Terrible battery life

[nalk7]

My AW5 battery life was great until I downloaded WatchOS 6.1.1beta Tuesday. Now it suddenly goes to red after just less than 5 hours. After unpairing and setting up as new again yesterday, here are my percentages: 3 pm 100%
4pm 93%, 5pm 88%, 6pm 83%, 6:50pm - RED lightning bolt. I Did File a radar.

Are you on a iOS beta as well? I seem to be getting slightly worse battery on my watch since I downloaded 6.2.2 on my phone. It might still be too early to tell weather it will stabilize or not but Im down to 88% with 2:39h standby and 41min usage.

I ask about the beta because Im still on 6.1 on my watch and the only thing thats changed is the higher OS version on my phone. My usage has remained the same.

 

[Ack_]

A week after unpairing and repairing my S4, it is back to its old ways of battery drain being over 12% an hour.

What I have been noticing is that when checking my usage, it has been equaling the amount of standby time. I doubt this is a coincidence with the battery issues. Basically it appears the watch isn't going into standby mode at all.

I'll be unpairing the watch again, but I have a very strong feeling that after a week, the same thing will happen. It has to be software related since I didn't have any of these issues prior to updating to OS 6/6.1.

Can anyone who is having battery issues check their usage statistics? I'm curious as to how many people are seeing that their total usage equals their standby time.

 

[zanswer]

Are you on a iOS beta as well? I seem to be getting slightly worse battery on my watch since I downloaded 6.2.2 on my phone. It might still be too early to tell weather it will stabilize or not but Im down to 88% with 2:39h standby and 41min usage.

I ask about the beta because Im still on 6.1 on my watch and the only thing thats changed is the higher OS version on my phone. My usage has remained the same.

I’ve got the same result earlier today, but, hard reset of my watch, holding Digital Crown + Side button fixed the issue.

 

[Nütztjanix]

A week after unpairing and repairing my S4, it is back to its old ways of battery drain being over 12% an hour.

What I have been noticing is that when checking my usage, it has been equaling the amount of standby time. I doubt this is a coincidence with the battery issues. Basically it appears the watch isn't going into standby mode at all.

I'll be unpairing the watch again, but I have a very strong feeling that after a week, the same thing will happen. It has to be software related since I didn't have any of these issues prior to updating to OS 6/6.1.

Can anyone who is having battery issues check their usage statistics? I'm curious as to how many people are seeing that their total usage equals their standby time.

For me it‘s not exactly the same amount of time, but close. There’s maybe one or two hours difference per 12 hours. There is no way I‘m „using“ the Watch 10 hours out of 12.

 

[Ack_]

For me it‘s not exactly the same amount of time, but close. There’s maybe one or two hours difference per 12 hours. There is no way I‘m „using“ the Watch 10 hours out of 12.

There is definitely something going on in the background for the watch to think it is being used for much longer than it is. I haven't been able to figure it out for the life of me, and I've been messing around with uninstalling unused apps, turning off certain background functions, etc.

It could be a memory leak issue that grows over time.

I just un/repaired my watch again and after about two hours I'm at 98%, where if this was earlier in the day, I'd be down almost 25%.

I really don't want to have to unpair my watch every week until Apple figures this out.

 

[Nütztjanix]

I also get a lot of inconsistencies in battery life. I have had days where it did about 17 hours, and then others with more or less identical usage where it would die after 8 or 10 hours. There is no logic to be found in that behaviour.

 

[bigchief]

Am I the only one with terrible battery life since this update? I have the decible meter on as well as as the hourly ho ur notifications. Apple said this uses hardly any battery but I got up at 5 am with a full charge and now I’m at 9%

Same here.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Just put my s5 on the charger (22%).
Usage: 4hrs 12 mins.
Standby: 21 hrs 9 mins.

Fairly consistent with yesterday’s usage.

 

[nicho]

(How? I was sleeping while the Apple Watch was NOT on my wrist!)

How does the apple watch know it's on your wrist or not?

 

[ferretex]

How does the apple watch know it's on your wrist or not?

HR sensor...

 

[nicho]

HR sensor...

You kind of broke my loaded question for the other poster there but essentially the point is that when the watch is neither on your wrist nor charging, it is looking for a wrist. it is not doing nothing.

 

[Der Keyser]

Just a heads up from me (had TERRIBLE AW4 LTE battery life):

Solved my problems by unpairing my Watch from my phone and NOT keeping the Dataplan.
I tried unpairing several times before and keeping the dataplan, and both setting up as new and restoring a backup made no difference - still had terrible battery life.

