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Apple Watch battery drain after watchOS 11 Update

After installing watchOS 11 on my Series 8 watch the battery life has been very poor. Hasn't been 12 hours yet since I did it and I can already tell that there's an issue. Overnight the watch will use about 10% of battery. Last night it used over 30% and used another 5% while I was up for about 45 minutes.


[Re-Titled by Moderator]


Apple Watch Series 8, watchOS 11

Posted on Sep 17, 2024 4:17 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 23, 2024 3:41 PM

Yeah, I noticed the same with my watch I came across while researching the issue 15 Apple Watch Battery Saving Tips on another thread, and it mentioned low power mode too. I tried the low power mode and the battery drain has improved for me as well. Worth sticking with it until the next update comes through. It’s been super frustrating, though! 

135 replies

Sep 29, 2024 4:31 AM in response to Wheeler_3857

Bluetooth does not search constantly for devices to connect. Only if you open the Bluetooth settings on the device, it will scan for other devices it can connect to. As soon as you close the Bluetooth settings, it will no longer look for other Bluetooth devices.

Bluetooth is also used between the watch and the iPhone to sync data, if no Wi-Fi network is available.


...

  • Your Apple Watch uses Bluetooth when your iPhone is near, which conserves power. 
  • If Bluetooth isn’t available, your Apple Watch will try to use Wi-Fi. For example, if compatible Wi-Fi is available and your iPhone isn't in Bluetooth range, your Apple Watch uses Wi-Fi.
  • If Bluetooth and Wi-Fi aren't available, and you set up a cellular plan, cellular models of Apple Watch can connect to cellular networks.

...

copied from: About Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Oct 12, 2024 3:34 PM in response to F3_Pork-Roll

F3_Pork-Roll wrote:

SOLVED!!!

You need to COMPLETLY UNPAIR your watch and set it up AS NEW!!

NOT FROM BACKUP!!

I've also disabled the Live Stack... Battery back to normal

As I've mentioned in a few other posts here... That's a **** of a lot of heavy lifting and an insane amount of hoop jumping on the part of the userbase simply to resolve a problem that none of us should have been forced to deal with in the first place!


if this issue had not been going on for approaching two weeks now with no resolution in sight I wouldn't even be commenting, but this is really starting to **** me off!


The battery drain issue is bad enough but what is this ultimately gonna do to the overall health of our watch batteries in the long run? No way to know. Unlikely no way to ever know.


I won't be wiping my watch clean and restoring it from scratch without a backup. Even if I had the time and the energy to go through all of that crap, I didn't sign up for that Level of forced user intervention when I bought this thing.


If it wasn't for the Dexcom CGM monitoring feature I'd just go back to wearing my "Oyster Date" as my daily driver until Apple got their **** together.



Oct 21, 2024 8:09 AM in response to CMDRFISH

Turning off Optimized Charging worked for me (Series 10, OS 11.01)

  1. Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
  2. Scroll down, then tap Battery.
  3. Tap Battery Health.
  4. Turn off Optimized Battery Charging.


I don't know why this worked, as it always displayed 100% after charge.

Bottom line, I am back to the original battery life - about 3x what I was getting.


Oct 21, 2024 8:41 AM in response to ThePixelated

Turning off Optimized Charging worked for me.

I am not sure why, as the display always shows 100% after charging. Has to be a bug.

  1. Open the Settings app on your watch.
  2. Scroll down, then tap Battery.
  3. Tap Battery Health.
  4. Turn off Optimized Charge Limit.
  5. Choose Turn Off.

I have a Series 10 GPS (no cellular) with OS 11.0.1

It was down to about 1/3 the charge-life out of the box.

Turning this off returned me to normal.

Other solutions may have reset "learning" to provide temporary relief.



Oct 23, 2024 6:23 AM in response to ThePixelated

Series 9 GPS - I used to get about two days on one charge. Now, I don’t get one day and that’s with practically all the features shut off.



* Updated to 11.0.1

* Erased all content and setup as new

* All turned off: Live Activities, Handoff, Always on, Hey Siri, Background app updates

* Battery health 100%


Didn’t exercise, listen to music through it, or anything else and I watched yesterday while it dropped a percent every 5-10 minutes. WTF could it possibly have left to do to burn that much battery? This is how Apple’s software treats customers of a device that’s a year old?! Is this another iPhone 6 batterygate? What is the point of adding these new features if the watch is dead all the time?!

Oct 30, 2024 9:22 AM in response to ThePixelated

Hi all,


Since watchOS 11.1 was released, I have experienced significant improvement in battery life. I could say it is back to life. Despite the improvement, when checking the battery stats in the menu, i don't see the charge/discharge history . It's like this has stopped tracking battery usage completely as the graph is completely empty.

This first shot on the graph shows the battery charged to 100%, but below that, it says it was charged to 48% 2 hours ago. On the graph, you might notice the green bars at the end stop.

This other shot was taken next morning at 6:40 still saying last charged at 20:25 to 48%

This last shot was taken just a few minutes ago, at 17:02 today, on 30th October and it the grap is completely empty while it still states last charged on Monday to 48%.


I am happy that they at least fixed the battery draining issue but it seems that the system broke somewhere else.


Is there somebody else facing this battery usage statistic issue since updating to 11.1?

Sep 17, 2024 5:20 PM in response to Jeff Donald

Jeff Donald wrote:

Yes, the itty bitty tiny watch has a itty bitty processor with an itty bitty battery. It mostly does the indexing and syncing in the background when other activities are doing little. This helps reduce heat and attempts to reduce battery consumption. By doing so, it can take up to 72 hours for battery consumption to return to normal.


72 hours? Holy moly! 😮


Apple Watch battery drain after watchOS 11 Update

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