Apple Watch Users Report Significant Battery Life Improvement After Downloading watchOS 3.1

Owners of Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 devices have noticed a bump in their battery life upon downloading watchOS 3.1, new reports say.

Cupertino released watchOS 3.1 last week, and the update brought various improvements and bug fixes. Since its release, a large number of users have reported that their Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2 battery life has also been significantly improved — an added bonus that Apple didn’t specifically announce in the watchOS 3.1 changelog.

One Reddit user reported that their Apple Watch Series 2’s battery remained at 82 percent after 11 hours of standby and 1 hour of actual usage. The user also reported that they were running on maximum vibration and brightness settings, and had background app refresh turned on — all things that are normally notorious battery killers. Many Redditors shared similar sentiments in the comments, as well.

According to numerous reports from Apple Watch Series 1 and 2 owners, they can get through two days comfortably on a single charge — assuming, of course, that battery-draining apps aren’t running in the background. One Apple Watch Series 2 owner even reported that they got through an entire weekend without a charge. Before watchOS 3.1, it was pretty much necessary to charge the Watch every night.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case across the board. Some owners of the original Apple Watch — known colloquially as the Series 0 — have actually reported their battery life draining quicker since updating to watchOS 3.1. Remaining battery life for the older model Watch averages around 10 percent lower than before, according to user reports on the MacRumors forum. Of course, this is likely a hardware issue and not a bug brought on by watchOS 3.1.

Apple’s watchOS 3.1 is currently available to the public. So, if you haven’t downloaded it yet, you might now have one more reason to.