Why has my battery life plummeted?

[MrMister111]

Have a series 4, all well. Since the last month or so my battery life has plummeted. It’s on latest WatchOS.

It used to last more than a day, going to bed I still had about 40% left. Today putting it on at 100% at 8am, it’s now 2:30pm and it’s at 10% and asking to power save.

Nothing has changed in my use at all, strangely my iPhone 11 has been doing the same as well, as in battery life now is bad. Same getting in to bed before had 40% now at same time it’s 23%.

Is this because of WatchOS 6 and iOS 13? Is it just me? Nothing has changed that I can think of apart from updates. Anyone else? Anything I can do?

 

[xraydoc]

Have a series 4, all well. Since the last month or so my battery life has plummeted. It’s on latest WatchOS.

It used to last more than a day, going to bed I still had about 40% left. Today putting it on at 100% at 8am, it’s now 2:30pm and it’s at 10% and asking to power save.

Nothing has changed in my use at all, strangely my iPhone 11 has been doing the same as well, as in battery life now is bad. Same getting in to bed before had 40% now at same as scone it’s 23%.

Is this because of WatchOS 6 and iOS 13? Is it just me? Nothing has changed that I can think of apart from updates. Anyone else? Anything I can do?

Did you reboot everything?
Have you installed any new apps and/or watchface complications?
Set up any new email accounts on the watch or phone recently?

While I wouldn't say it's just you, the vast majority of people are not experiencing this behavior.

 

[MrMister111]

Haven’t added any new apps no, I have rebooted quite a few times. Sometimes switch off watch for days when not using, make sure fully charged up before.

I agree maybe isolated, seen loads in past about battery issues never had, but I’m definitely having issues, strangely, on my watch and iPhone when didn’t previously

 

[xraydoc]

Examine your standby and usage times on both the watch and the phone. If the usage times are close or the same as the standby times, you've got a rogue app running out of control somewhere.

 

[MrMister111]

Examine your standby and usage times on both the watch and the phone. If the usage times are close or the same as the standby times, you've got a rogue app running out of control somewhere.

Is this on the battery setting on my iPhone? Will it show both? How? Can you do a screenshot for comparison? Thanks for info

 

[mk313]

I had a similar thing happen when I got a new series 5 with Watch is 6. It turns out that audible was locked up and running continuously in the background. Once I disabled it, the issue went away.

You could try turning off any non essential third party apps and seeing if that improves battery life. If it does, start adding them back one at a time and see if that fixes the issue.

 

[MrMister111]

I had a similar thing happen when I got a new series 5 with Watch is 6. It turns out that audible was locked up and running continuously in the background. Once I disabled it, the issue went away.

You could try turning off any non essential third party apps and seeing if that improves battery life. If it does, start adding them back one at a time and see if that fixes the issue.

Read a few things like this, it’s just a pain to do and long process to find, also just happened and I’ve changed nothing frustratingly.

 

[xraydoc]

Is this on the battery setting on my iPhone? Will it show both? How? Can you do a screenshot for comparison? Thanks for info

Phone's Settings app --> Battery: under the graph there's listings for power usage per app (both foreground and background usage).

Phone's Watch app --> General --> Usage (at bottom): scroll to bottom of list and it will show usage and standy in hours & minutes since last full charge. They should not be the same; make sure the usage time seems plausible. Usage should include time when the watch was actively being used (scrolling through email, messages, reading notifications, tracking a workout, etc.). Sitting idle, even with a series 5 always-on display, should not count as usage (that's standby).

 

[MrMister111]

Phone's Settings app --> Battery: under the graph there's listings for power usage per app (both foreground and background usage).

Phone's Watch app --> General --> Usage (at bottom): scroll to bottom of list and it will show usage and standy in hours & minutes since last full charge. They should not be the same; make sure the usage time seems plausible. Usage should include time when the watch was actively being used (scrolling through email, messages, reading notifications, tracking a workout, etc.). Sitting idle, even with a series 5 always-on display, should not count as usage (that's standby).

iPhone doesn’t seem to be bad, so not sure on that.

Watch says usage 6hrs 45 and standby 7hrs 11mins.

The usage seems really high, no way I’m on that much, unless it counts when I start an outdoor walk activity, but thought that would run in background, and I’ve used that since my series 0 and didn’t have battery like it is now.

 

[xraydoc]

iPhone doesn’t seem to be bad, so not sure on that.

Watch says usage 6hrs 45 and standby 7hrs 11mins.

The usage seems really high, no way I’m onion that much, unless it counts when I start an outdoor walk activity, but thought that would run in background, and I’ve used that since my series 0 and didn’t have battery like it is now.

Unless your outdoor walk was multiple hours long, sounds like something has gone rouge. Disable/uninstall all the 3rd party apps from the watch that you absolutely don't need and add them back one each day, making note of battery life after each.

My watch as of now, even with a morning workout, says 4hrs 39min standby and 1hr 18min usage.

 

[MrMister111]

Unless your outdoor walk was multiple hours long, sounds like something has gone rouge. Disable/uninstall all the 3rd party apps from the watch that you absolutely don't need and add them back one each day, making note of battery life after each.

Actually today my walk was a very long one, about 5+ plus as I just leave it running when out and about so could it be this one?

