Terrible battery life

[johnasch]

Mine has been horrible. Losing about 10% every hour with no workouts and minimal notifications. I had to top it up yesterday in the afternoon to make sure it made it to 11pm. AOD is on, noise monitoring is off. Using the same watch face as my S4 (Simple w/stopwatch, timer, date, battery).

This is a pretty far cry from my S4 which usually has about 60-70% left in the tank before bed. I’m really interested to see how it does tomorrow when I’m back at work and the emails are flying in.

I’m going to give it 7-10 days and if it doesn’t get better it’s going to get returned. Needless to say I’m pretty unimpressed so far.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Overnight - lost 7% with AOD off. Night before lost 20%+ with AOD on but it was the first night. Wife is going to leave AOD on today and I’ll have mine off. Will report back later today.

My wife lost 20%+ last night. AOD on.

 

[pirarre]

I’m leaning towards AOD and WatchO6 as the issue.

I took my watch off the charger around 1am and it’s now 908am. I have 64% battery remaining.

When I had AOD on yesterday, my battery was close to dead within the same time frame.

 

[pumazooma]

AOD on, I wore it for 13hrs yesterday and still had 53% charge left when I took it off. Didn't charge it overnight. I've had it on for another 6hrs so far today and still got 24% left.

What I do have turned off is that noise checking thing.

 

[Radeon85]

After testing from 100%, just turning off AOD, noise sampling on, all apps fetching data in the background I'm only loosing about 5% every 3hrs which should get me two days easily. With AOD on I'm losing 5% an hour.

Probably also depends on the watch face you use as well, it may not refresh often but the battery still has to power all those pixels. I use the modular face with lots of colour.

 

[gymratjudy]

AOD on, I wore it for 13hrs yesterday and still had 53% charge left when I took it off. Didn't charge it overnight. I've had it on for another 6hrs so far today and still got 24% left.

What I do have turned off is that noise checking thing.

Hoping this is the case once I get my Nike version. I want to be able to have AOD on without battery issues.

 

[ericg301]

Seen on Reddit

 

[funkyche1]

I’ve had mine off the charger since 7am. Did a 90 minute workout and it’s already down to 67% at 12:15. This won’t last until this evening at this rate. Hope it improves as I’m hoping everything is still syncing from the backup. If not, Always On will be shut off and this upgrade will have been a complete waste.

For what its worth.. Mine was absolutely horrible after I bought it on Friday. It took about 5 hours to charge from 70% to 100%. Then when I wore it, it was down to about 40% after 6 hours of normal use (no workouts). I did the normal things like unpair/re-pair, force restart both watch and phone, etc. I finally contacted apple support. The tech gave me some vague answer about my battery being drained. She wanted me to go in and have it checked out. I decided to just return it and buy another one of the same kind. My new one is much much better. Had it off the charger for 2 hours 2 min this morning, and im at 98%.. Never really seen something that bad on an apple watch before..

 

[edlex]

My SS S4 has had horrible battery life after installing watchOS 6. After pairing it to my new Pro Max as a new watch (not restored) it’s draining at over 10% per hour. Took it off the charger at 7am today and right now at 12 noon it’s at 44%. Before this I was using the watch all day and had between 60-70% by 7 pm. I just turned off that loud noise thing to see if that’s the culprit. Very disappointed so far. Hopefully an update will get things back to normal.

 

[gymratjudy]

My SS S4 has had horrible battery life after installing watchOS 6. After pairing it to my new Pro Max as a new watch (not restored) it’s draining at over 10% per hour. Took it off the charger at 7am today and right now at 12 noon it’s at 44%. Before this I was using the watch all day and had between 60-70% by 7 pm. I just turned off that loud noise thing to see if that’s the culprit. Very disappointed so far. Hopefully an update will get things back to normal.

I think you need to just give it a bit. I took off my 40mm SG off the charger at 8am today and it is now a little after 12pm and I am at 95%. Just a few text messages and the chime on and no workouts as of yet. I do have the noise notification turned off. I do think the noise app drains the battery.

 

[Mercenary]

See my earlier comment. Setup your watch however you want. Don’t try and save battery ‘yet’. Give it 2 weeks of normal use and you will find it lasting longer.

then tweak settings if you want but your watch learns how you use it and stops doing things you don’t need. It’s very clever.
Plus, you all have shiny new toy syndrome.

 

[Bazooka-joe]

I updated my SSSB Series 4 to WatchOS6 yesterday. Always used to be at 70% after 13 hours of light use during working days. Back to work tomorrow so i will post my findings after tomorrow.

 

[BillGates1969]

My SSG S5 44mm has been alright, but I still think it is a lot less than my S4.

