How to Fix Battery Drain on watchOS 7

Recently updated your Apple Watch to watchOS 7 but find that the battery drains and doesn’t even last a day?

The new iOS 14 and watchOS 7 have given Apple users a lot of new features they can play around with. The iOS 14 alone offers widget customizations, the new App Library, and fresh interfaces, among other things.

Unfortunately, Apple’s new operating systems came with a lot of bugs and glitches. A quick visit to Apple’s forum and you’ll see a lot of complaints. For Apple Watch users, the most prominent problem is and has been the Apple Watch battery draining remarkably quickly.

What used to last an entire day with one charge has now bugged users with drained and empty batteries even before 3 pm! Luckily, there are a few things you can do about it. Here, we’ve compiled a list of solutions to help you fix your battery draining issue.

Let’s get started.

• 1. Turn Off The Handwashing Feature.
• 2. Check Background App Refresh Settings.
• 3. Restart Your Apple Watch.
• 4. Forget And Re-pair Your Apple Watch.

1. Turn Off The Handwashing Feature.

One of the new additions of the watchOS 7 is the ‘Handwashing’ feature. This supposedly lets your watch detect whenever you’re washing your hands, which in turn will begin counting the appropriate number of seconds it takes to clean your hands thoroughly.

This is a neat feature for individuals who like to keep themselves really clean, as the watch will inform you if you’re washing your hands long enough. Although this should only be a background feature, disabling it has been an attributed solution to the battery problem of the watchOS 7.

Here’s how you can turn off the ‘Handwashing’ feature:

1. Let’s start by opening the Watch app on your iPhone.
2. Now, tap on the My Watch tab.
3. Once you’re there, navigate to Handwashing. This should be between Contacts and Health.
4. Finally, disable Handwashing Timer.

Of course, you won’t be able to see an immediate change in battery usage until a couple of hours. Ideally, you should test this on a fresh charge. Try following the next step and test your watch’s battery then.

2. Check Background App Refresh Settings.

Apple allowed its users to retain their original preferences after their iOS and watchOS updates. This saves Apple users a whole lot of time instead of fiddling around settings to try and revert them back to their preferences.

However, it’s not uncommon for the operating system to have complications, especially during updates. Untimely bugs or glitches can result in your preferences resetting without your knowledge. Background apps constantly refreshing is also one of the more taxing processes of your Apple Watch, so let’s see if we can disable it.

Here’s how you can check your Background App Refresh settings:

1. Go ahead and open your Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Now, navigate to General.

3. Then, look for Background App Refresh and disable all unnecessary apps that don’t need this feature.

This should help with your Apple Watch’s battery life. Feel free to check all the other settings of your Apple Watch for any changes that were set to default or altered without your knowledge.

3. Restart Your Apple Watch.

Software issues on any device can often be ironed out by simply restarting it.

This simple fix will terminate any existing programs as well as shut down your operating system. Ideally, this will also clear bugs or glitches from your RAM that caused your battery to drain quickly.

Rebooting your Apple Watch will run all your programs from scratch which should finally work like normal.

Here’s how you can reset your Apple Watch:

1. Let’s start by pressing on the button at the right side of your Apple Watch until a slider that says Power Off pops up.

2. Now, drag the slider to the right to completely turn off your device.
3. Lastly, after the screen has turned off, wait for a couple of seconds and turn your Apple Watch back on by holding on the same button.

4. Forget And Re-pair Your Apple Watch.

Whenever Apple releases a new iOS or watchOS, the connectivity between these two devices is prone to getting a lot of problems and bugs.

The iOS 14 release has been the victim of widget bugs, and other defects. For Apple’s watchOS 7, it isn’t any different. When you combine these two systems together, you can imagine the software complications they might encounter.

Forgetting your Apple Watch through your iPhone will completely delete their respective cache files on both of your devices. This means that when you re-pair them, they should function and connect as intended without the software complications just like new.

Here’s how you can forget your Apple Watch:

1. With your Apple Watch and iPhone held close together, open the Watch app on your iPhone.
2. Now, navigate to the My Watch tab and look for your Apple Watch. Tap on it.
3. Once you’re in the Apple Watch window, press on the info ( i ) button of the watch you want to forget.

4. Then, select the Unpair Apple Watch. A prompt should appear to ask you if you want to keep your plan. For this method, go ahead and keep it.
5. Follow the prompts until you’re asked to Confirm. Once you confirm you should be asked to input your Apple ID credentials, fill these in.
6. Finally, once you’re done, go ahead and restart your iPhone and Apple Watch.

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Next, here’s how you can re-pair your Apple Watch:

1. After restarting your devices, go ahead and open the Watch app on your iPhone.
2. Next, select the Start Pairing.
3. The Watch app should start accessing your camera. Hold your Apple Watch underneath your iPhone’s rear camera and make sure that the watch fits in the square viewfinder.

4. Finally, your Apple Watch and iPhone should be completely paired once that is over.

Finish up by going over the settings and changing them back to how you prefer them. Remember to keep the ‘Handwashing’ feature off as well just like in the previous method.

The new operating systems released by Apple have a lot of needed improvements. If you’re reading this a couple of weeks after the release, rest assured, Apple should be working on the next patch with bug fixes. Hopefully, this will be released in the following weeks.

Now that you’ve reached the end of this article, we hope that we’ve helped your ‘Battery Drain on watchOS 7’ issue on your Apple Watch. If you have any clarifications regarding this article, feel free to leave a comment down below.

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