Apple watch 3 weak battery life. Is it worth it?

[GoFlex]

So we still don't have an answer on the standby time on LTE if you go out for the day and forget your iPhone and all you do is get a few texts emails etc. I certainly hope that is more then 4-5 hours or its a huge deal breaker. i don't care about GPS or phone calls for the most part.

Can we buy battery powered chargers from Apple Watches? That could be a way around this.

EDIT: Could buy this product: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-Charger-Magnetic-Charging-Certified-silver/dp/B01LX2SKMX

 

[michaelb5000]

Hopefully, LTE use could be software controlled, now or in a future release, to increase standby time, similar to turning off push notifications on a phone to increase battery life. If the watch could only use LTE when being used for an LTE required app (so not checking time) and then only check for notifications in the background periodically, so every 15-30 minutes, it seems like that could dramatically increase the standby time.

I could definitely see someone leaving their phone in their car or on the beach, and then going out kayaking or paddle boarding for a few hours; coming back with a dead watch when not using it seems like a problem.

 

[GoFlex]

Hopefully, LTE use could be software controlled, now or in a future release, to increase standby time, similar to turning off push notifications on a phone to increase battery life. If the watch could only use LTE when being used for an LTE required app (so not checking time) and then only check for notifications in the background periodically, so every 15-30 minutes, it seems like that could dramatically increase the standby time.

I could definitely see someone leaving their phone in their car or on the beach, and then going out kayaking or paddle boarding for a few hours; coming back with a dead watch when not using it seems like a problem.

That's a great idea!! Might be something Apple implement with a new software if it's not a hardware change hopefully.

 

[Vermifuge]

So we still don't have an answer on the standby time on LTE if you go out for the day and forget your iPhone and all you do is get a few texts emails etc. I certainly hope that is more then 4-5 hours or its a huge deal breaker. i don't care about GPS or phone calls for the most part.

Thats one part that's not adding up.

• Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) usage includes a total of 4 hours of LTE connection and 14 hours of connection to iPhone via Bluetooth over the course of 18 hours.

How is that different from 8 + 10 or just 18 hours LTE standby for that matter?

 

[GoFlex]

Thats one part that's not adding up.

• Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) usage includes a total of 4 hours of LTE connection and 14 hours of connection to iPhone via Bluetooth over the course of 18 hours.

How is that different from 8 + 10 or just 18 hours LTE standby for that matter?

I think LTE would mean refreshing notifications all the time using 4G so would take up battery where as iPhone + Bluetooth would just mean the Apple Watch is refreshing when iPhone is sending data surely.

 

[Vermifuge]

Can we buy battery powered chargers from Apple Watches? That could be a way around this.

EDIT: Could buy this product: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-Charger-Magnetic-Charging-Certified-silver/dp/B01LX2SKMX

sort of curious how they skipped the option of adding a larger battery to the AirPods case letting you top off your charge from the case
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I think LTE would mean refreshing notifications all the time using 4G so would take up battery where as iPhone + Bluetooth would just mean the Apple Watch is refreshing when iPhone is sending data surely.

it would still be a 1:1 swap.....

 

[Lioness~]

Can we buy battery powered chargers from Apple Watches? That could be a way around this.

EDIT: Could buy this product: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-Charger-Magnetic-Charging-Certified-silver/dp/B01LX2SKMX

2017 and to have battery enough for your AW you need to buy a battery charger to have with you.
That's the problem with AW in a nutshell. Too bad battery for usage.

A new type of people "batteryjunkies" are invented. Looking for a quick-fix for their watch everywhere.

That's why I never will buy this 'qualified ****' until they promise at least 3 days battery for most usage.
Then I'll check it out again.
There's other watches for my needs.

 

[GoFlex]

sort of curious how they skipped the option of adding a larger battery to the AirPods case letting you top off your charge from the case
[doublepost=1505424699][/doublepost]

it would still be a 1:1 swap.....

Yeah but one is through Bluetooth (less draining for Watch) and one is through LTE (more draining for Watch).

 

[Vermifuge]

Yeah but one is through Bluetooth (less draining for Watch) and one is through LTE (more draining for Watch).

18 hours all day or 4 hours of LTE + 14 hours Bluetooth... that is still 18 hours.... 18 hours is 18 hours. the math does not add up. If what you are saying is correct it would have been.... (for example) 4 hours LTE + 13.5 Bluetooth. or something like that...

 

[Sgt93]

One reason why I love my Garmin Fenix 3hr is because of the battery life. Going a week without recharging is great. I sure would love the ability to take a call while exercising and lose carrying my phone though. Very tempting.

 

[redman042]

Sounds like there's a lot left to learn about Series 3 battery life in different usage scenarios that we just won't know until the reviews hit.

I don't think we can tell at all from Apple's battery life information just how long the Watch battery will last with music being streamed over LTE. In that scenario, LTE is actively pulling a significant amount of data from the network. The radio is not in standby. One would think that active LTE data use would be a similar power demand to a voice phone call. If LTE voice drains the battery in 1 hour, that's not good at all. It's borderline useless.

However, music streaming has some differences compared to voice calls. It's almost all download. Voice calls are multiplex (two-way). But voice call data can be compressed a lot. Music listeners won't tolerate the same amount of compression. And compression uses CPU cycles (and hence power) too.

I did just read that the cellular watches come with 16 GB of RAM instead of 8. One solution Apple could employ is to use a lower-quality music stream (higher compression, lower bitrate), get a few hours of music into the onboard RAM as quickly as possible, then put the LTE radio back on standby for as long as possible. That could really help. Though if the listener likes to jump around between playlists and stations, it would offset that benefit.

I'm guessing Apple's solution is just that, and believe that streaming use will be manageable, on the order of maybe 4-5 hours. Add in heavy use of the GPS or heart rate monitor, and that time will drop.

If you are heavy into fitness activities, want to stream music on your watch, and like to leave your phone at home, get a few extra charging pucks.