Battery drain with Withings App version 6.1.0

Dear Withings, 20 days ago you said you were working on this "as fast as you can". Can this community please have an update on where you're at, and when we can expect a solution? At the moment my expensive watch is no better than a 10-pound quartz toy you can buy from a dodgy man in an urban underpass!

I guess their "as fast as they can" is not that fast 😂

I genuinely don't understand how difficult it can be to just swap out the new notification mirroring code in your codebase and replace it with the one that worked without issues. You can research your improvements after making sure the current version doesn't destroy users' batteries. Pathetic of them to have this issue during the whole Black Friday sales and will definitely damage their reputation among new users who got these for the first time.

I would suggest an official withdrawal of 6.1 and 6.2, and reversion to 6.0, would be the correct action by Withings at this time, after 20 days of "investigation", and no further feedback to their customers.

Just exchanged messages with Withings support. Here's what they say:

"Currently, we do not have an ETA as to when an update will be released to fix this matter. However, our development is actively looking into it".

So basically - never. 

Also having battery drain problem! Please fix this, Withings! 

Over a week now and the app doesn't drain battery if I change the Battery Usage settings of the app to Restricted. Still I get the notifications on the watch and haven't noticed missing functionality, but at least the battery usage is now below 1% per day.

I had the same settings and it did no improbe the battery usage.

Akku drain like hell...

Withings is the fallen star of 2023. 

Scan watch 2 was such a fail that I decided to send it back. But additionally they also killed there good app with there wirhings+ update. It was perfect before but right now it is not even useable anymore. 

Hi!

Having the same issue on Pixel 6.

Disabling the notifications seems to resolve it (at least a lot), so there might be something there regarding persistent connections.

However, this is a big feature we want to have (being a smartwatch, i want to see notifications).

Are there any updates from the dev team?

The time it has taken to release a hotfix for this critical issue is ridiculous.  6.1.0 has been available since October 20 according to the app store (6 weeks ago), this issue has been opened for a month, and I posted the the trigger for the issue (when there is a notification forwarded to the watch that contains an emoji) to this thread over 3 weeks ago, as well as provided much more detailed info with the exact location of the bug (stack traces) in a support ticket.  Maybe there aren't enough 1 star reviews in the Play Store yet for them to take notice?

My brother and nephew were both planning on buying Scanwatches for Christmas, and I've had to tell them not to because of this issue.  Withings, you're losing money and customers because of this.

I even modified the apk and patched the bug out myself out of frustration.  Unfortunately that's not very useful to anyone else here as the patch app is no longer signed (and has legal implications of redistributing this), but it took 15 minutes to make the fix.  It should take Withings even less time...  I'd recommend to just disable watch notifications under "My Devices" (not the Withings app notifications) for now or downgrade to 6.0 (it doesn't have the bug, I checked).

In the hope that sharing this here as well may get the bug fixed faster, the basic issue is in a loop which renders the emoji at larger and larger font sizes until it becomes too wide to display on the watch (only the height was checked in 6.0).  The problem is that the emoji never becomes too wide (maybe the font doesn't have that emoji, maybe the font has a max size, etc.), so the loop never terminates (ie an infinite loop).  At the very least, there needs to be a sane bound on that loop (eg using 200px font on a watch wouldn't make sense).  Or the checks for height and width can run in the same loop which would also fix the issue.  I'm sure Withings engineers already know everything I said here though, but I just don't understand this delay.

Thanks for the analysis @matthew.cowell. I wonder if Withings actually have a development team, or have all their software made on a contract basis, from an external company. It could be that the actual developers are now committed to other non-Withings projects. Or that some new guy is busy reading-in to the codebase they are not familiar with.

Thanks @matthew.cowell - I've seen the bug where, for example, the WhatsApp icon stays on the watch screen for a long time but the associated message never appears. However, I tried disabling notifications and changing the background usage setting etc. but the high battery consumption remained - it only dropped when I uninstalled the app.

@martin

It was the same here... Notifications Off, still the drain... I had to switch the settings of the app (settings - Apps - withings - battery usage of the app) from optimized to restricted and back after some minutes. Than the battery drain stopped.
Hope this helps.

