Apple Watch Battery to Support Five Hours of Heavy Usage, Will Last All Day With Mixed Use

[FieldingMellish]

Do you know how weighty that watch is gong to be on your wrist all day? It's humongous.

 

[the8thark]

We wil get the answers at the Apple keynote. I will wait till then for official confirmation of the watch specs. I'm not going to blindly accept other rumour sites rumours about this like others have here.

And we will have to see how long it lasts with average usage patterns before it needs a charge.

 

[spectrumfox]

Please go post them on the Droid forums so that later, when Apple Watch breaks sales records, you can all get together and lament all us "sheep" while discussing how much the new Samsung 6 looks like an iPhone ripoff.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they're still having fun on the Droid boards about how much the iPhone 6+ copied the Galaxy Note.

That one won't get old for a long, long time.

 

[mdelvecchio]

charging every night? How will it track my sleep data?

Sleep tracking is half the reason I would want this thing.

they did not announce sleep tracking.

 

[bunnicula]

In fairness, there are an awful lot of folks being overly-dramatic about the battery situation as well. Despite rumors and claims made by Cook, they're convinced that everyone will be taking the watch off every 16 minutes to charge it and are attacking anyone for wanting to purchase one.

It is a two-way street. Neither camp are right.

I think it's one of those things that nobody will know until they use one.

I felt the same way about the first iPhone and the first iPad.

I've come to use these devices regularly for many years now.

I cannot say that this will be the case with the Apple Watch. I might buy the first gen and decide I really don't want to buy another one.

Who knows?

This could be a Newton for Apple or it could be another iPhone.

I cannot see the value in lauding it or bashing it at this juncture.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

there are many reasons why you would want a watch to have multi-day or longer power reserves, above and beyond a smartphone. (though, we'd love those to be longer powered too).


its hard to explain in less than a thousand words, but if you don't wear a watch, it might be hard to conceptualize.

a post i made elsewhere:



this is just one situation where having less than a day battery life would suck. there are many others, including people stuck in airports, travelling, going out to the woods.

not necessarily places you need, or expect a phone to constantly be on and working, but you might want or need to at least be able to tell the time.

The power reserve mode can be manually activated as needed. Problem solved.

 

[nagromme]

charging every night? How will it track my sleep data?

Sleep tracking is half the reason I would want this thing.

If it charges fairly rapidly (we don't yet know) then sleep-tracking folks would simply have to choose some OTHER chunk of time to devote to charging. Maybe they'd charge for 2 hours when they get home from work, or something. (I bet a LOT of people will take their watch of while at home anyway, leaving several solid hours of downtime each night before sleeping.)

As for me, anything I would wear while trying to sleep would have to be WAY smaller than any watch.

 

[mdelvecchio]

Why would you take any notice of what the person trying to sell you something tells you anyway?

because thats the first source of information for anything being sold -- what the company selling it specs it at. do you read info from auto manufacturers when selecting a new car?

 

[GLS]

I'm not surprised. it took Apple until the iPhone 6 Plus to upgrade the battery to a decent 2,915 mAh which still is horrible compared to the 3,200mAh on the Galaxy Note 4 and 3,000mAh on LG G3...etc. Android wear smartwatches come with 300-400 mAh and last up to 2-3 days depending on usage. My ASUS Zenwatch lasts 3 days. My Michael Bastian Cronowing smartwatch lasts up a week and a half long of battery life. 5 hours of battery life on heavy usage is what 80% of users will using. With the newly announced LG Watch Urbane with 300 mAh and Huawei Watch with 400 mAh, they will truly outshine Apple watch as Android smartphones have performed circles on iPhones since 2010 and will continue to do so unless Apple wakes up and actually innovates.

Apple is clearly doomed.

 

[bunnicula]

Actually, I'm pretty sure they're still having fun on the Droid boards about how much the iPhone 6+ copied the Galaxy Note.

That won't get old for a long time.

Aside from the size, I'm not seeing any similarities. I mean, they're both smart phones... but, duh.

 

[mdelvecchio]

Really doesn't sound appealing to me. Watch face going amber then red to constantly remind me how crap the battery is. Lovely.

so youve used one? you can attest to how often this happens, yes?

oh. no, you havent. nevermind.

 

[spectrumfox]

Aside from the size, I'm not seeing any similarities. I mean, they're both smart phones... but, duh.

The size is the whole point of the device! ;D

Apple would have never made bigger iPhone's without Samsung's success with the Note line. Samsung's phablets directly influenced the iPhone 6+.

 

[mdelvecchio]

because watches have an entirely different usage scenario than your phone or ipad.

yes, and for the watch its not expected that youll use it actively for 5 hours a day. youve answered your own question -- 5 hours is adequate because it has an entirely different usage scenario than your phone or ipad.

 

[unplugme71]

will this thing shoot lasers?

 

[richardmu]

charging every night? How will it track my sleep data?

Sleep tracking is half the reason I would want this thing.

I can't believe anyone wants to track their 'sleep data'. Bizarre!!

 

[Tiltasauras]

Wtf

Sorry, but for $350 I don't want to have to keep taking it off my wrist during the day just to charge it. That's ridiculous.

