Curious as to others experiences, but I’m disappointed in the series 5 battery life. I’d already been having to charge series 4 during the day after any workout. It simply wouldn’t make it.
I took the series 5 off the charger for my second charge this am at 9am, level was 86%. It’s now (6:19pm) at 26%. No way it’s ever making it through a day.
If you took it off at 100% you’d have 40% now and would likely last the day. 40% at 6pm would be perfectly fine…
(It’s also typical for people to use (or play with) their new watches more in the first days/weeks before settling down their usage.)
I am def seeing worse battery Life on my 5 than on the 4. Let’s hope it’s just newness or a quick software update fixes it.
Another way to look at it is you’ve lost 60% over 9.3 hours, so 26% should last you until about four more until 10:15pm (depending on when you’re doing workouts, of course.)
I usually got 1.25 day battery life with cellular on the 4 and appear to be about the same on the 5. A friend struggles to get to 9pm without his watch dying with similar battery health. We suspect it’s due to the poor cellular at his workplace but don’t really know.
If you’re continuing to have trouble, I’d definitely have Apple support do a remote diagnostic.
I start using it today at 8:30 am with 100%, no workout, just regular use. It is 19:30 hrs and it is on 51%.
It is a little less than my series 4, this is true but it certainly last the complete day.
The battery life on my Series 5 is definitely worse than the Series 4. I’ve gotten to the low power warning every day I’ve worn the Series 5 all day. One day I even ran out of juice entirely. I pretty much never had that happen with the Series 4 (though I did generally charge the Series 4 while showering, which I’ve not done so far with the Series 5).
All that said, I’m probably way out on one end of the spectrum when it comes to exercise minutes, which tend to drain the battery life pretty quick. Others’ experiences may be different.
Right, but I took it off at 9 am… which is way later than I actually wake up. Point is Series 0-3 easily lasted 18+ hours… Series 4 and 5 not even close.
They did a diagnostic on my 4 several times and said it was fine.
I’m also seeing similar reports on Apple twitter.
Comparison: I had series 0, 2, 3 LTE. I can count on one hand (total) how many times the battery got below 10% in 3.5 years.
Series 4 LTE died on a regular basis over the last year.
Series 5 LTE, without an extra charge each day, would have died everyday so far.
Neither Series 4 nor 5 get close to the 18 hours they say I should expect and my usage closely adheres to their “normal” daily use.
Think I’ll stick with my Series 1 for now. I get up to 2 days use if necessary.
I’d bet that this is all this is.
My wife got the 5, and I have a launch-day 4. Hers is keeping pace with mine and getting more use throughout the day, too.
My Series 4 on WatchOS 5 would be charged before bed and when waking up 7 hours later would be on 90+%. WatchOS 6 is’t now around 80% and I’m giving it an extra charge whilst I shower.
I think it may well be the OS, which hopefully can be fixed rather than the hardware.
Mine is pretty bad too. Thought it was just the first weekend of playing with it, but it’s nowhere near as good as my 2 year old series 3 that I used to get a full day out of, with at least one hour workout and one night of sleep tracking. I would then top it back up whilst in the shower and having breakfast.
Luckily I kept the series 3 which I’ve been switching to for sleep tracking whilst charging the 5 overnight.
My series 4 started out the same way when I got it last year, and I assumed it was because 1) Fiddle Factor - it was a new device and I was constantly in “testing mode” with it, playing with complications, etc. and 2) battery conditioning and device indexing.
Eventually battery life got better, but that first week or so I had to keep an extra charger in my bag to go along with the one at my desk.
I picked up a new Series 5 on Saturday. On Sunday and Monday, I would have agreed with everyone that the battery life was terrible. Today though, I have had the watch on for 9 hours already, and the battery is at 73% - so more than enough juice left for the rest of the day.
I’m not sure if it is from playing with it more those first fews days, or if the Watch has to process some data when it is new, but my battery seems to have settled down.
Update: pulled the watch off the charger at 4:30am, did a 80 minute workout. It’s 7:30pm and it’s at 1%. 3 hours short of 18 hours, but about what I was seeing with S4. Still far worse than series 0-3. I was disappointed with S4 battery life last year, but hopeful 5 would be better. Hopes dashed 
Gruber mentioned on The Talk Show with Joanna Stern that iFixit or someone pulled the Series 5 apart and it’s the same as the Series 4 (I can’t remember if he said it was exactly the same or the same battery… I assume there’s at least some processor difference).
Seems like the Series 5 is likely to be like the first iPad with Retina display (iPad 3, I think?) where it was not quite powerful enough to pull off the Retina display, and then the next version was much better.
Of course Apple couldn’t come out and say that the Series 5 had worse battery life than Series 4, because that would have been the second part of every sentence about the always-on screen in every review. I’m guessing next year everyone will be saying “Ah, yes, now the Series 6 can do the always-on screen with decent battery life.”
But I’m sorry to say that I think the Series 5 is always going to have this problem, even after the “fiddle factor” dies down.
I guess workouts are still “battery killers”.
However, I am quite Ok with my Series 5’s stamina - yes, it does definitely use up the battery a bit faster than the Series 4, but for the “always-on” display, that’s a price I am willing to pay.