Weirdly, on OS5 my S4 would be on 20% at the end of the day (off charger at 7am, back on at midnight, about 1 hour of workouts), on OS6 beta this improved - ended the day mainly on about 40%. S5 last couple of days has ended the day on 15-20%.

Currently on 50% after 10 hours standby. AOD on, noise off. Not spectacular, but ok I suppose. I did restore from a backup so any rubbish would have been brought over. May unpair and set up as new tomorrow to see if that helps.

 

[Arndroid]

The claim for the AW5 is 18 hours?

I’m at 36% after 12 hours. Only activated indoor run for about 20 minutes.

That is literally an 18 hour pace.

 

[MacBird]

I have a S4 44mm and don't notice a big difference in battery life after upgrading to OS6. I exercise in the morning, recharge it after that and start the day at about 97%. Around midnight, I normally have about 75% left, unless I do another workout, maybe a few percent less with OS6 but nothing worth mentioning. I use the Infograph watch face with a lot of black in the background, which might help.

 

[johnasch]

@Arndroid It’s actually closer to 19, but that’s not the point.

The key is that they only did a 20 minute indoor run. Apples 18 hour battery claim includes a 60 minute workout with music streaming. My guess is that if their workout was 3x as long with the audio streaming the battery would be much lower than 36%.

 

[Dopestar]

I have read that with ios13.1 beta installed that their AW's battery has improved. It is more likely a software issue and not hardware. This coming Tuesday will soon find out. I recently bought the AW5 so I have noticed the battery drain but many who do not have the AW5 and have other models have experienced the issue.

 

[Glideslope]

I definitely don’t think it’s an AWS5 issue. I’m leaning more towards a WatchOS6 or a rogue app issue.

FWIW, I had issues after installing OS6 on my Series 4. Unpaired, then paired again. Restored from backup. No more issues. I’m thinking there was a hiccup as it upgraded on wi-fi while I slept.

 

[smr]

My 44mm SBSS S5 is also suffering with poor battery life. AoD and sound monitoring are both on. I got 12.5hrs yesterday (1st full day) and it was down to about 40% after about 8hrs use by 5pm today when I un-paired it, re-paired it and then force reset both the iPhone and the Watch. This hasn't helped - it lost 15% between 5:30 and 6:30pm!

I will give it a couple more days, but if there isn't a dramatic improvement I will return it and but a new one.

 

[BillGates1969]

I have read that with ios13.1 beta installed that their AW's battery has improved. It is more likely a software issue and not hardware. This coming Tuesday will soon find out. I recently bought the AW5 so I have noticed the battery drain but many who do not have the AW5 and have other models have experienced the issue.

I'm on 13.1 beta, I'm hoping there will be a release for OS6 that fixes it. I may be calling Apple support if an unpair and set up as new doesn't get it beyond the 15/6 hours if I have everything on.

 

[slomtbr]

My S4 on OS 5 was consistently at 70%+ after 14 hours.
On OS 6, it's been at ~50% since the update.

 

[edlex]

FWIW, I had issues after installing OS6 on my Series 4. Unpaired, then paired again. Restored from backup. No more issues. I’m thinking there was a hiccup as it upgraded on wi-fi while I slept.

I had an issue as well installing on the SS Series 4. My watch finished installing the update but the phone kept saying installing. When I tried to use the watch it kept asking me to enter my Apple ID on the watch!?!? Also none of the apps were functional and kept saying they needed to be installed on my phone. Support had me reset the watch and pair it as a new watch which worked. This was yesterday morning and the battery life has been abysmal.

 

[pirarre]

After everything I’ve did, I’m getting great battery life. I’m going on 13hrs off the charger and have 53% battery left.

AOD and Noise turned off.
No workouts today

 

[MadCar]

So day two and things are starting to return to normal for me.

Haven't done much different today, maybe looked at it and played with it a bit less. (You know what its like getting new toys ?)

Interestingly Usage showing a lot less at 1hr 32 and the battery is at 66% so back into 2 days territory even with AOD switched on. So before everyone vents take a look at your Actual Usage and see if you have really been looking / playing with it a lot through the day compared to normal.

 

[pirarre]

So day two and things are starting to return to normal for me.

Haven't done much different today, maybe looked at it and played with it a bit less. (You know what its like getting new toys )

Interestingly Usage showing a lot less at 1hr 32 and the battery is at 66% so back into 2 days territory even with AOD switched on. So before everyone vents take a look at your Actual Usage and see if you have really been looking / playing with it a lot through the day compared to normal.

Where do you find the actual usage?

*Nvm I found it.