Then I did a new setup of the watch (DO NOT restore a backup).
I then used it for two days without re-adding the LTE Dataplan to make sure it was better. There is a slightly aggressive battery usage for the first two days after “setting up as new”. I then readded the LTE data plan, and now my watch just flies!

Before: Outdoor workout with Bluetooth headset and untethered: 100% battery usage in 28min, and I generally had to recharge the watch once or twice to make it last a day.

Now: Outdoor workout with Bluetooth headset and untethered: About 12% battery pr. Hour.
I ususally have around 40% battery left after a 17 hour day with a 1 hour untethered ourdoor workout.

 

[OxCxDx]

S4 here, I don't check often so not sure if this is my average.

Battery: 5% left - Just put on charger.
Usage: 4hrs 20 mins.
Standby: 1 day 13 hrs

I also turned off Bluetooth (in settings) when I don't use it.

 

[The Game 161]

Just a heads up from me (had TERRIBLE AW4 LTE battery life):

Solved my problems by unpairing my Watch from my phone and NOT keeping the Dataplan.
I tried unpairing several times before and keeping the dataplan, and both setting up as new and restoring a backup made no difference - still had terrible battery life.

Then I did a new setup of the watch (DO NOT restore a backup).
I then used it for two days without re-adding the LTE Dataplan to make sure it was better. There is a slightly aggressive battery usage for the first two days after “setting up as new”. I then readded the LTE data plan, and now my watch just flies!

Before: Outdoor workout with Bluetooth headset and untethered: 100% battery usage in 28min, and I generally had to recharge the watch once or twice to make it last a day.

Now: Outdoor workout with Bluetooth headset and untethered: About 12% battery pr. Hour.
I ususally have around 40% battery left after a 17 hour day with a 1 hour untethered ourdoor workout.

Well I swapped from SS with data plan to Nike S5 GPS only and its after 16 hours off the charger it’s got 30% left so for me that’s perfect for my usage.

it might not have been data plan causing issues but I think it did play a factor as befofe I activated it was better

 

[nalk7]

I’ve got the same result earlier today, but, hard reset of my watch, holding Digital Crown + Side button fixed the issue.

Thanks! I’ll try it out!

 

[Gibson88]

So many posts to scroll through.

I have a 40mm on the last day OS. Only things I have turned off are raise to wake and the noise detection. Brightness set to minimum. I only have light usage is 5% an hour drainage good or are people getting better?

 

[cosmic68]

So many posts to scroll through.

I have a 40mm on the last day OS. Only things I have turned off are raise to wake and the noise detection. Brightness set to minimum. I only have light usage is 5% an hour drainage good or are people getting better?

5% seems high considering you have turned off RTW.

 

[Apple_Robert]

So many posts to scroll through.

I have a 40mm on the last day OS. Only things I have turned off are raise to wake and the noise detection. Brightness set to minimum. I only have light usage is 5% an hour drainage good or are people getting better?

Did you enable fall detection? If so, that could explain the high use, as it requires constant location services use.

 

[Gibson88]

Nope. Would you say that’s high?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Nope. Would you say that’s high?

In my opinion, 5% an hour is a lot. I am 3 - 3.5 percent an hour (give or take) with my cellular version with fall detection enabled.

Do you have cellular enabled?

 

[Gibson88]

Yeah but it’s connected to Bluetooth the majority of the time.

Is yours 40 or 44mm?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Yeah but it’s connected to Bluetooth the majority of the time.

Is yours 40 or 44mm?

Mine is 44mm.

 

[reixer]

To me it turns out the culprit is to be the AOD. With AOD I get between 3.5-4% battery drain per hour. Without AOD I get between 1-2% per hour. In the end this is just a glorified series 4. AOD isn’t worth the battery drain.

 

[Apple_Robert]

To me it turns out the culprit is to be the AOD. With AOD I get between 3.5-4% battery drain per hour. Without AOD I get between 1-2% per hour. In the end this is just a glorified series 4. AOD isn’t worth the battery drain.

As a test, I turned off 'Fall Notification' last night, after my watch was charged. My usage thus far is 1:56 minutes with 13:46 mins standby, and 65% battery left. It looks like the fall detection was using a lot of battery. Will be interesting to see the stats at the end of the day.

 

[reixer]

As a test, I turned off 'Fall Notification' last night, after my watch was charged. My usage thus far is 1:56 minutes with 13:46 mins standby, and 65% battery left. It looks like the fall detection was using a lot of battery. Will be interesting to see the stats at the end of the day.

I would say, if the decision is between having Fall Detection or having AOD, I would go with Fall Detection because of the potential of saving my life in an accident. AOD is just to look pretty.