New (2 months old) Apple Watch 10 updated to 11.6.1 now drains battery

It will take 24-48 hours for the new operating system to finish it house keeping, as well as resync things it wants from the iPhone. Power cycle the Apple Watch and your iPhone (at least once, but maybe once or twice a day until the Apple Watch battery consumption returns to normal. The MacObserver.com How To Fix WatchOS 10.3 Battery Drain Issue on Apple Watch https://www.macobserver.com/tips/how-to/fix-apple-watch-battery-drain-issue-after-watchos-10-3-update/ Also see: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250007078 For some steps that are not in the MacObserver article. iPhone -> "Watch" app -> General -> Reset -> Reset Sync Data Again it may take a day or two for the rsync'ing of data to settle down. As a point of reference, my Apple Watch Series 4 with 90% battery health maximum capacity, was back to normal after 24 hours (watchOS 10.5). I did 1 mid-day recharge, and I power cycled my Apple Watch and iPhone twice.

Same problem. On August 18th my watch updated to 11.6.1. Since then the battery life went from 24hrs to 12hrs.

Here are the steps that I took:

• Force rebooted the phone and watch
• Unpaired and paired the watch
• Contacted support via chat
  • They ran diagnostics on the battery and watch (battery health 90%)
  • No trouble found, deferred me to the store
• Store sent it back to be flashed and have the hardware checked for damage
  • No troubles found
  • Upon return, the battery was dead
  • Same 12hrs of battery life
• Went back to the store
  • They ran diagnostics and showed the battery charts that clearly showed the battery drain after the August 18th upgrade
  • Unpaired the watch, reset the iPhone 16 pro, and activated both as NEW.
  • No change.
  • Escalated to a software specialist
  • They ran diagnostics and confirmed that it is a known software issue with Watch Series 9 that already had blood oxygen monitoring and 11.6.1
  • No resolution yet.

Same thing happened to me. After 2 days, I took it to Apple and they could not offer a solution. Battery health 85%. (Series 8, 2 years old, fine until the latest update).

[Edited by Moderator]