I would like the option, as raise to wake never worked properly for me (when I had an Apple Watch).
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Always on display
- Thread starter BrodieApple
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I’m not sure when you last owned an Apple Watch, but Apple really improved the sensitivity with the raise to wake on the Apple Watch. It’s almost instantaneous every single time. When the Apple Watch first launched, it wasn’t always consistent with the raise to wake on the first WachOS, but that has much improved.
Was just going to say, there seems to be a consistency with series 0 and 1 users saying raise to wake sucks while my wife and I and other AW 3 users have never had a problem with raise to wake. (Series 2 is maybe good to go?). But like you mentioned - looks like the OS may have corrected/helped that.
I still find it a bit hit and miss.
It’s definitely not perfect. I actually use tap the display and I have raise to wake disabled. I just find it conserves battery and I don’t mind tapping the display whenever I decide to look at it. Curious to see what changes Apple makes this year with watchOS 5, which we will know soon enough at WWDC 2018 in June.
Series 3. One LTE watch and one GPS Watch. RTW didn’t work consistently on either. Very disappointing.
You actually don't actually have to raise your arm to wake the watch at least on a Series 3. Just roll your wrist so that the watch face is in direct line of sight. Watch face should come on.
Dave
Dave
Exactly. It’s still too inconsistent thus the desire for AOD. When I was on Android I used it with my Gear S2. It was greatI still find it a bit hit and miss.
I don’t see Apple venturing with an always on display. Primarily because of battery life, burn -in and I think they raise to wake is sufficient enough with its current sensitivity. And one might make the argument they don’t need have an always on display if the user isn’t looking at the Watch.
Works for me.“Should” being the operative word.
Is your wrist Apple certified, or is it some third party knockoff?
[doublepost=1526650291][/doublepost]I have this setup too but as soon as you put your wrist down it goes off. I have apps I want to stay on and they don’t so this function is misleading. Apple need to fix it
First world problem, 100%.
For me, raise to wake almost always works. Like, say 49/50 times maybe, I haven't bothered counting. Still, sufficiently reliable that it's not really much of an annoyance when it doesn't work.
So if you were to have an always on display, you'd likely have a magnitude greater power draw compared to a powered-off black screen due to all the additional components that would need to remain active instead of sitting in minimum power mode or turned off entirely. It'd be a major battery hog for sure.
It amazes me that so many people think that Apple should just include a setting for "always on" screen on the AW.
Raise to wake works so efficient now, I don’t even think About having an always on display. When raise to wake was first implemented, it was not always consistent, but the sensitivity has been much increased, that I really don’t find it necessary to have my display illuminated if I’m not looking at it. Especially given with image retention and battery efficiency.
There's more to it than raise to wake, sometimes it's the convenience of raising your wrist and knowing you will have enough time to read all the detail that you need even when you may need to focus your attention somewhere else and look back.
I would love to see a permanent display on the AppleWatch even though I love it's current format. I would love to see displays that produce less less luminescence over solid colour and wonder if we might eventually see the quality of colour eInk as an always on display with the ability to refresh like OLED.. quite a tantalising prospect and perfect for the smartwatch format.
I would love to see a permanent display on the AppleWatch even though I love it's current format. I would love to see displays that produce less less luminescence over solid colour and wonder if we might eventually see the quality of colour eInk as an always on display with the ability to refresh like OLED.. quite a tantalising prospect and perfect for the smartwatch format.
OLED and e-whatever displays are completely different types of technology. It's really unlikely their properties could ever be combined in any meaningful sort of way, and I doubt many would prefer e-paper style displays over OLED, considering how poor the performance is of such technology versus OLED in just about all situations except in very brightly lit/direct sunlight conditions.
Also, as mentioned many times before, always on display would mean burning power in not just the display, but also when running the electronics driving the display, including microprocessor and graphics processor re-drawing the screen many times per second. It would be a tremendous battery hog, all for basically no gain since most of the time you're not looking at your watch at all.
Personally I don't see what the BFD is here - with raise to wake enabled, the display comes on in less than half a second of doing the raise gesture for me, and I have a slow, original generation watch. It's really not a biggie, at all.
Raise to wake doesn’t always work for me but that’s not too much of a problem. The reason I’d like an always on face is that the watch would look better; it’s still there on my wrist when I’m not looking at it and it’d be nice if it looked like a watch rather than a black square. I understand the reasons for not having it but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’d make the watch look better.