Thanks @andreas.boehner - I didn't specifically try putting background settings back after changing to restricted so I could give that a try. I did remove and reinstall the app but the drain still came back. I've not been using it for a couple of weeks now - maybe I'll have another go at it.

For anyone expecting this to be fixed soon, I wouldn't hold your breath.  This reminds me of another Withings bug where watches miss-recognised activities as cycling.  Lots of users asked for a toggle in the app to prevent the automatic detection of cycling (surely a very simple change to the app); but it still took about 3 years for it to be fixed.

My advise is to find a workaround that works for you (I have installed the older apk version and disabled notifications) and accept that the notification functionality is no longer a part of your Withings watch's features.

It's a shame, but I honestly don't think it will be fixed in the near future and the lack of communication from Withings suggests that is what they think too.

If you need to vent then I would do it on the Android or IOS app stores to warn of other potential customers being disappointed.

I would suggest flagging the app in the Google play store. In the upper right hand corner in the app store, you can "flag as inappropriate" select "other" and explain the issue. I fear this behavior may damage my phone or at least the battery. We get enough of these in they may disable downloads until Google can investigate and hopefully persuade them to fix this faster

Just got update to version 6.2.0 with "performance enhancements". Let´s see if the issue is resolved

Been on 6.2 beta for a while and it didn't fix it

I also experienced this issue and actually upgraded my phone because I thought the battery was failing. Once I noticed poor battery performance on my new phone, I realized Withings was the cause and have uninstalled it for the 6.0 apk mirror at the suggestion of this thread. No issues with the app since then and I can get two days of battery on my phone with low usage.

Seeing version 6.2.0 available in the Play store. No clue if it fixed the exact issue or not. Here's what's new.

"Celebrate the end of the year with Withings 6.2! After the new features of versions 6.0 and 6.1, it's time for performance enhancements.

Discover almost 150 optimizations, including the operation of the cardiovascular fitness index and an improved link with Google Fit.

Enjoy an even smoother application by upgrading, and stay on the path to good health this year-end!"

a new version of the 6.2 was published today

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/withings/nokia-health-mate/nokia-health-mate-6-2-0-release/

I received 6.2.0 on 22 November 2023. (I'm in the "beta" programme.) I'm sorry to have to tell you, it does NOT fix this problem.

I can confirm, update to version 6.2 doesn't help at all

Do you realy tell, withings published a damaged software, well aware, it is garbage???

And no regret or excuse. It closes the circle...

I'm on day two of 6.2.0 with <1% battery usage. So far, so good.
It's should be noted I had removed the old app completely for a few days and 6.2 was a fresh install. Maybe attempt to uninstall and reinstall the app. I'm waiting one more day before I say it's officially not draining anymore

Ok I updated this morning to the 6.2 published today on apkmirror.
I tried to send myself notifications with emoji and and so far, battery usage is good. (7h of testing)

There is 2 different 6.2 packages on apkmirror. I used the "universal"

So I have had horrible battery drain on my new Pixel 8 Pro, and I came to this thread. Following former posts I uninstalled Healthmate and I installed 6.0.1. Battery life was great, but I no longer received notifications on my watch. Unpaired the watch and repaired it, still not working. So yesterday I let my phone upgrade back to 6.1.0 (6.2 not available to me). Now I get my notifications and Withings uses only 3% of my battery. Is it because I reinstalled from fresh  or because of other changes in the background? At least it works for now.

*6.2.0 update* day 1 and 2 were less than 1% battery. Day 3 it's back up to it's old tricks. It is not fixed. Had been running in the background for 8hrs and used 34% precent of my battery. Issue not resolved for my pixel 7 on Android 14. Boo! I like this watch! I don't want to have to get something else! 😭😭😭

Same problem with Pixel 4a. Just glad to hear Withings is working on a solution. Turned off almost everything in the app. If that doesn't help, I'll turn off Bluetooth too.

@zito.rosie - well that's interesting because so far, I think, this has been suggested as an Android 14 issue.
I had no problems with my 4a, only when I changed to a 7a (which is on Android 14)