait a few days, I went ahead and upgraded both my iPhone 6 and my Apple Watch Series 0 last night

So far, so good. Both devices seem fine. My iPhone 6 was already showing its age on iOS 10, but it doesn't seem to perform any worse on iOS 11. The Watch is still humming along just fine, although I've got the usual delays loading an app for the first time. Of course I haven't been using it enough to get a sense for the impact to every function. I'm running the Siri face to try it out, and I listed to the NPR One app on my walk to work. I like how the audio controls (Now Playing) were automatically displayed on my watch face when I raised my wrist while listening. The Siri face also showed a card for Now Playing at the top. Nice touch. It used to require pressing the Dock button and then scrolling to the audio controls.

Scrolling through docked apps seems fine... no different from the old horizontal dock as far as I can tell.

Sean

 

[shenfrey]

It was very sluggish for me at first, but that was yesterday. Today it seems to have improved and my watch is performing pretty much the same as it always has. The new dock is a tiny bit sluggish than before, but I can live with that.

Really don't see a reason to upgrade in my opinion just yet.

 

[serpico007]

I updated my watch last night before going to bed. Let it do its thing overnight and this morning it was running better than before. Very quick and I like the change on my first gen model.

 

[MR-LIZARD]

I’ve been running WatchOS 4 GM from the developer channel for the past week on my S0.

I haven’t found the watch to be sluggish compared to WatchOS 3.

Battery life has definitely significantly suffered. I originally unpaired and then re-paired the watch. This seemed to make a difference but not a major one and may just have been placebo.

I then stripped out all 3rd party apps and complications in case these werent WatchOS 4 compatible yet and were hammering the battery by constantly updating information. My watch face has been the modular option with only my activity rings as a complication. (I used to also have the Dark Skies 3rd party complication). All of this has helped the battery life as initially I was down to less than 10% battery at 17:00. I noticed that some days I was losing about 10% an hour!

I typically get up at about 06:00 and do at least two 30 minute workouts a day (a run or gym in the morning) and a walk at lunchtime. Battery is usually down to about 10% by 20:30.

 

[gforce216]

I've noticed that the battery has taken a hit with OS 4. I've been running it for a few months now. Getting the S3 to hopefully enjoy the perks of the new CPU, GPS, and altimeter. I'm impressed the S0 has been chugging along well enough though .

 

[nburwell]

I haven't noticed much of an impact to battery life (yet), but I have definitely noticed my Series 0 is more sluggish.

I'm still contemplating whether to get the Series 2 or 3.

 

[phoenixcat]

I’ve been running WatchOS 4 since the start of the beta on my s0 and found it to run a bit faster, battery life much better as well.

 

[4451]

Unpaired & Repaired last night to try to fix the battery issue but as of mid-morning my S0 is churning through its battery much faster since upgrading. I thought it might have been the Siri face which I’ve purposely avoided but I’m at 51% with only 4 hours of normal use. (just time checks, calendar notifications, no workouts)

Pick up my S3 tomorrow but was going to give my S0 to my wife so hopefully can figure out a way to still get normal use out of it.

 

[sean000]

Unpaired & Repaired last night to try to fix the battery issue but as of mid-morning my S0 is churning through its battery much faster since upgrading. I thought it might have been the Siri face which I’ve purposely avoided but I’m at 51% with only 4 hours of normal use. (just time checks, calendar notifications, no workouts)

Pick up my S3 tomorrow but was going to give my S0 to my wife so hopefully can figure out a way to still get normal use out of it.

I've been running the Siri face since I upgraded on Tuesday night, and my 38mm S0 is getting significantly better battery life than it did on OS3. I've still got 95% after 3 hours today. Perhaps you have a third party app pulling a lot of data? If it's not the battery, then hopefully it will last longer once it has been wiped and paired with your wife's iPhone.

Sean

 

[ru7hl355]

Feels as snappy as before to me, Battery at 49% after 12 hours normal use, cant grumble at that! Also using the Siri watchface since release.

 

[4451]

I've been running the Siri face since I upgraded on Tuesday night, and my 38mm S0 is getting significantly better battery life than it did on OS3. I've still got 95% after 3 hours today. Perhaps you have a third party app pulling a lot of data? If it's not the battery, then hopefully it will last longer once it has been wiped and paired with your wife's iPhone.

Sean

Thanks. Will try that with her phone starting from scratch. She won’t be using any third party apps so it will be a clean & stock install. Will report back.

 

[zhenya]

After failing to charge the first time after upgrading my S0 then proceeded to drain 90% of the battery in 10 hours, most of it while I was sleeping. Charged it this morning and now 7 hours later it has only burned 20%, so hopefully this is more like what I can expect going forward.