But if you had an always on display does affect the battery, then you would have those likely complaining about that. Personally, as I said before I think raise to wake really is sufficient for the time being, unless Apple decides to make that change elsewhere. But I doubt that they will, and I think not having the display on conserves battery for when you *actually* need it.
Well, considering one tech is emissive, and the other is reflective... They're basically mutually exclusive technologies. One restricts light coming out of the display like LCD tech, and the other emits light directly out of every pixel. Your OLED pixels would have to be reflective for the epaper tech to work, but if they were, stray ambient light would reflect towards the user and reduce the contrast ratio of the OLED panel. You want your OLED panel to be as black as possible to get high contrast ratio; not reflective...Never say never
I still find it a bit hit and miss.
100% agree with this^^^
I still have my 42mm Series 0 and as mentioned above, its not the "raise to wake" which actually lights up the screen (this does work but not all the time) - it's more the, " roll your wrist" action, so the watch screen is facing head on towards your face, which tends to light up the screen 99.99999999% of the time.
An always on clock is a great idea, absolutely. This wouldn't mean the display is always lit up, just a simple analog watch face – time only – with hands that don't intersect in the middle, so there's no constantly lit pixels to burn in.
Raise to Wake: The main reason and the one cited most often is to be able to treat it like a normal watch, which you can glance at without moving your wrist. That's completely obvious and reasonable. In fact, I know quite a few people who don't buy into the Apple Watch because it's silly to have to make a specific gesture just to see the time, and that gesture is always assuming an upright posture. If you're not in exactly the right position and make exactly the right movement, the watch doesn't light up. Some people say it would impact battery life, but two small lines on the OLED display will hardly affect battery life at all.
The better reason, IMO, is to eliminate accidental activations. I find that, more often then raise to wake not working when I want it to, is that it works when I don't want it to. So annoying to catch your watch turning on and off out of the corner of your eye while you're talking to someone at a party, and so distracting to the person you're talking to. It's like a huge nerd flag, the watch lighting up when you clearly didn't want it to. Again, I know many folks who won't get one because of this.
So really, Apple should seriously consider eliminating these two problems that are keeping people from buying their watches, and annoying those who do buy them. If you don't like it, you could always turn the option off. Everybody wins.
Raise to Wake: The main reason and the one cited most often is to be able to treat it like a normal watch, which you can glance at without moving your wrist. That's completely obvious and reasonable. In fact, I know quite a few people who don't buy into the Apple Watch because it's silly to have to make a specific gesture just to see the time, and that gesture is always assuming an upright posture. If you're not in exactly the right position and make exactly the right movement, the watch doesn't light up. Some people say it would impact battery life, but two small lines on the OLED display will hardly affect battery life at all.
The better reason, IMO, is to eliminate accidental activations. I find that, more often then raise to wake not working when I want it to, is that it works when I don't want it to. So annoying to catch your watch turning on and off out of the corner of your eye while you're talking to someone at a party, and so distracting to the person you're talking to. It's like a huge nerd flag, the watch lighting up when you clearly didn't want it to. Again, I know many folks who won't get one because of this.
So really, Apple should seriously consider eliminating these two problems that are keeping people from buying their watches, and annoying those who do buy them. If you don't like it, you could always turn the option off. Everybody wins.
There have been several times where I was either carrying something, or holding something like a dog leash or a drink where I wanted to see the time and could see my screen, but couldn't do the raise to wake motion without dropping what I was holding on to. An always on display would be a nice-to-have feature but not a must.
I’m sure Apple is _very_ well aware customers have been requesting an ‘always on display’ and innleast they have been contacted about the suggestion of doing so, but I really don’t think Apple will do it for the engineering aspects because of image retention. That’s really the main consideration why think they will not do it. Is it feasible, absolutely, but I think it is more about avoiding potential hardware issues that they know they may come across.
Now, if Apple implement an always on display for the iPhone now that it supports OLED, then I could see them making the transition to the Apple Watch, and that something to keep watch for. (<—- Pun intended).
Now, if Apple implement an always on display for the iPhone now that it supports OLED, then I could see them making the transition to the Apple Watch, and that something to keep watch for. (<—- Pun intended).