Apple Watch Ultra battery terrible after Watch OS 11 upgrade

Hi Folks, one more update here. I guess overall I needed to vent somewhere about my experience with the last OS 11 update for my 18 month old Ultra. Truly, I would like to thank everyone for their suggestions, time and input.

Where I’m at right now with my watch. I believe I will hit my target of 30 to 40% for 24hrs. Currently 24% for 18 hours. I currently have my display turned to always on and low brightness for face up. Why, because that’s what I want and that’s how I’ve always used my watch. Also, when switched off, my watch will NOT stay on face up for the 15 or 70 seconds. 5 seconds max.

I believe one of the biggest helps in resolving my battery issues were from Ingo2711 and suggesting to turn off the Smart Stack setting and turning off Live Activities. Thanks so much.

I’m going to recharge to 100% at 6pm pacific time and test again.

I can share some feedback then.

Once again, thank you everyone.

Did you already try to force restart by pressing and holding the Digital Crown and the Side button together for about 10sec, until the Apple logo comes back again?

Apple has confirmed for you what I said yesterday morning;

That appears to be an issue with your watch.

Great news, under 1% per hour, that's impressive.

And as well, how the official Apple Support did the troubleshooting from their side. 🙂

Unpair your Apple Watch Ultra and set it up as a new device, without using the latest backup, when pairing it again to your iPhone.

The battery life on my Apple Watch Ultra 2 did not change after the upgrade to watchOS 11. Depending on the use, still 1 - 1.2% per hour.

If you are using widgets, try to uninstall them from the smart stack.

Double click the Digital Crown and clear the list all last used apps in the App Switcher by swiping them to the left.

After that check your battery life again.

Areukiddingme wrote:

Ummmmm, very, very disappointed Apple. I updated my Ultra 1 week ago. As others have mentioned, 24 hours would run me approximately 30%.

Now, 24 hours is running me over 50%. Over 2% per hour compared to 1.25% before OS 11 update. This is not Okay. The main reason I purchased this model was for the longer battery life.

Yes, I am on low power mode. Numerous restarts and 3 hard resets.

I’ll be darned if I’m going to unpair and start from new. For a purchase price of over $1,200.00 and 18 months ownership I expect more.

Does anyone have any other solutions besides an unpair and start from new?

If you unpair and re-pair your Apple Watch, you can restore from a backup, if you have so. Otherwise, then yes you will have to start from new.

Thank you for your input. I truly appreciate all ideas. At the moment, I’m just totally peed at Apple. So, I unpaired, restored, lost a bunch of data. Just for everyone else here. I had 4 credit cards, and a bank access card on my watch. Even if you restore from backup, all those cards need to be added manually again. Then they have to be reverified. I had to call the institutions and have them reverified for 2 of them. Very annoying and hours of my time. My bank will not reactivate and likely will need to be replaced.

Thanks a bunch Apple.

I promise to post and update if there is any improvement in the battery life.

Thanks everyone.

Hi Ingo, thank you for your suggestion. I have now shut that off. You may very well be on to something here. I hike every day. Haven’t missed a day in years. I might check my steps 3or 4 times during my hikes. I’ve never noticed the live activities, well cause I guess I never looked.

with the info you have supplied I hoping you may have figured it out.

I will definitely keep you posted.

Thanks for taking the time to share that info.

Hi Folks. Well, I may have some breaking information here on the battery drain. It looks like I may get my best battery life ever. 12% for 10 hours on my Ultra and still testing and monitoring. At least 1 hour of the 10 was spent in settings which usually uses up some battery life.

Here’s what I have done so far. Hard restarts, unpaired, restored and per Ingo2711, I turned off live activities. It seemed that maybe those steps were possibly going to help some, I still wasn’t satisfied.

Being the bold headed individual I am, my next step was to run the problem by ChatGPT. OMG. What a thorough response as well as an unbelievable list to troubleshoot. I’m quite sure that chat nailed the problem.

Here it is, Display and Brightness was defaulted to always on. The problem was and is that even when you look away the screen will not dim. There is a setting for screen brightness on time of 15 or 70 seconds, but those settings don’t work at all on my watch. Not only that the screen will only stay on for about 4 seconds when I have always on turned off. Then I have to adjust my wrist to turn the screen on again. What a Joke.

APPLE, YOU NEED TO FIX THIS. This is not acceptable.

At the moment my watch is 11 hours at 13% which should give me 24 hours at 28%.

If anybody has some feedback on what I have found or how to get my watch screen to dim lower again, like lower and faded, but still on, I would really appreciate the feedback.

Thanks all.

Hi Folks, well, one more update here. So, as mentioned earlier, the settings and functions for Display and Brightness, were not working on the settings on my watch itself. I went into the same setting on iPhone and toggled the always on, on and off again, but this time set it to on. The brightness fading, now works on the watch again.

My current consumption is now 15% for 12 hours.

There is a setting for screen brightness on time of 15 or 70 seconds, but those settings don’t work at all on my watch. Not only that the screen will only stay on for about 4 seconds when I have always on turned off. Then I have to adjust my wrist to turn the screen on again. What a Joke.

APPLE, YOU NEED TO FIX THIS. This is not acceptable.

That setting works fine on my new Series 10 with the latest version of watchOS. I have Always On turned off. I have Wake Duration set for 15 seconds.

It doesn't appear Apple needs to fix anything. That appears to be an issue with your watch.

BTW, I forgot to mention in my first post above that most the things that help with battery life on the iPhone also apply the Watch. You are finding that out through trial & error.

Areukiddingme wrote:

...

Also, when switched off, my watch will NOT stay on face up for the 15 or 70 seconds. 5 seconds max.

...

If I switch the display on by taping on it, and move my wrist slightly, the display will stay on for exactly 15sec or 70sec. Only if I don't move my wrist, the display will switch off after 4sec.

Ingo, I would like to take this time to thank you again, as I believe that your info on the Smart Stack is what made the biggest improvement for me. I just completed a long hike. Very poor cellular reception if any at all. No Bluetooth to my iPhone as I leave it at home. So, of course the watch is searching for a signal. Walk tracking on, as well as screen always on. Now 19% for 16hrs = 1.1875 = 28.5 for 24hrs. I’ll take it.

It’s kinda like my watch is jail broken with my funky screen on function. Loving it.

As far as Apple goes, I am just blown away, as they are exceeding my expectations more than I could ever imagine.

One more idea. Wifi uses less battery than cellular. When you're home, you can rely on wifi for phone calls using your watch as if GPS-only.

You also speak of charging your watch to 100%. That will shorten the battery's lifespan. The rule of thumb is to keep the watch charge between 80 & 30 percent. This means that you aren't using a full charge cycle each time but topping up the watch using a partial cycle. A watch battery has a finite number of full charge cycles.

Same issue here.

Brand new AW Ultra bought in July 2024 with 100% battery health and watchOS 10. Used to easily last 36 hours that translated to 2.5/3 days or sometimes more. Standby was great losing only about 5% per night without sleep tracking.

After watchOS 11 it barely lasts one day. Standby is noticeably worse too, losing about 10-12% when not being used at night (which no sleep tracking)

Please fix this!!!