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Terrible battery life

kitenski

kitenski

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2008
447
177
Leeds, UK
I've had a AW5 (my first ever AW after moving from Garmin) and have what I'd consider good enough battery life. Take yesterday as an example, left the house with it 100% at 845am after putting it on charge once I woke up. Did an outdoor run for 47mins 37secs using GPS. Went to bed with it on 37%, wore it all night, woke up 645am and put it on charge about 7am, think it had about 15% left at that point.

It's 13:52 UK time, it's currently on 87% after being taken off the charge about 845am
 
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BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,025
kitenski said:
I've had a AW5 (my first ever AW after moving from Garmin) and have what I'd consider good enough battery life. Take yesterday as an example, left the house with it 100% at 845am after putting it on charge once I woke up. Did an outdoor run for 47mins 37secs using GPS. Went to bed with it on 37%, wore it all night, woke up 645am and put it on charge about 7am, think it had about 15% left at that point.

It's 13:52 UK time, it's currently on 87% after being taken off the charge about 845am
Click to expand...

Always on display?
 
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rMBP2013

macrumors regular
Oct 22, 2013
165
85
Sydney
Nütztjanix said:
If you look through the 64 pages of this thread, you'll find a lot of suggestions - but there doesn't seem to be a OSFA universal thing that works in any case.

And, again, I don't think that turning off essential features (AoD, background refresh, noise, HR and the like) to get the advertised battery life is or should be normal. You can do that to get beyond the 18hrs - but out of the box with stock settings you should get what was advertised. Sadly, many of us don't.
Click to expand...

Sadly, I don't have the time to review all 1,500 posts over 64 pages.

Do you have any specific advice that you've learned that you can share with me? I'd appreciate it.
 
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PrettyWings

macrumors 6502a
Nov 3, 2016
505
616
MajkJaro said:
What Garmin did you have? How would you compare them?
Click to expand...

I know you're not talking to me, but I have a perspective that I think you'd like to hear.

I've had a Series 0 SB SS since 2015. I wanted to try something new earlier in 2019. I loved the idea of a rugged smartwatch that you could do all kinds of activity with, and charge every several days, so I purchased a Garmin Fenix 5X.

Went to test it out on the elliptical. Got a wildly different number than the machine gave me. Thought maybe I had something configured wrong on the watch. Went and did it again; same result. Researched online, and there were similar complaints. I also came across the suggestion that the elliptical app that was developed by Garmin wasn't that accurate and to use one of the add-on elliptical apps. I go check, it's a subscription, like $5 a year. $5 is nothing, so I say okay. I go again. It's still pretty inaccurate. I can't find anything in the manual that would address why, and this is after reading through it like the 5th time to address the issue.

Had the same issue on the treadmill.

My Series 0 matched the numbers on the machine every time or came very close.

Also, it bothered me that you couldn't access your playlists on your phone, from your watch. You could press play, pause, fast forward or rewind, but you couldn't select a playlist to play from. Apparently they decided to include that feature in the next model up, as a selling point. Imagine that, holding onto a software tweak like playlist integration and using it to inspire people to purchase the model that costs $100 more.

I rarely return anything but I just couldn't keep it. A fitness-focused watch that didn't seem to accurately analyze the exercise I was doing and had limited features vs an apple watch, which I already knew had great accuracy, and plenty of other uses. Both were $500+.

Returned it and didn't want to buy the Series 4, so I went back to the Series 0. Bought the Series 5 a little while ago.

I had criticisms for Apple but sometimes you decide to go somewhere else and realize what you took for granted before isn’t guaranteed.
 
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Shadowbech

macrumors G3
Oct 18, 2011
9,038
5,894
So with my AW5, I fully charged it on Sunday night, I took it off the charger Monday morning around 9 am. Normally I always charge it over night but Monday night, I completely forgot to put it in the charger and Tuesday morning was at 51%. I decided to see how far I can go. So Tuesday night at around 10 pm, my AW5 was down to 9%.

Usage: roughly 5 hours
Standby: 1 Day 14 hours.

I have AOD on, Background OFF,
 
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bpritchett

macrumors member
Jul 25, 2019
31
8
Chattanooga, TN
On my Series 4, I have turned off Background App Refresh and my battery usage has dropped to approximately 1.5% per hour. Am I correct that with this turned off any apps that are used as complications on the watch face will continue to refresh?
 
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snapster

macrumors newbie
Jan 17, 2020
9
24
A Theory for at least some niche of problems in this thread:

When a users Watch App Usage/Standby metrics are matching times this is indicative of a background process running. Since macOS Catalina this may be an Apple ID cross device security resource visible on a mac's Activity Monitor as TrustedPeersHelper. This resource can go into a runaway state taxing CPU of the Mac (visible in Activity Monitor as reported by some users) and of otheriCloud connected devices (no way to directly track background process on phone or watch but these batteries start to drain faster)

Simple rebooting everything and watch re-pairings (or replacing with new hardware all together) can sometimes provide a head fake day back to low drain state with the watch but the problem eventually resumes. With it's small battery the watch is the canary in the coal mine but it's a corrupt security environment across many devices that is the bad air.

