WatchOS 11 Causing Bad Apple Watch Battery Life? Here’s Fix

A few weeks ago, the rollout of Apple’s watchOS 11 introduced an array of exciting features for the Apple Watch, such as a translation application, sleep apnea monitoring, and fresh watch face designs.

However, it also brought along a frustrating bug that drains the watch’s battery faster than expected. The good news is that Apple has acknowledged this issue and is deploying a fix in watchOS 11.0.1.

So, just how severe was the battery drain? A user on Reddit, u/Brilliant_Command206, reported starting with a fully charged watch at 100% right after the installation of watchOS 11 and noticed it had dropped 72% after just over 10 hours by the time they went to bed. Another commentor noted their watch lost its charge completely in only six hours. Others continued to experience unexplained battery drains at random times.

This situation isn’t entirely surprising, as similar battery-related issues occurred with last year’s watchOS 10 update.

Fortunately, Apple has responded with an update. Beyond addressing the battery depletion, this release also resolves a bug that caused the Music app to crash and one that led to random reboots of the Apple Watch. You can read the detailed patch notes on Apple’s developer blog, which is highly informative.

The update should now be available, so it’s a good idea to check the Settings app to see if you’ve missed it. While this update won’t dramatically alter the functionality of your Apple Watch, it does address several bugs that have been frustrating users.

If you’re finding that your Apple Watch battery isn’t lasting as long as you’d like, there are several tips you can implement to extend its battery life.