Top 12 Ways to Fix watchOS 10 Battery Drain Issue: Apple has recently released watchOS 10, which adds intriguing new features to your Apple Watch. That does not imply that every feature is essential, and you can certainly get by by disabling some watchOS 10 features, but one of the most common concerns with the update is battery depletion. Let’s examine how to extend the battery life of watchOS 10 by mitigating the battery depletion issues caused by the watchOS 10 update.
Why does the Apple Watch’s battery deplete after installing watchOS 10?
Apple has recently released the watchOS 10 update, which introduces new methods to interact with an Apple Watch and new features to improve your health, fitness, and everyday use. As is the case with any significant update, Apple Watch users are reporting issues, with battery life being a particular concern. Immediately following the update, numerous users complained that their Apple Watch devices consume more battery.
Even though there are methods to mitigate battery drain, it is crucial to note that a new update may cause temporary issues on your watch, even if you installed a stable update. Your watch must adjust to the new watchOS 10 changes, as well as indexing and syncing background processes. Therefore, you must wait a few days so that the software can balance out the transient fluctuations and restore your battery life to normal.
Even after a week, if your Apple Watch is still consuming a significant amount of battery, you can minimize this issue with watchOS 10.
Top 12 Ways to Fix watchOS 10 Battery Drain Issue: How to minimize watchOS 10 battery depletion
There are a number of methods you can minimize the battery drain that you may have encountered since updating to watchOS 10.
Restart your Apple Watch to fix the problem.
As with any significant update, your Apple Watch may experience issues in the days following an update installation. If your battery life continues to degrade even after a few days, this may be due to a transient software flaw or glitch. In such circumstances, a fast solution is to reboot your device, which will reload the firmware and eliminate any transient bugs. To restart your Apple Watch in watchOS 10, press and hold the Side button for three seconds and then touch the Power button in the upper right quadrant.
You must now drag the Power Off adjuster to the right in order to entirely power down the watch.
Wait a few seconds after turning off the watch, and then press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears to switch the watch back on.
Upgrade your Apple Watch to the latest watchOS version
If restarting the watch did not resolve the issue, you can check to see if Apple has released a new update for watchOS 10 and install it. Apple typically provides remedies for significant flaws and issues in minor updates that follow significant updates such as watchOS 10. At the time of writing, there is already a version 10.0.1 of watchOS available for devices that have been updated to watchOS 10, and this version may be the answer to your battery draining problem.
Unlock your iPhone and navigate to Watch > General > Software Update to update your watch. Install the new firmware immediately and wait for it to be installed on your Apple Watch.
Connect your iPhone to the Apple Watch at all times
Contrary to popular belief, your Apple Watch must be continuously connected to your iPhone in order to conserve battery. This is because, when Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are disabled and your watch is disconnected, it will seek for adjacent devices to establish a connection more frequently. By connecting your watch to your iPhone, you can conserve battery life.
To maintain the watch’s connection to an iPhone, keep Bluetooth enabled by navigating to Settings > Bluetooth and toggling the Bluetooth switch.
You must also enable Bluetooth on your iPhone to maintain a constant connection between the two devices.
Enable Cinema Mode to stop the screen from waking up.
In addition to using the Cinema mode, you can prevent your watch’s battery from depleting by using the Cinema mode. This mode prevents the display from turning on when the user raises their wrist and enables mute mode. This can substantially extend the battery life of your watch until Apple addresses the draining issue in an upcoming software update. To activate Cinema Mode, press Side > Cinema Mode. At that point, a mask icon indicator will appear at the top of the Control Center.
Use Airplane Mode whenever the watch is not in use.
Although your watch functions better when connected to your iPhone, we recommend activating the Airplane mode when you’re not wearing it. When Airplane mode is activated, watchOS disables the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth settings on your watch, effectively disabling all connections. To enable Airplane mode, press the Side button to access the Control Center, then touch the orange-backed Airplane Mode icon.
Enable Low Power Mode when necessary
Low Power Mode functions similarly to Cinema Mode, but instead of disabling the raise-to-wake feature, it disables a variety of other features, including Always On Display, background heart rate, blood oxygen measurements, and heart notification alerts. Additionally, some applications may be restricted from functioning in the background which may also delay notices from them. To enable Low Power Mode, open the Control Center by pressing the Side button, navigate to Battery percentage > Low Power Mode > Turn On, and then select a desired duration for leaving it enabled.
Stop communicating your live location to others
watchOS 10 now enables you to communicate your precise location in real time via the Messages application. While this feature can provide a sense of security while traveling, it may significantly reduce the battery life of your watch. If you shared your live location with someone for an extended period of time or by accident and you no longer wish for it to be shared, you can immediately cease sharing it.
To do so on your Apple Watch, navigate to Messages > locate the conversation in which you shared your location > Location Sharing > Stop Sharing.
Disable Background Application Refresh
Similar to an iPhone, the applications on your watch consume resources even when they are inactive. This includes applications with complications for the watch face and those that require constant internet connectivity. As with system services, watchOS must calibrate how applications function on your watch, which can take several days.
In the interim, you can prevent battery depletion from inactive apps by disabling Background App Refresh, which prevents them from utilizing system resources in the background. To disable Background App Refresh on your Apple Watch, navigate to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and toggle the Background App Refresh switch to the off position.
Deactivate Location Services
Apple Watch can use your GPS data to assist with fitness tracking and navigation. If you instead rely on indoor workouts and prefer traversing using your iPhone or CarPlay, there’s no reason for the GPS data to be set on at all times. To disable GPS, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services and toggle the Location Services switch to the off position.
Turn off the constantly-lit display
Although your watch’s Always On display is useful for viewing information at a glance, it consumes the majority of your device’s battery resources, and leaving it on at all times may significantly reduce its battery life. Thus, you can disable Always On Display by navigating to Settings > Display & Brightness > Always On and toggling the Always On switch at the top.
Disable the Wake on Wrist Raise function
Users who do not have their display set to Always On may also prefer elevating their forearm to activate their watch’s screen. This feature may still impact the battery life of your Apple Watch, despite being a viable alternative to always having the display on. You can disable the Wake on Wrist Raise function by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Wake and shutting off the Wake on Wrist Raise switch.
Reduce the size of watchOS animations
watchOS includes some animations that may delight your eyes, but if you’re running the most recent version on an older Apple Watch, you may want to consider turning off all animations to conserve battery life. To reduce Apple Watch animations, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Reduce Motion and deactivate the Reduce Motion toggle.
The aforementioned solutions should help you resolve watchOS 10 battery depletion issues, but if none of them work, we recommend waiting a few days. If you only updated your Apple Watch to watchOS 10 recently, your device needs to calibrate, index, and integrate several of the system functions over time to stabilize the resources that are consumed on your watch. Once indexing is complete, you may observe that the battery depletion issue resolves on its own; if not, you can expect Apple to shortly release an update for your Apple Watch.
