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38mm battery life not that good?

MyAppleWorld

MyAppleWorld

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 1, 2005
631
104
Birmingham, UK
I am on my 2nd day using the 38mm sport and I am not impressed with the battery.
Yesterday I managed 13 hours and it went completely flat - it did not even enter power saver mode.

Today I have tried to play with the watch less and feel I have barely used it and after 9 hours I'm only on 52% - There are still 7 hours until bed time!

I don't understand these people going to bed after 14-16 hours and still having 50% or so...

I have noticed a lot of fake activations with wrist detection - maybe this is the cause?
 
It seemed to me like the battery improved after a few charge/discharge cycles.

Had my SS 38mm since launch day. After wearing at work all day (8 hours), I usually have about 70% remaining. I have turned off the "hey siri" feature. All other settings are factory I believe.
 
thatsmega.net said:
I am on my 2nd day using the 38mm sport and I am not impressed with the battery.
Yesterday I managed 13 hours and it went completely flat - it did not even enter power saver mode.

Today I have tried to play with the watch less and feel I have barely used it and after 9 hours I'm only on 52% - There are still 7 hours until bed time!

I don't understand these people going to bed after 14-16 hours and still having 50% or so...

I have noticed a lot of fake activations with wrist detection - maybe this is the cause?
Click to expand...

I take mine off the charger at 5:30am and at 10:00pm at night I still have at least 55% left. I have hey siri on and everything else is just stock.

I do not use any apps on the watch outside of hue and the fitness app. If you are using apps, that could be the cause for battery drain. I think most people getting great battery life are coming from a previous smart watch and they use it 99% of the time for notifications only.

Currently I have 88% battery, and took it off at 5:30am EST
 
thatsmega.net said:
I am on my 2nd day using the 38mm sport and I am not impressed with the battery.
Yesterday I managed 13 hours and it went completely flat - it did not even enter power saver mode.

Today I have tried to play with the watch less and feel I have barely used it and after 9 hours I'm only on 52% - There are still 7 hours until bed time!

I don't understand these people going to bed after 14-16 hours and still having 50% or so...

I have noticed a lot of fake activations with wrist detection - maybe this is the cause?
Click to expand...

You have issues. Mine is 38mm, and it has consistently lasted from 7ish am to 11:30-midnight with room to spare.
 
I typically have 65-80% left at the end of the day (about 16 hours). I've never completely discharged it though I let it run until it went into power reserve mode to see how long it took and it was about 39 hours. Other than that it's never dropped below 65% and that was a day where I used 2 hours of navigation, made a couple phone calls, and gave it some pretty heavy usage.

38mm sport
 
38mm, off of charger at 6am was at 27% last night at 1130. Monitored a baseball game with At Bat yesterday, checked news and Twitter, email and messages, initiate phone calls, rowing for 10 minutes and outdoor walk for 20 minutes, used Apple Pay few times and had to activate watch screen on a whole minute a few times a day.
 
mattopotamus said:
Currently I have 88% battery, and took it off at 5:30am EST
Click to expand...

Geez I'm getting bad at math. When I originally saw your message, seeing you had it on for 5 hours and was still at 88% I thought, "Crap, I'm already below that!" (84%)

thinking

"And I've only used it for... oh, 6 hours."

Never mind :D
 
I used mine from 8 AM to 11 PM last night and was down to <10% when it went on the charger. Sent a bunch of texts using Hey Siri, changed faces a few times, checked notifications, I did use a few apps (water reminder, pill reminder, Wunderlist, scrolled through instagram feed briefly (15 seconds or so) twice. Otherwise, really I didn't look at it a ton. I was disappointed in the battery. This AM so far I took it off the charger 4.5 hours ago and already down to 79%. Just looking at the time it seems to drop 1% every 15 minutes or so.
 
I wake up at 6am and plug in at 11pm. I usually have 20-30% battery life left. I use medium brightness and do not mute sound.
 
cwieberdink said:
I used mine from 8 AM to 11 PM last night and was down to <10% when it went on the charger. Sent a bunch of texts using Hey Siri, changed faces a few times, checked notifications, I did use a few apps (water reminder, pill reminder, Wunderlist, scrolled through instagram feed briefly (15 seconds or so) twice. Otherwise, really I didn't look at it a ton. I was disappointed in the battery. This AM so far I took it off the charger 4.5 hours ago and already down to 79%. Just looking at the time it seems to drop 1% every 15 minutes or so.
Click to expand...

If the battery usage is linear that would give you 22 hours or so, still over the 18 hour spec. (Of course, battery decline never seems to be linear, but there's quite a buffer there.)
 
Mine is on the lower end of normal, but good enough. However, reading this, I am wondering if I have a sub-par battery. I have had the watch for about 2 weeks, and I have never ended the day with more than 30%. For example, today I took it off the charger at 5am, it is now 1:30pm and is at 51%. I have used the timer a few times, but that is about it, so I am not sure why it is draining faster than most others. I have a charger at work, and when I am sitting at my desk, I will sometimes put it on the charger for a 15-30 minutes to top it up.

I just looked at my usage on the watch and I am at 2 hours 5 minutes with 8 hours 18 minutes standby with 51% remaining charge. So that means I am only getting 16 hours to a charge. I am wondering how that compares to others.
 
thatsmega.net said:
I am on my 2nd day using the 38mm sport and I am not impressed with the battery.
Yesterday I managed 13 hours and it went completely flat - it did not even enter power saver mode.

Today I have tried to play with the watch less and feel I have barely used it and after 9 hours I'm only on 52% - There are still 7 hours until bed time!

I don't understand these people going to bed after 14-16 hours and still having 50% or so...

I have noticed a lot of fake activations with wrist detection - maybe this is the cause?
Click to expand...

Are you using the activity meter? I am not. I consistently get 15 hours or so with 50% of the battery left. That said, I have turned off most notifications except for my e-mail account and a few of my favorite apps (some news sites, Uber, etc.)
 
I've got the activity meter, heart rate, plenty of notifications, and default brightness on. I think some people have crummy batteries.
 
I usually end the day at 40-50%, getting calls, texts, responding to texts, using it as a music remote, activity app, wunderlist, listening to voice mails, lots of emails, etc. I also use prominent haptic and my watch is vibrating a lot (as there's no way yet to set prominent haptic only for texts).

I have not used the exercise app - I hear that's a huge battery drain. I'll be trying it out this afternoon so maybe I'll be down in the 10-20% range tonight.

FWIW, the first day I had it, it drained like crazy. I left on the charger overnight and the next day is was great. So I suspect it runs some processes when it's new that draw at lot of battery.
 
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