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Short answer: the complication on your watch face is the old one, from a version of Battery Life before 26.8.1. It cannot receive new readings any more. Remove it from the watch face and add Battery Life again — it takes about fifteen seconds and only has to be done once.
1. Press and hold the watch face on your Apple Watch.
2. Tap Edit.
3. Swipe left to the Complications page.
4. Tap the slot that shows the stuck Battery Life reading.
5. Scroll to Battery Life and select one of the three complications.
6. Press the Digital Crown to finish.
Some delay is normal. iOS decides when an app in the background is allowed to run, so a notification typically arrives 5 to 60 minutes after your battery reaches the level you set. This is a limit of iOS itself and no app can work around it.
If notifications are much later than that, or never arrive, check these four things:
Don't swipe it away in the app switcher. A closed app can't check your battery state until you open it again.
Settings › General › Background App Refresh, and make sure it's on for Battery Life. Apple explains the setting here.
Low Power Mode cuts background activity, which stops notifications arriving on time. It switches on by itself at 20% battery, so it may be active without you setting it.
With iOS 17 or later, a Battery Life widget on your Home Screen or Lock Screen helps even if you never look at it: every time iOS refreshes the widget, Battery Life checks your iPhone's battery once more, so a notification arrives sooner. How to add one.
Still nothing after all four? Get in touch and we'll take a look.
External devices only report their charge while they're actively connected to your iPhone. Once a device disconnects — out of range, powered off, or in its case — Battery Life keeps showing the last level it received rather than guessing.
That's why each reading carries the time it arrived. If a figure looks stale, reconnect the device and it will update on its own shortly afterwards.
A device that never appears at all usually just needs to be connected once while Battery Life is open.
Your iPhone measures much more about its battery than Settings shows: its real capacity, how many charge cycles it has been through, how warm it gets. Apple doesn't let apps read these numbers directly, but iOS writes them into a daily analytics file that you can share with Battery Life. It takes about two minutes the first time, and a minute once a week after that.
Battery health is at the top of the Battery tab, and on the Watch tab for your Apple Watch. It needs iOS 17 or later.
Open Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom and tap Analytics & Improvements. Switch on Share iPhone & Watch Analytics. iOS writes the file at about 2 a.m., so if you have just switched it on, come back tomorrow.
This is an Apple setting. What iOS sends to Apple under it is between you and Apple; Battery Life never sees any of it, and you can switch it off again whenever you like.
On the same screen, tap View Analytics Logs (on iOS 26 and earlier: Analytics Data). The list is sorted by name: scroll down to the names beginning Analytics-; the date is in the name. Tap the newest one — it opens as a page of text, that's right. Tap the share button at the top right and choose Battery Life (not in the row of apps? Swipe the row to the end and tap More). Then share the other Analytics- files of the last few days the same way.
When Battery Life says “No battery data in this part”, that's normal. iOS splits each day across several files and only one of them carries the battery figures. You don't need to know which file is which, or which device it came from: Battery Life recognizes the device itself.
Instead of sharing the files one by one, choose Save to Files for each, then open Battery health, tap Import analytics files… and select them all at once. Battery Life keeps what it needs and ignores the rest.
Your Apple Watch's files are in the same list on your iPhone. iOS fetches them from the watch while the list is open, so they can take a minute or two to appear: keep the watch nearby and leave the list open.
Files from your iPad work too, whether you import them on the iPad or bring them to your iPhone. Each device is listed on its own, and Battery health always opens on the device in your hand.
iOS deletes these files after about seven days. Import at least once a week, or those days are missing from your history for good. Battery Life can remind you: in Battery health, switch on Remind me once a week and pick the day and time.
Sharing is off, or it was switched on today: see step 1. On an iPhone managed by a company or school, sharing can be switched off by whoever manages it, and then none of this is possible.
Your data: Battery Life keeps only the battery figures from each file, on your device; everything else in the file is ignored and the file itself isn't kept. The readings are never sent to us. If you also use our app System Guard, both apps show the same readings. With Sync with iCloud switched on, they are kept in your own iCloud account, which only you can see. Details are in the privacy policy.
These three signs usually mean the battery is near the end of its useful life:
On iPhone you can check the first one in Settings › Battery › Battery Health & Charging, or for your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch in Battery Life's Battery health. If any of these apply, a battery replacement from Apple or an authorized service provider will restore normal runtimes — it's a routine, inexpensive repair.