The most successful relief is TrustedPeersHelper issue/solution posted by @otech earlier in this thread (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e.2199887/page-61?post=27997820#post-27997820)

I have upgraded a phone, a watch and a Mac and the issue followed. No amount of "turning off energy using features" is at issue when this problem is being described -- the problem above is using >50% battery itself when active. Masking it to try and live with it will just reduce your devices battery longevity.

I was unable to get @otech's solution to stick (I got another great day but then back to the problem). My Mac showed this runaway usage has returned and a repeat of the process didn't seem to fix it. My most recent tactic this morning is simply logging out of iCloud on my Mac and then logging into it with a different iCloud. Doing this with the activity monitor open I can see the new account has low TrustedPeersHelper usage. I thought I was just running an isolation test but then reversing this back to my original iCloud account I am now staying at low usage. Immediately upon doing this maneuver, my watch started creating separation between Watch App Usage and Standby metrics which has been the quickest indication that the problem is gone (other than waiting a few hours to measure watch battery drop). We'll see how long this goes.

I've seen a few smatterings of the Usage/Standby "metrics match" reported around the web and I think that may be an underrated way to identify this niche issue.

TLDR; don't miss this https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e.2199887/page-61?post=27997820#post-27997820 and also look on your Mac if you have one using Activity Monitor.
 
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jonnyb098

jonnyb098

macrumors 68040
Nov 16, 2010
3,990
5,496
Michigan
I just got my series 5 , 44mmSS. Been wearing it about a week and I have AOD enabled and only basic notifications for calls and activity. I got almost two full days (putting on at 9AM and taking it off at 1AM). I’d say that’s fairly solid for having the display on. Got about 3 days on my S3 with same settings.

Now I’m sure if I turned the AOD off I’d get about 4 days but then whats the point of a series 5?
My guess is I’d still get all day life even with having everything turned on , etc etc .
 
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ex android dan

macrumors member
Jun 17, 2015
60
12
I haven’t read this thread, but all the sudden my battery life went from nearly 2 days to roughly 12 hours. Couldn’t figure out why...then started noticing some syncing oddities. Turns out somehow Bluetooth got turned off on the watch. Turned it back on and battery life came back.
 
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PrettyWings

macrumors 6502a
Nov 3, 2016
505
616
ex android dan said:
I haven’t read this thread, but all the sudden my battery life went from nearly 2 days to roughly 12 hours. Couldn’t figure out why...then started noticing some syncing oddities. Turns out somehow Bluetooth got turned off on the watch. Turned it back on and battery life came back.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? Why would turning Bluetooth on fix it? I keep my Bluetooth off and get around that much (the 2 days)

Edit: And I guess the series matters.
 
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topcat001

macrumors 6502
Nov 17, 2019
270
126
With my current usage (AOD off as I wear long sleeves) I'm at 70% around 9 pm. I charge it up to 100% and wear it overnight and the next day. AW5 GPS.

I don't use it at the gym though. Have a beater fitbit for that :). If I did I guess the drain would be more. Still, it tracks my outdoor walks.
 
Nütztjanix

Nütztjanix

macrumors 68000
Jul 31, 2019
1,535
985
Germany
PrettyWings said:
Are you sure? Why would turning Bluetooth on fix it? I keep my Bluetooth off and get around that much (the 2 days)

Edit: And I guess the series matters.
Click to expand...
Because the watch needs to sync with the iPhone. And battery load is BT < WiFi < LTE.
If you turn BT off, battery usage will be greater as syncing has to be done via WiFi or LTE.
 
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PrettyWings

macrumors 6502a
Nov 3, 2016
505
616
Nütztjanix said:
Not exactly what a smart watch is intended for - you know that, right? You lose about 90% of the functionality and added benefit over a classic watch.
Click to expand...

It works pretty well for me. I still get my schedule on my wrist (Things, Fantastical), weather (sync Carrot up at the beginning of the day and get the high and low for the day), sleep tracking, activity tracking (I just perform the activity and then sync it and it gets pushed to the phone), timers and alarms, fasting timer and water tracker. I don't really care about text messages or emails or calls, because my phone is always nearby.
 
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DotCom2

macrumors 603
Feb 22, 2009
6,167
5,438
bpritchett said:
I have been tracking my Series 4 for the past few days. I seem to be running at about 2.8% to 3.2% per hour
Click to expand...
Do you have the 40mm or the 44mm?
i have the series 4 40mm SS and I am losing about 3-4% per hour. I used to only lose 2-3% so something is a little wrong.
 
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nph

macrumors 65816
Feb 9, 2005
1,045
214
Around 2-2.5% per hour with AOD on. in theatre mode over night 1.5% so I am getting better battery than my AW2. Never had the 4 so cant compare to that.
No noise meter
No Raise to wake
No listening for Siri
Cellular off
GPS on
Also no detection of gym equipment, that was a good advice to disable for better battery life.
(I am primarily a runner and not a fan of gym machines)

Now if you have tons of complications that update a lot and lots of workouts etc, sure that will drive it up. But regular notifications and maybe running for 30 minutes using downloaded music I still average around 2.5-3%.
 
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