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WatchOS 9 poor battery

P

pheonix320

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 7, 2021
80
65
Anyone else experience poor battery life on WatchOS 9?
I’ve got a Series 7 41mm. I always it at night for sleep tracking and used to always manage about a day and a half battery, or their abouts.

Now I’m only getting around 20 hours or so and my usage hasn’t changed
 
I have a Series 6 44m which on AW 7 (which was the last watch OS I was on) I got easily 48 hours of battery life usually including 1-2 workouts over that time frame, and including nighttime wearing for sleep tracking although I did put the watch in AP mode, DND and essentially theatre mode. Now, I‘m getting at most 36 hours of use which is a bummer.
 
Definitely seeing this!

My wife and I have had our series 6's die during long days of sports the past two days, even without using the workout tracking! We've done the exact same type of sports for years, with these watches and previous versions, and usually I can use the workout app all day, and still barely have enough battery life. With watchOS 9 the battery died at 5 pm without even ever using a workout or heart rate tracking. Less than 15 hours total life from charger to dead.

Any way to fix? It's terrible, I haven't done any workout tracking since this started happening. Watch hardware and usage patterns haven't changed at all.
 
poocat said:
Definitely seeing this!

My wife and I have had our series 6's die during long days of sports the past two days, even without using the workout tracking! We've done the exact same type of sports for years, with these watches and previous versions, and usually I can use the workout app all day, and still barely have enough battery life. With watchOS 9 the battery died at 5 pm without even ever using a workout or heart rate tracking. Less than 15 hours total life from charger to dead.

Any way to fix? It's terrible, I haven't done any workout tracking since this started happening. Watch hardware and usage patterns haven't changed at all.
Click to expand...
UN pair and re-pair with a backup usually fixes it for me, did this time as usual.
 
pheonix320 said:
Anyone else experience poor battery life on WatchOS 9?
I’ve got a Series 7 41mm. I always it at night for sleep tracking and used to always manage about a day and a half battery, or their abouts.

Now I’m only getting around 20 hours or so and my usage hasn’t changed
Click to expand...
I also found very reduced battery life after updating to latest os 9 - by bedtime usually watch at 30% remaining before update then went to 3% !! several nights in a row. Had to delete and restore new set up and all OK first time now back to normal levels again
 
Check your background app refresh, and if you’re on cellular, check your mobile app refresh

Updates often reset those settings, and turn everything on
 
I was getting poor battery life with 9.0, but it’s significantly worse with 9.1. I’m at 21% already, having being charged to full at 8.30am, no workouts and battery health at 92% on my S4. Was finishing the day with 50%+ charge on watchOS 8. Anyone else seeing this?
 
Running 9.1.

Currently 10:53am and at 52%. Was charged to 100% at 5:40pm yesterday.


I did just do the update yesterday; so far so good.
 
Eliottjames said:
I was getting poor battery life with 9.0, but it’s significantly worse with 9.1. I’m at 21% already, having being charged to full at 8.30am, no workouts and battery health at 92% on my S4. Was finishing the day with 50%+ charge on watchOS 8. Anyone else seeing this?
Click to expand...


Have you restarted the watch?

Un-paired and re-paired?
 
What is the best way to create an ACTUAL backup of a watch, that one can point to to use as a restore point? there used to be a more backup and restore from X backup interface, now it seems to be more opaque.
 
I have the same problem. With watchOS 8 and 9.0 my battery usually was around 40-50% at bedtime. Since upgrading to 9.1, my battery has dropped to ca 50% by lunch. And last night when I wore the watch to bed, the battery had dropped from 100% to 56%. Usually I don't lose more than about 20% in one night.

I am experiencing a real degradation in battery life in 9.1.Could it have something to do with the support for Matter? (I have a HomePod mini, but I've had it for several months (but I also updated it last Monday)
 
Howard2k said:
This happens automatically now.

Back up your Apple Watch - Apple Support (CA)

Learn how your Apple Watch data is backed up and what the backup includes.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
Click to expand...
It does and should happen automatically, but there used to be an option to select a prior backup rather than just restore from I guess LATEST? Also, with two watches on the same iphone, I’m not sure if it’s really pulling from the AWU vs. the AW6 backup or if that too is done automagically in the background?
 
Noben said:
I have the same problem. With watchOS 8 and 9.0 my battery usually was around 40-50% at bedtime. Since upgrading to 9.1, my battery has dropped to ca 50% by lunch. And last night when I wore the watch to bed, the battery had dropped from 100% to 56%. Usually I don't lose more than about 20% in one night.

I am experiencing a real degradation in battery life in 9.1.Could it have something to do with the support for Matter? (I have a HomePod mini, but I've had it for several months (but I also updated it last Monday)
Click to expand...
Yes, I would put the 9.1 battery usage about 20% more than 9.02 (so its doing about 37 a 24 hour period vs. 30 for me prior. Will try the UNPAIR, DELETE AND RESTORE trick to see if that helps it.
 
Check what backgrounds apps you’re running, and also check cellular settings to see what’s running. I find updates switch everything back on
 
@
tivoboy said:
Yes, I would put the 9.1 battery usage about 20% more than 9.02 (so its doing about 37 a 24 hour period vs. 30 for me prior. Will try the UNPAIR, DELETE AND RESTORE trick to see if that helps it.
Click to expand...
Please do and please report back with your findings if it's worth it.
 
I recently updated to 9.1 and paired my series 5 watch with a new iPhone and I'm no longer getting a low battery alert at the end of the day. I'd say it's significantly improved. I guess there is no way to know if it's the software update or pairing the watch with a new phone.
 
First day on 9.1 and WOW. I have a 40mm S6 that’s almost 2 years old, 84% battery. Been on my wrist almost 8.5 hours and 70% left. So much better than 9.0 or even 8 (which was better than 9.0).
 
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I had the bad battery drain with 9.0 (Series 4 Stainless Steel) but that went away once I force-restarted the watch. Since then I'd been quite pleased with battery life but, like some others, my battery life has seriously degraded again with 9.1. I have force-restarted several times to no effect; this morning I did a re-pairing and so far see no improvement (but I'll give it the day just in case the Watch is doing some indexing or something in the background as a result of the re-pairing and restore.)

M
 
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