 

[sdwaltz]

WatchOS 4 does not seem to have affected my battery life nor performance.

 

[xraydoc]

watchOS 4 has been hard on my two original watches. Both exhibiting the same incredibly poor battery life and generally sluggish performance.

I do have a series 3 LTE on order (won’t ship until Oct 5 because of the band), but still a bit disappointed with OS4 on the S0.

This weekend I may unpair and start fresh with one of them to see how it does.

 

[4451]

Reporting back on my S0 which was experiencing rapid battery decline after upgrading to OS4. After the first unpair/repair had no effect, I then deleted all of the 3rd party apps. I did not realize that I had several installed that I never used but they must have been still drawing data or using cycles.

With no 3rd party apps installed I’m now getting battery life equivalent or maybe somewhat better than I had on OS3.

I don’t know which apps were the culprits but here’s what I deleted:
2Do
Activity++
Dark Sky
Fly Delta
Good
Lyft
Nest
Shazam
The Weather
Wunderground

I didn’t use any of these except for Activity++ which was only the active complication

 

[sean000]

Reporting back on my S0 which was experiencing rapid battery decline after upgrading to OS4. After the first unpair/repair had no effect, I then deleted all of the 3rd party apps. I did not realize that I had several installed that I never used but they must have been still drawing data or using cycles.

With no 3rd party apps installed I’m now getting battery life equivalent or maybe somewhat better than I had on OS3.

I don’t know which apps were the culprits but here’s what I deleted:
2Do
Activity++
Dark Sky
Fly Delta
Good
Lyft
Nest
Shazam
The Weather
Wunderground

I didn’t use any of these except for Activity++ which was only the active complication

I think out of that list the only ones I have installed are Dark Sky and Shazam. I could see a number of those being active throughout the day if they are allowed to track your location in the background.

There have been a couple of occasions when I experienced almost a week of dramatically reduced battery life. On both occasions i removed apps I wasn't using and updated any apps that had available updates. In both cases battery life returned to normal when I installed a series of app updates. I didn't follow correct troubleshooting protocol by upgrading them one at a time, so I was not able to pinpoint the app that caused the issue. I guess I was more interested in getting the issue fixed rather than tracking down the root cause.

I was hoping that Watch OS 4 would finally allow us to view battery usage for individual apps the way you can for iPhone and iPad apps. I think it's safe to make an assumption that if an iPhone app is using more battery than usual on the iPhone, it is probably talking to the watch more frequently as well.

Sean

 

[HeathH]

Remember that updates involve more then just installing the new OS. Your watch has to re-sync some previously cached data, databases have to re-index, etc. I would give it a couple of days. Hopefully performance will improve. I'm going to hold off until i hear how things are going after a few days.

Good point, I installed OS 4 right when it was available on Tuesday. Initially seemed sluggish and buggy. A few days later and battery and performance seem on par with OS 3.

 

[sean000]

Good point, I installed OS 4 right when it was available on Tuesday. Initially seemed sluggish and buggy. A few days later and battery and performance seem on par with OS 3.

I'm glad it's working better! My watch seemed to perform just fine even immediately after the update, but so much depends on what third party apps are installed, and how much data is syncing. My watch is just over 2 years old and there have been one or two occasions when I experienced sluggish performance and/or reduced battery life in the one or two days that followed an OS update. I've also experienced a few episodes of poor performance/battery that lasted for a couple of days and were not related to an OS update. I'm guessing they were apps running amok. Those seemed to resolve by restarting watch and iPhone, or updating apps if some where out of date.

So my Series 0 watch is working great on OS4, but my iPhone 6 is a little more sluggish under iOS 11. It was already a little sluggish on iOS 10, but now it seems like there are times when it will just freeze for a few seconds after I launch certain apps... especially anything that uses the camera. I may have to think about upgrading to the iPhone X and seeing if I can get another year out of my Series 0 Apple Watch. I know it will be tempting to pair the latest watch with the latest phone, but right now I really can't complain about my Series 0. It's working far better than my iPhone 6.

Sean

 

[tillsbury]

My 6 is sluggish (but then it was getting pretty creaky under ios10). It is a big improvement over ios10 though and well worth the upgrade. I just have to make it until X and then my 6 will go to the wife, who managed to drop her 6 down a drain just as we were going to get married. Hers is still working but with limited battery life and no touch ID, and we're going to try to make it until the X to avoid buying yet another phone.

Watch OS4 is just great on my day1 S0 though. No slower than before, and I'm really loving the new Mac unlock sound particularly because it doesn't make me think a text has arrived. Battery life same as before, does 6am to 10pm with 30-40% free. Controlling Sonos from the watch makes yet another use for the watch, which for me has so many time-saving features I would hate not to have it on. The two or three hours without it when upgrading is a pain in the neck.