Apple Watch battery drain after watchOS 11 Update

Had the same and entered panic mode (removed many apps such as walkie-talkie, tides, and several others + switched off a lot of background sync for at least a dozen of apps). Will wait for a fix and then I’ll try to restore what I removed.

I have the Apple watch SE (2nd Generation) and experienced the same issue with battery drain, which I noticed immediately after installing the watch OS 11 update. Watch OS 11 now requires that you have Bluetooth enabled in addition with WiFi. And you can no longer use the watch app on your phone without having both Bluetooth and WiFi enabled. Bluetooth constantly searches for other Bluetooth devices to connect to, which results in battery drain on the watch and phone. But most concerning, is the safety vulnerability with having Bluetooth always on. Having Bluetooth on posses a greater risk of your device(s) being hacked. My watch worked just fine with only WiFi or cellular data before the watch OS 11 update and the watch battery lasted almost two days and my iPhone's battery was good. For the above reasons, I have stopped wearing my Apple Watch and returned to a traditional watch. I'm selling my Apple Watch.

Yep can confirm with my Ultra 2 from last year. I am no power-user so i had roughly between two and a half and three days of use. After the WatchOS 11 update it lowered to under two days. It is still good but in comparison to before it is annoying.

Upgraded to a cellular watch this year to be reachable on outdoor runs. I don’t even think the watch will last on a “long” run. A half hour run kills nearly 30% of the charge. I’ve resorted to downloading the music, run plan, and turning the always on screen off. Still burning 25-30% battery in a half hour. Hopefully this is a software issue and not a cellular watch issue…

received a new Apple Watch 10 today

charged it

on my wrist for 15minutes and the battery drained 10%!

contacted support; they then explained to me that batteries are suppose to drain when in use

like, seriously?!

this is the worst experience I’ve have with apple

Think I’m ready to leave the Apple ecosystem

they’re so obsessed with AI they can’t even fix the software issues they have

worst customer service ever

You Watch contains a lithium ion battery. Apple batteries and any other product containing lithium ion batteries will perform similarly straight out of the box.

Lithium batteries go through a conditioning practice or curve during its first few charge cycles. This is normal. After 3 to 7 charge cycles the battery will stabilize and deliver a more expected experience.

Sadly my watch doesn’t power on anymore, it keeps draining battery and now after the battery is on 0% the watch doesn’t turn on, even keeping on charge for a day.

If someone know how to solve. Keeps on the charge screen when I connect to the adapter, but doesn’t boot up.

Series 9 Celullar.

Yes I have noticed this too on my Apple Watch Se 2 cellular I have gotten it in November of 2023 and i have lost alot of battery before it could survive the entire day and night but now it can't it dies before i sleep and my battery capacity is at 85% maybe Apple when they give the new update will fix this

15 Apple Watch Battery Saving Tips

I didn't even notice a battery drain problem until 11.01. I always charge my series 9 around 5:30 PM every night. It's one of my reminders.

That evening charge would normally get me through the next 24 hours where I would charge it again the following day at 5: 30 PM where the remaining charge was usually between 15% and 20% remaining.

I just happened to glance at my watch battery status this morning at around 10:15 AM and it was down to 12%! 😳 I don't know what the heck is going on but I haven't changed anything on my watch and that is some serious battery drainage going on right there! 🙁 😠 👎

I had no issues with battery drain until updating to 11.0.1 last night. My battery was at 95% at 11pm and dropped to 17% by 7am. Prior to the update I would have got at least 20 hours from that charge. This is terrible

I’ve updated, restarted both watch and iPhone multiple times, turned off live activities, used multiple chargers… still draining at least 2-3x faster than the previous version.

this is a big problem now, I can’t even get a full day with an Apple Watch Ultra 2.. used to get 2.5 days easy

"Unfortunately no press/media sites are writing about this issue :("

No surprise there. It's no wonder most of us have moved on from the legacy Apple product media in 2024. I personally find the majority of them to be a waste of space and not worth my time.

I'm a diabetic and use my Apple Watch Series 9 to directly monitor my Blood Sugar numbers from my Dexcom G7 CGM sensor. I don't have the luxury of being able to "Turn Off" previously used features and settings in order to return what for me is a "medical device" back to it's previously "normal" performance values as a result of a Ham Fisted WatchOS update! 😵‍💫

And according to my most reliable sources like Zollotech and others on YouTube, we won't be seeing the next scheduled iOS/WatchOS update until October 24th and possibly later than that!

And at the end of the day... What is this current battery stress going to do to our Watch battery's long term health? I just noticed that my 1 year old Series 9 has recently dropped to 94% battery health from what had been a solid 100% as recently as last month! 🙄

JC SJ wrote:

Just spent close to an hour troubleshooting with Apple support. No resolution.

Ive had all notifications disabled, no Bluetooth accessories, live activities disabled, always on disabled, and my ultra 2 is dying in under 18 hours with no usage.

Yeah… I opened a ticket with them as well just to get it on the books in the event that my watch battery goes south prematurely then I can point to this 💩show and say "Hey! THIS is why my Series 9 Battery failed early and now I want a new one, on your dime!" 😉

We don't know what this might be doing to the health of our batteries over the long-term! My Series 9 battery health is down to 94% from a previous 98% only a few weeks ago. Coincidence? I seriously don't know. But I'll definitely be keeping my eye on my battery health now more than I would've before.

In terms of my Phone session with Apple SUPPORT, they did run a battery diagnostic on my watch while I was on the phone with them and it all came back normal. Apparently their testing software can't find any specific causes for a battery draining Improperly or not. They can just check to see if it's physically functioning within spec, which apparently mine was at the time.

Retnav46 wrote:

All tips for "saving battery life" are not useful. My watch was fine, prior to watch OS 11.0. Now it's not. I would hope that my series 8 watch is good enough to support updated software.

It's not your fault. It's not any of our faults. Your AW8 is perfectly fine to be running whatever this update is.

Look at all the brand new series 10 and Ultra owners posting on here with the same exact problem. It has nothing to do with the hardware. It has everything to do with Apple totally FUBARing this update, and then hanging us all out to dry while they take their sweet time with getting a much needed update out there ahead of their stupid regular schedule.

I'm pretty sure they're seriously gonna make us wait until October 24 or whenever 18.1 comes out before we see a fix to this.

And that's assuming that they actually fix it in the next update. 🙄

P.S I agree with you 100% that all the battery saving advice is BS in this context. We shouldn't be the ones jumping through hoops to make the watch work normally right now. I'm not gonna do a **** thing to mine. Other than maybe putting it in the drawer until they get this thing fixed.

Well. Has anyone come up with the actual cause yet? My watch usually shuts down in the afternoon now after charging all night. NEVER used to do that before I upgraded the OS’s on the watch and phone. My Apple Watch 8 is about ready to hit the junk pile.