Some of them. Since iOS 13, Apple doesn't let apps read the battery's detailed values directly. But iOS writes several of them into an analytics file every day, and Battery health reads them from there:
These are daily figures for your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, as recent as the last file you imported, not live readings.
Live values — charge and discharge current, voltage, the charger's maximum current and the temperature right now — aren't available to any app. This is a restriction in iOS, not something Battery Life can work around.
Short answer: no. Battery Life shows the battery of the device it runs on, your paired Apple Watch, and the Bluetooth accessories connected to that device — AirPods, headphones, hearing aids, game controllers and the like.
An iPad, a Mac or a second iPhone is not an accessory. It never sends its battery level to your iPhone, even when both are signed in with the same Apple Account or sit side by side, so no app on your iPhone can read it.
Install Battery Life on the iPad as well. There it shows the iPad's own battery and the accessories connected to the iPad. Your iPhone and your iPad each show their own live readings; they don't share them. The exception is Battery health: with Pro and Sync with iCloud switched on, its readings appear on both.
You don't have to buy Pro again: on an iPad signed in with the same Apple Account, Pro unlocks by itself shortly after the app starts. If it doesn't, restore your purchase.
There is no Mac version of Battery Life. Your Mac shows its battery in the menu bar and in System Settings › Battery.
The Battery Life app and its complications show your iPhone and your Apple Watch.
Battery Life has three widgets for the Home Screen and the Lock Screen of your iPhone and iPad. They need iOS 17 or later.
Touch and hold an empty spot on the Home Screen until the apps jiggle, tap Edit › Add Widget, search for Battery Life, then choose a widget and a size. On the Lock Screen: touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customize › Lock Screen, then tap the area below the time.
Touch and hold the widget and tap Edit Widget. The Battery widget lets you pick your iPhone or your Apple Watch. The Devices widget lets you pick which devices to show, sort them, include your Apple Watch, and choose whether to show last known values and the time of the last update.
A widget also makes notifications faster. Every time iOS refreshes a Battery Life widget, the app checks your iPhone's battery against your notification settings — even if you never look at the widget.
If the Devices widget asks you to allow Bluetooth, open Battery Life, go to Connected devices and allow it there.
On iOS 15 and 16 the old Today widgets (part of Pro) are still there instead: swipe right on the Home Screen and tap Edit at the bottom.
A widget shows the readings Battery Life saved the last time it ran, and iOS decides how often it may redraw a widget — usually a few dozen times a day. So a widget can be some minutes behind; the widget shows how old its reading is.
To update it straight away, tap the refresh button (↻) on a Home Screen widget, or open Battery Life. Lock Screen widgets have no button; they update the next time iOS allows it.
If a widget stays behind for hours, check the same three things as for late notifications: the app not swiped away, Background App Refresh on, Low Power Mode off.
Restoring your purchase should sort it out. Open the More tab and choose In-App Purchases — the restore option is there.
One thing to check first: purchases belong to the Apple Account that bought them. If you've since switched accounts, or you're setting up a device that's signed in with a different one, sign back in with the account you originally used and restore again.
If Pro still doesn't unlock after that, let us know.
Refunds are handled entirely by Apple — we have no access to your purchase and can't issue one ourselves.
Request it at reportaproblem.apple.com, or follow Apple's step-by-step guide.
No. Battery Life reads values your device already keeps track of and does no heavy work of its own, so its own consumption is negligible.
If you're checking Settings › Battery and see Battery Life listed, that's normal — every app that has run appears there. The figure reflects the time you spent looking at the app, not extra drain caused by monitoring.
Don't overthink it. Apple devices use lithium-ion batteries that cannot be overcharged under normal conditions, so leaving your device on the charger overnight is safe.
Batteries do last longest when the charge stays roughly between 10% and 80%, but watching it that closely makes a phone impractical to use — and iOS already does much of this for you. Optimized Battery Charging learns your routine and holds the charge at 80% until shortly before you normally unplug. On iPhone you'll find it in Settings › Battery › Battery Health & Charging.
Heat is what really matters. Some cases trap enough heat while charging to reduce capacity over time. If your device gets warm on the charger, take it out of the case first.
Apple has a good explanation of how these batteries work if you'd like the detail.
The biggest wins are usually screen brightness, turning off Background App Refresh for apps you don't need it for, and using Wi-Fi instead of cellular where you can.
Apple's own guide goes through the rest: maximizing battery performance.
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