Apple Watch 4 battery drain

So I discovered a solution that worked for me over at: https://www.waldonell.com/thoughts/articles/did-i-just-fix-my-apple-watch-5-battery-life-issue

I too noticed the error logs on the watch state that process “TrustedPeersHelper” was using an incredible amount of CPU time.

It goes like this:

“I decided to do some additional research into the TrustedPeersHelper process and found this forum. I decided to try a variant of what member otech did. Take note I do not have the knowledge to tell you if this is safe or not - all I know is I did this and I have as of yet no ill effects:

1. Shut down all iOS devices
2. I left my two macs running. I opened Activity monitor, located the TrustedPeersHelperprocess, went to Information and Open Files and Ports. I noted the GUID for the path to the SQLLite keychain DB.
3. I closed all processes and simultaneously performed the following steps from the console in both macs:
4.  cd ~/Library/Keychains/<GUID> 
5.  mkdir backup 
6.  mv ~/Library/Keychains/<GUID>/com.apple.security.keychain-defaultContext.TrustedPeersHelper.{db,db-shm,db-wal} backup/ 
7.  tpctl reset
8. I then shut down both macs.
9. I booted one mac back up, signed in and re-authenticated my iCould account in System Preferences.
10. I reviewed the associated devices and made sure none were present that I did not actually use (there were no old devices)
11. I rebooted the mac and left if for 5 minutes or so.
12. I booted the other mac and logged in, and also re-authenticated to iCloud via System Preferences.
13. One by one I booted the iOS devices back up - first iPhone, then iPad, then apple watch.
14. I saw that TrustedPeersHelper on the mac used 0% CPU, and after two days of monitoring it has a total CPU time of 1.89, which is almost negligible. It used to show 40+ hours of CPU time.
15. I checked my apple watch that evening after charging it to 100%, and it was better, but still not good, draining at a rate of about 5.5% per hour. That translates to 18 hours, with no usage. I knew the watch could do better.
16. As a last step I AGAIN erased and reset the watch, and set it up as a new device. I charged it to 100% and used it as I normally would.”

Seems to have fixed my issue, 3rd day where the watch is at 54% after 16 hour use!

Apple, you guys have amazing hardware, beautiful design and clever solutions. But, I have to admit, your software quality is lousy.

Only did it once and worked like a charm. Example, today took it off the charger at 7:15am. Over 5 hours later it shows 92% :)

It was like 2 weeks ago when I applied the fix.

Also, I did apply the latest update last night, was worried it might jinx it, but so far it’s working just fine. I’ll post an update if the latest update causes issues.

He’s talking about the “always on display”. Of course it’ll drain the battery, and there’s nothing substantially different about my watch 4 vs 5 in terms of battery technology. Apple just decided to market that feature for the Watch 5, although it would perfectly work on the 4 too.

My son has the 5, his battery is always 20% less than mine at the end of the day. No surprise ;)