Clearly you're not grasping what this article is saying. 5 hours of use. That's USING it. Not it sitting on your wrist with a black screen (which is what it will do for most of the day). That's 300 minutes of use per day. Let's say you only sleep 4 hours a night. That's 15 minutes of use per hour. So, in order to run your battery down before going to sleep, you'd have to be playing with your watch 25% of the time ALL DAY LONG.

Jesus people, smart'n up. You will not need to charge it mid-day.

 

[gnasher729]

This is what Apple marketing is up against. People who think 2915 is horrible compared to 3000. Or that 80% of people will fiddle with their watch for 5 hours a day. No wonder they're just sticking the thing on the wrists of pretty chicks.

They are probably people who _would_ be fiddling with their watch 5 hours every day

 

[ChazUK]

I charge my GWatch every two days and normally have a little to spare once into a third day (but wouldn't risk pushing three days).

This was on a device which (at review times) had issues like this:

Until Google can find a way to extend the battery life by a few days, Android Wear will struggle to be anything more than a niche product.

Engadget

...it's got enough battery life to last you through your day...

Gizmodo.

And for their bulk, both watches' battery lives should be better. They had to be charged at least once a day in proprietary charging cradles.

WSJ

I have no doubt that over time, once the "new and shiny" phase of owning your new watches has passed, you'll be getting better battery life than most reviewers will using it in normal usage situations.

When I first got it, I would have agreed that the battery life was a one-day affair but now it fits into my phone/notification usage far better I'm getting more respectable performance from the battery.

I'm still using it for regular searches, music controls, as a remote control (Plex/Netflix), notifications and responses, voice replies, Google Fit/Sony Lifelog, reminders and (gasp) to tell the time!

I can see the watch improving over time judging what I've been able to squeeze from my own watch.

 

[thefourthpope]

So now people that want to use their watch for more than 5 hours a day have no life?

Wow, the excuses people come up with here for substandard battery life is amazing. Anything for Apple.

I agree, that's a ridiculous way to frame the debate, particularly on a tech site.

For my part, this battery prediction sounds good. I don't see myself using the heavy watch features that much on a normal day. It's not because I "have a life" (I def use my iphone that much) but because I have an iPhone. The watch seems like a quick look option for meetings, texts, checking/deleting new emails, Siri, or running iTunes. Doesn't seem like five hours' worth. Anything that long is happening on an iPhone, iPad, or real computer.

 

[keysofanxiety]

What an absolute crock - a joke of a battery life. Amazes me how many people here are defending this, especially if you compare it to some older comments about the competition's battery life …*

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/0...y-gear-smart-watch-with-one-day-battery-life/

 

[LordVic]

The power reserve mode can be manually activated as needed. Problem solved.

when I wrote that post originally the Powersaving mode hadn't been announced.

as we get more information, and the battery life report is getting longer than originally rumoured, my opinion on tthe battery life has been settled down a bit.

i still think 1 day isn't enough. but if it in real world usage is more like 2-3 days, then for a Gen1 product, its acceptable.

 

[thefourthpope]

I can't believe anyone wants to track their 'sleep data'. Bizarre!!

I wonder how that would even work. Wouldn't the touch screen get activated whenever you roll over or fidget?

 

[samcraig]

How long will it take to charge? How come that hasn't leaked?

FYI - I have pretty decent usage (lots of alerts - but not using it for navigation or exercise) on my LG G watch. Unhooked from the charger this morning at 6am EST - it's now 3:32 pm EST and I have 72% battery left.

I would imagine the Apple watch would be comparable. But no doubt it will be hard for many people to truly assess their battery life for a few weeks until the desire to just keep playing with it dies down.

 

[thefourthpope]

will this thing shoot lasers?

Yeah, but only for 75 minutes at full strength. Piece. Of. Sh**.

 

[randymac09]

I love it how more and more people are jumping on the Apple defense bandwagon of "If you're using your new product longer than the battery lasts, then you have no life and there is something wrong with you."

This is pure gold happening right here. Gonna take some screenshots.

Although I can appreciate the humor in some of the comments you reference, I don't think they're totally misguided.

It's not that using new product for 5 hours is the issue, they're commenting on using a watch for 5 hours as the issue. Looking at the screen for 5 hours a day would be tough for anyone to do, even if they were trying to prove a point. It's just a small surface to look at. It's different than an iPad, iPhone or MacBook. If a new MacBook Air only had 5 hours batter life and the same comment was made, I would be on your side. But making the comment about heavily using a watch for 5 hours as being too much, that's not a totally ridiculous statement. That's a tough thing to do.

I have 10 watches, one of which is a Pebble. My Pebble I charge 2 times a month. Because when I wear it, I probably look at the screen for a total of 30 minutes a day, give or take. Yes, the Apple Watch will do more, but I don't see it doing 4 and a half hours worth more. I like my Pebble cause it send me notifications. If I only looked at my iPhone to glance at notifications throughout the day, I wouldn't even use that for 5 hours.

Again, the context of the statement is justified, even if some of the commenters take it a bit far. 5 hours of using a screen 42mm in size is a good amount for anyone.