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Apple Watch Battery Life Currently 'About a Day', but May Improve for 2015 Launch

Moto 360 vs Apple watch

Glass cover!
Apple Watch: Sapphire glass
Moto 360: Gorilla glass

Display!
Apple Watch: Retina
Moto 360: 320x290, no retina

Protection:
Apple watch: ceramic cover, sensors protected by Sapphire glass
Moto 360: stainless cover, sensors not protected

Variations:
Apple Watch: two sizes, various materials like "aluminum", "stainless steel" and Gold,
the watch wristbands can be changed !
Moto 360: one size, two colors ! 

Battery life:
Moto 360: One da
Apple Watch ???

Operating system!
Apple Watch: iOS
Moto 360: Android Wear

moto-360-backside.jpg

Bildschirmfoto%202014-09-10%20um%2018.53.49.png
 
i was thinking about buying one, but i think ill just wait and snatch one of those magnetic bands off someones wrist

/s
 
512ke said:
Battery life declines over time.

A $350 plus watch should last at least five years.

If you can't change the $&@& battery I personally am not buying.
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Five years may be unreasonable for a computing product: this is not a mere "watch" in the old sense any more than an iPhone is a "phone" in the old sense, and it's a 1st-gen at that. But I 100% agree: life cycle decline MUST be considered when you judge the numbers.

Luckily, even the old low-end iPods had replaceable batteries, and every Apple device since as well, so I'm sure the Apple Watch will be no exception. I believe Apple doesn't charge for labor on the swap, either.

(And third parties can step up--but that is NOT labor I want to do myself!)

At first I'd have said that the expensive jewelry-style Apple Watch models should be avoided, because it's a tech product that you'll WANT to replace in a few years. But people buying on that high end probably don't care about a battery-swap fee anyway. Keep it or don't--that second battery will cost a fraction of a high-end Apple Watch.

gnasher729 said:
16 hours is getting close. But I'd want to be able to read a good book, look at my watch, say "damn this is late, time to go to bed".
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Agreed--and more time than that to allow for life cycle decline. (Because having the battery changed should not be a necessity in a year.)

cjcampbell said:
Like most fitness wearables, it promises to measure the quality of your sleep.

...

it can barely tolerate a light sprinkle or washing your hands. So -- no running in heavy rain.
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Where did Apple state this was for tracking sleep? And where did they state you can't wash your hands or wear it when it rains?
 
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Will the battery last longer if I only use it as a calculator? Does it include a calculator with RPN?
 

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One day? Well, thats not a big surprise and maybe okay.

The bigger problem might be that sooner or later we will all run out of available plug sockets over night. I mean there's a lot that needs to be charged these days. I recently stopped counting all our laptops, smart phones and iPads. And now the watches too? :D
 
melendezest said:
I don't care for its appearance either.

I'd prefer something more like this:
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That's why something like that exists. *shrug*

P.S. I get what you're saying, but it seems purely rhetorical... I don't know what discussion can be had around it other than, ".... okay."
 
I'm a watch collector and fanatic. All my watches come off at night, and my most-used automatics go into a winder. I track my sleep with my tethered iPhone placed on the corner of the bed.

There will be zero issues charging it every night.
 
kreasonos said:
I completely agree. If the AppleWatch would have been a stand-alone device it would have been a game changer. I'd love an AppleWatch that I could use without having to bring along my iphone. That's really the philosophy that wearables need to be successful.
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The problem is that in order for Apple to stick an actual phone inside would make it bigger, more expensive, heavier and not have as good battery life. I think Apple opted for making it a better health/activity monitor than a smartphone watch.

If you use the Gear S, you need to sync the activity/health data to a Samsung phone.

I look at this smart watch category as STILL in it's infancy. Look at how many years it's taken for these companies to nail down the smartphone product. It's taken Apple about 7 years to get to the level they are at and they still have room for improvement. It's getting closer to a perfect smartphone, but I think in 3 years or so, they'll be vastly better and the Smartwatch category is still too new.

I think Apple will sell a bunch of these things, but I'm not sure if they are going to fly off the shelves like they think.

Does anyone know how much the 18K Gold version is with the most expensive watch band? I know some people spend thousands on watches, but that's not the bulk of the market. Time will tell. (no pun intended.)
 
RDeckard said:
Yes, white iPhone 4 happened with Steve around, but remember that Apple didn't start shipping it until they were happy with the final product. History says that Apple will generally rather release a product when they think it's ready -- and not release it half-baked just so they can say "well we shipped it when we first said we would."
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Fact is Apple watch is not for sale and Cook said nothing more than coming in 2015. He didn't give a specific date. So he hasn't released a half baked product.
 
