Resolving Apple Pencil Issue when Showing 3% Charge Consistently
I'm not an experienced member, but I've had two occurrences with my Apple Pencil (1st gen used with 7th gen iPad) being temperamental. I came across so many community posts where people were having the same issue and it was either unresolved or had to be replaced. I admit I probably would have took it to Apple to be assessed myself if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic. So, I just wanted to share the stages of what worked/happened this time (the worst of the two occurrences). The first occurrence (around 7 months ago) was largely my own fault, I'd left it depleted for around 3 weeks, it wasn't charging via the iPad connection, but was fixed by plugging it into a computer via the adapter. This time I'd last used it a week ago without problems and had charged it twice this week via the adapter to avoid a flat battery. However, despite having charged it for the second time in a week for at least an hour, the battery went to 3% instantly as soon as I disconnected the pencil. Here's what did and didn't work:
1) My first instinct was that maybe something went wrong with the USB adapter I use to convert to thunderbolt 3, so I disconnected it and reconnected it and watched the battery via the iPad. It was charging at normal speed, so I let it get to 87% then I unplugged it to see what would happen, it instantly went back to 3%. I tried plugging it into the iPad directly but it didn't change.
2) To reset the connection I clicked 'forget this device' under Bluetooth settings and tried to re-pair the pencil. However, the iPad didn't seem to be registering that it was plugged in directly. No pair option came up and no devices were appearing in the Bluetooth settings. I left it directly plugged in for 15 minutes and nothing changed. I tried plugging it back into the adapter for 15 minutes, then back into the iPad, nothing. I restarted the iPad, but it still wouldn't pair.
3) I done a hard reset as a last resort (holding down power and home buttons until Apple logo appeared) and it finally registered and asked me to pair the device. I thought it was problem solved, but then the pencil went down to 0% after pairing.
4) I left the pencil plugged into the iPad but it stayed on 0%. I plugged it back in to the adapter and it went back up to 3%. I was worried it wasn't working because it took a very long time to move up from 3% (which was strange because before, despite the issue, the charge was at normal speed). The charge was extremely slow, it took an hour to go from 0% to 8% charged but it seems to be actually holding a charge now (note that this extremely slow charge happened with incident 1, and subsequent charges were back to normal speeds so I'm hoping the same will happen here).
I know it's not really normal for something that was working a week ago to be acting up despite having been plugged into a computer twice in that week. However, with lockdown/pandemic risks and work demands the only real choice was to troubleshoot (otherwise I'd definitely be going in to Apple to have it checked) and thankfully it seems to have worked. I hope this proves useful for anyone else who might end up in the same situation. It's also worth noting that my iPad needed an update which was going to be step 5 if 4 failed, but I imagine that still could have played a part.