But it’s not just today, it’s like this a lot now, mid afternoon, even without walk activity, it’s going to 10%

 

[xraydoc]

Actually today my walk was a very long one, about 5+ plus as I just leave it running when out and about so could it be this one?

But it’s not just today, it’s like this a lot now, mid afternoon, even without walk activity, it’s going to 10%

Workout tracking counts as usage, so that may be it. But 5+ hours of checking your heart rate at workout pace is going to burn through a lot of battery power, to be honest.
But tomorrow, skip the walk (or don't track it) and monitor battery usage throughout the day and see if you can narrow things down.

 

[YatBob]

Did you by any chance sign up for the Apple Research that was announced a few days ago, I did and found my battery life was cut in half of what it had normally been, Plummeted using your term, I deleted the Research app and rebooted my watch and phone and battery life has returned to what i was experiencing prior to installing the Research App

 

[MrMister111]

Did you by any chance sign up for the Apple Research that was announced a few days ago, I did and found my battery life was cut in half of what it had normally been, Plummeted using your term, I deleted the Research app and rebooted my watch and phone and battery life has returned to what i was experiencing prior to installing the Research App

Don’t think I did, I’m in UK, is it here as well as normally only US these sort of things but I’ll check thanks!

 

[xraydoc]

Did you by any chance sign up for the Apple Research that was announced a few days ago, I did and found my battery life was cut in half of what it had normally been, Plummeted using your term, I deleted the Research app and rebooted my watch and phone and battery life has returned to what i was experiencing prior to installing the Research App

Interesting. I signed up for one last night. I'll keep an eye on things today... Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[Davidalan]

Is there any way to see battery usage by app as in the usage page. Not by MB but by battery so you can see what app is using the most battery.

 

[Uln4321]

My usage and stand by times were exactly the same. No third party apps installed so it must be a first party app causing problems. I turned off background app refresh for everything and it’s been better so far!

Edit: Nevermind, battery is still terrible.

 

[digitalexplr]

Did you by any chance sign up for the Apple Research that was announced a few days ago, I did and found my battery life was cut in half of what it had normally been, Plummeted using your term, I deleted the Research app and rebooted my watch and phone and battery life has returned to what i was experiencing prior to installing the Research App

Same thing happened to be. I too deleted the Research app. Rebooted the watch and phone. Now things are back to normal.

 

[MrMister111]

No research app.

Charged at 8pm tonight, not sure if full, think was as watch app usage shows “since last charge” 4hrs 2min, and standby 4hrs 2mins. No idea what’s going on here and why battery life has become this poor.

 

[Ledgem]

For what it's worth I've also noticed my battery life not being what it used to, although the decline isn't as severe as yours. I'd usually end my day with around 50-60% battery remaining, but lately it's been more like 20-40%. In my case the only change was upgrading my iPhone, which necessitated wiping my Watch and then recovering from backup because I forgot to unpair it from my old iPhone. I'm not 100% certain that the drop in battery life occurred when I upgraded my phone, nor can I say for certain that it wasn't with an operating system update.

It's not severe enough to impact my usual usage so I'm not going to go hunting for the cause. If it is a software thing, hopefully Apple sorts it out.

 

[BillGates1969]

Mine since Wednesday has been doing exactly the same - usage and standby times more or less identical. Pre Wednesday I was getting about 30+ hours now I am lucky to last 12. Nothing was changed my end.

I have done a re-pair and restore from back up this morning - if it doesn't improve i'll do a full re-pair as new to see, but weird that it started on Wednesday like the OP.

 

[MrMister111]

Have another Watch, synced same from same AppleID etc, a series 1.

Charged to full at 8am, 25% left at 2:30, no activity or take, workouts etc, just around 20 notifications.

Usage is 5 hours 29m
Standby is 5 hours 32mins....

This watch, although older, also used to last until 8pm before charging.

 

[xraydoc]

Have another Watch, synced same from same AppleID etc, a series 1.

Charged to full at 8am, 25% left at 2:30, no activity or take, workouts etc, just around 20 notifications.

Usage is 5 hours 29m
Standby is 5 hours 32mins....

This watch, although older, also used to last until 8pm before charging.

Definitely not right. Usage shouldn't be that high. Something is preventing the watch from going in to low power mode; an app on the watch or something with the phone.

 

[BillGates1969]

Have another Watch, synced same from same AppleID etc, a series 1.

Charged to full at 8am, 25% left at 2:30, no activity or take, workouts etc, just around 20 notifications.

Usage is 5 hours 29m
Standby is 5 hours 32mins....

This watch, although older, also used to last until 8pm before charging.

Did you restore from backup or set up as new?

If the former, definitely a rogue app. Mine hasn't improved at all with a unpair and re-pair (restore from backup) so going to screenshot all my faces and unpair then set up as new. Need to wait until I close my rings today though lol as don want to spoil my 401 day 3 ring close streak!

 

[MrMister111]

Did you restore from backup or set up as new?

If the former, definitely a rogue app. Mine hasn't improved at all with a unpair and re-pair (restore from backup) so going to screenshot all my faces and unpair then set up as new. Need to wait until I close my rings today though lol as don want to spoil my 401 day 3 ring close streak!

Watch that is paired has been for a while only use it sometimes. Is up to date that I did a few weeks ago.

So 2 watches, same AppleID, paired to same iPhone, all up to date.....

I was going to restore and see as well but if you’ve tried then maybe not that.....