You know what they should have done? Given the device needs an iPhone to work as a matter of course, they ought to have simply released a tracker with 'taptic' feedback like a ring. This was mentioned a while back by Craig Hockenberry in a blog post.

If Apple had released a ring that you could wear that'd give you these 'intimate taps' for navigation, vibrate when you need to get up each hour, log your steps, barometric pressure and pulse and send it to HealthKit to view on the iPhone, I'd be all over it. Think of it. It'd be so unobtrusive that anyone could wear it, and it'd be virtually invisible. Maybe add one LED like the ones that show power on Macbooks under the surface of the aluminum.

Make it 100 bucks and give it battery life of a few days (thanks to no retina screen to drive) and it'd sell millions.
 
I'll wait for the apple watch 2 with battery that will last for 2 days

I see myself buying this one day but I don't want to worry about this thing dying on me during the day


Like ALL first gen hardware from Apple, I'll let the impatient beta testers try it out for an year and I'll get the vastly superior second generation apple watch
 
IJ Reilly said:
Insert unreasonable expectations here: _________________
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Not unreasonable expectations, but reasonable needs.

Apple isn't just competing against other smart-watches - that's still a very small market - but also against the traditional watch. And people are accustomed to watches that last for months without charging/replacement or are self-charging (i.e. kinetic), it's a big step backwards to a watch that'll switch off if you don't charge it every single night. There was a similar effect when moving to smart-phones, but less extreme (moving from maybe 1 week of typical battery life to 1-2 days).

I'll still end up buying one, and about 3-4 straps (guess where Apple will make their money!), as I'm a sucker for a well designed device.
 
nagromme said:
"Only a day" for some of those Android attempts means "8 to 12 hours." That's LESS than a day, and well worth bashing.

I will join everyone else in bashing Apple's failure too, if they are in that time range come release. But I predict otherwise, or Apple would have held off even longer. Two historical Apple patterns: a) UNDERstating real-world battery life (no Samsung-style rigged benchmarks) and b) canceling or delaying a product in the labs if something about it means it can only be bad with current tech.
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While I agree that we'll need to see how well the battery performance is, come launch, I tend to think that Apple hasn't figured this out and it's still LESS than a day.

Otherwise, why wouldn't Apple be already touting the battery life? IMHO, Apple decided to announce the Apple Watch this week in part to hold off the competition. It was (partly) a defensive maneuver and they are hoping the announcement will keep folks from buying competitor smart watches this holiday season.

If this were the case (which I think it is), it would be logical for Apple to mention that it's battery life is better than the competition so far, to further differentiate the Apple Watch and further convince potential buyers to wait until 2015 instead of springing for an Moto 360, Samsung Gear, etc.
 
kemal said:
Will the battery last longer if I only use it as a calculator? Does it include a calculator with RPN?
Click to expand...

How many of the HP watches did they sell and how many people actually used the damn thing? From my memory, it wasn't a big seller like the Casio, which only had basic functionality. I think if someone is going to use the more advanced functionality, they'll need a bigger screen. Just a hunch.
 
Rogifan said:
Why isn't the Moto Almost 360 strap a battery? That supposedly is a better designed watch than Apple watch.
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Indeed yes.

The only reason I can think of right now is the tech is not quite there for mass production.

As for those who wish a leather strap, well that's choice.
The strap can just be MORE battery.

Leather strap, you have to make do with the battery in the device, which needs to be thicker to hold the battery and last a day.

Metal / Composite strap that holds the batter, a thinner watch and perhaps 2 days.

The customer is free to select what's more important for them personally.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/04/watch-band-batteries/

http://www.smartwatchnews.org/apple-iwatch-curved-flexible-battery-patent/

Wait and see. This to me is such a No Brainer, Space with these devices is at a premium, and right now we are wasting a LOT of space on a useless strap.
 
Trapezoid said:
Do any smartwatches last longer than a day? Just want to see if they're comparable to the apple watch if they exist
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Yes. The Apple has the shortest battery life of any 'wearable.' By far.

If you want a fitness watch, the Polar FT80 has a battery life of about a year. It is also $30 cheaper.
 
natd1993 said:
Rushing a product to market with problems or holding off and getting it right is something that distinguishes the CEO's Tim Cook and Steve Jobs respectively.
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To be fair the iPhone does not have the best battery life either..
 
Has screen resolution been announced yet?

cjcampbell said:
it can barely tolerate a light sprinkle or washing your hands
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The other article said it was water resistant, fine in the rain or for washing hands but not for swimming or taking a shower. That definitely would be something to improve in future models, are there any fully featured smart watches (specifically with speaker and mic) that are fully waterproof?
 
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