Apple Watch battery is draining rapidly after watchOS 11.6 update

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.

I updated my Apple SE watch to OS 11.6 three days ago. Since then it has stopped holding a charge. I normally use my watch to track all health data including sleep. It's unfortunate that under normal circumstances it would only hold a charge for about 12 hours. Now it will only hold a charge 4 hours using Low Battery mode! It's useless!

I have rebooted both my watch and my phone. This did nothing.

The battery life of Apple Watches was ridiculous to begin with, and now with the apparent "planned obsolescence" of their products, I'm thinking of switching brands. Apple has no integrity.

vicks9999 wrote:

I updated my Apple SE watch to OS 11.6 three days ago. Since then it has stopped holding a charge. I normally use my watch to track all health data including sleep. It's unfortunate that under normal circumstances it would only hold a charge for about 12 hours. Now it will only hold a charge 4 hours using Low Battery mode! It's useless!

I have rebooted both my watch and my phone. This did nothing.

The battery life of Apple Watches was ridiculous to begin with, and now with the apparent "planned obsolescence" of their products, I'm thinking of switching brands. Apple has no integrity.

Have a new battery fitted or trade it in.

Bikerider57 wrote:

I powered on and off both my phone and my watch. It still seemed to be draining fast so I took the additional step of unpairing and repairing the watch with the phone. I don’t recommend this is you can avoid it because then I had to re-set up my Apple Wallet stuff on my watch.

Unpairing and re-pairing is a powerful diagnostic fix and should not be discouraged.

watch diagnostics basics

Apple Watch basic diagnostics - Apple Community

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I have the same issue on my series 7 watch and my 13 mini.

I don’t have the battery drain anymore on watchOS 11.6.1

Same problem. Watch 10/46 on 11.6

What did you do??

Tried this multiple times, no effect.