Apple Watch battery drain

ashbrinks

Does anyone else find that by opening and using Cronometer which is connected to an Apple Watch (via Health Kit), your Apple Watch battery drains insanely quick?

If I turn everything off and on again, and don’t use Cronometer my battery life is normal. But as soon as I open the Cronometer app, my Apple Watch battery drains fat quicker than it should.

Any help would be great!

Hilary

Thanks for reporting this! I have passed this info along to our developers and we will look into it! Please let us know if you have any further information!

Allan

Late May/early June my Apple Watch did start draining the battery noticeably quicker. I deleted several apps and unpaired and repaired the Watch, after repairing to my iPhone it was noticeably quicker but battery drain was barely changed.

As Cronometer doesn't have a Watch app I never would have connected the battery drain to Cronometer. I'll try not using Cronometer on the paired iPhone for a day and see if there is a difference.

ashbrinks

Thanks @Hilary

I find if I do a full shut down of both my phone and my watch, and don’t open Cronometer on my phone afterwards... battery on the watch works fine. But as soon as I open the Cronometer app on my phone, even if I force it to shut down afterwards, the battery on my watch goes down super quick! It isn’t until I do the full restart of both devices again that it returns to normal (provided I don’t open Cronometer again!).

I only noticed this as I’ve had my Series 3 Apple Watch for about 6 months now and the battery has been awesome - usually lasts a full 24 hours. But since I downloaded and have started using Cronometer this week, my watch barely makes it 9 hours!

Cheers :)

Spencer

I've noticed considerable phone and watch drain over the past few weeks too.

victoriaketo_rn

I am having the same issue. My battery normally lasts until 9pm and my watch is currently at 20% and it’s only 1:30. What is the best way to fix this?? I’m liking Cronometer and the services but I can’t deal with this kinda drain and it interferes with activity tracking if I’m taking it off to charge it twice a day

Spencer

Last night I uninstalled all apps I don't use from the watch (which is everything, I really don't use any apps). Then I unpaired it from my phone (which wipes it), paired it back, and restored from a backup. So far, the battery hasn't dropped NEARLY as much as it has been. It appears to be back to normal.

Hilary

@Spencer do you still have Cronometer linked to the watch, or did you unlink that as well?

Spencer

@Hilary hrmm I'm not sure what you mean.

Hilary

Is Cronometer importing Apple Health data from your watch currently?

Spencer

Yep.

Spencer

By the way, my watch has been off the charger 13 hours and I'm still at 63%. This is with nearly an hour workout today and several uses of the timer, etc. Normal usage but before the reset it was dying before now.

Hilary

Hi guys! Thanks for your patience! We have made some changes in the latest mobile app to reduce battery usage. Please download cronometer 2.3.4 (463). If you can let me know if this update reduces your battery usage, that would be much appreciated! Thanks!

Spencer

Awesome, will do, thanks.

Emarly

I updated the app and I am still having the same issue with the apple watch battery draining when connected to Apple health.

Spencer

@Emarly I finally got this fixed by unpairing the watch and then pairing it back as a new watch. Apple said the next step would be to wipe the phone and restore as a new phone.

sweetramona

Has there been any progress on this issue? My watch is essentially unusable if I use Cronometer on my phone at all. I went from 56% to completely dead in under 3 hours after using the app while out to dinner tonight.

I like Cronometer better than any other food log, but I need an iPhone app and I think I have to go back to LoseIt.

Karen_Cronometer

Hi sweetaramona,

So sorry to hear this is still draining your battery. What type of iPhone are you using?
What version of the app are you on now, so I can pass this information along?

Spencer

I never found out what was causing the battery drain. I spent hours upon hours trying to figure out what was going on with this and other issues (like activity data not syncing). Finally I had Apple send the watch in for repair and haven't worn it since I got it back (I'm going to sell it). I don't think it was a hardware issue.

It became such a huge hassle that I now feel free without it. I just set the activity level to about what I was logging before with the watch and I continue to lose weight (without losing my mind). Good luck to you.

sweetramona

Hi Karen -

I am using an iPhone 8 Plus (and Apple Watch series 5), Cronometer version 3.3.1.

Thank you for your help! I really don't want to quit Cronometer but I am not ready to break up with my watch - I am happy that worked out for you, though, Spencer

Spencer

None of the troubleshooting I did (including the deeper diagnostics performed by Apple) ever pointed to Cronometer as the culprit. I had my watch stripped to only the most essential apps and features. ALL I used it for was activity tracking. Still had battery drain and activity data would stop syncing. If you search the Apple forums, there's an active thread with dozens of replies from people having the same issue with battery. The series 5 had the same issue as the 4. Personally, I think this is an iOS issue which is why it persisted beyond full watch and phone wipes and from series 4 to series 5.

sweetramona

Hi Spencer - I appreciate your input. My experience has been different from yours, however - my watch battery lasts almost 2 days if I don't use the Cronometer app, and 6 hours or less if I do. This has been a very consistent pattern over about a month. I have had to buy a charger for my watch for work and sometimes have to charge my watch twice just to get through a work day!

Spencer

That's interesting. It was his/miss for me but I tried all sorts of stuff so who knows if something I did influenced the battery drain issue or not. The really frustrating part about all this is that there doesn't appear to be ANY way to see what exactly is causing the battery drain. Even Apple's techs can't figure this out. It's a black box we just have to kick around a bunch until we find something that works (or doesn't, as in my case). Hope you have better luck than I do. It was the perfect setup until I started having problems.

Emarly

Unpairing and repairing my apple watch version 3 to my phone has worked for me. I did also delete some apps I was not using but I don't know if that had any impact. I'm also running on the most current updates, however my phone is pretty old (iPhone 7 plus).

Jag100

Having same issue. Had my suspicion it was Cronometer before even finding this thread. Watch started draining halfway through day soon after downloading the app. I’m a paid subscriber but may have to try a different app as I can’t deal with the battery drain issue on my Apple Watch. Going to try repairing the watch today to see if it makes any difference.

Hilary

let us know how it goes @Jag100 !

Jag100

I’m not aware of any direct communication between Cronometer and Apple Watch other than indirectly via Apple Health. Do your engineers have any theories? Short of connecting or not connecting with Apple Health, any chance of having a manual sync option or only syncing when one opens the app one time?

Jag100

After unpairing and re-pairing my Apple Watch my battery drain issue seems to have resolved. As far as I can tell, the initial issue began after installing Cronometer but since re-pairing of the watch I haven’t had my watch run out of juice half way through the day.

Easyfordkid

How do I unpair my watch. Does it cause any problems

CWarren

I’ve had the same issues with Cronometer draining my Apple Watch, (series 5). I have to restart my iPhone, (XR) and watch to stop the drain. Also my iPhone stops receiving health data from my watch after opening Cronometer or it becomes severely delayed. Again a reset of both devices is required to bring it back to normal. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Cronometer as well as unpairing/repairing my watch with no positive result; the problem persists. I have no intention of giving up Cronometer as I prefer it for many reasons over apps like MFP but it is a frustrating glitch.

camsi

My watch and phone are both draining so fast!! I tweaked a lot of settings on both to do things like turning off background app refresh, keeping apps closed on both, etc. But no luck. It's maddening b/c my watch dies before 3 PM... sometimes in the middle of a workout. Ugh!! I haven't tried to unpair my phone, but before cancelling my cronometer subscription, I guess I should try that next. I also have the issue where my watch activity isn't refreshing on my phone like it used it. There are long delays. Very frustrating!