Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

amgff84

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 22, 2019
380
301
Just a quick post here. I have owned an Apple Watch series 2 for a little over 7 months now, and I have been pleased with it as an everyday wearable. I have been so used to wearing it, that when I forgot to charge it one night, I kept looking at my bare wrist all day. It works perfectly with the iPhone! As a former android fan, I had a few different watches. I always felt they were good, just kinda confusing, where the Apple Watch just makes more sense when it comes to the UI design. So I gifted my girlfriend a series 1, which is almost the same as my series 2. I found a near perfect condition rose gold one in 38mm. I gotta say, this made her happy.

Granted, these are older and slower, they seem to do well. I feel a vibration in my phone, wait a second, and there it is on my watch. It generally pushed notifications faster than I can flip my wrist, so it's good. I don't really use many apps on my watch, but I have noticed them to be extremely slow. I assume she will use this watch in a similar manner as me, and don't expect her to have any issues.

Does anyone have any suggestions to extend battery life? I get a solid day of heavy use, but typically put it on the charger at night with over 50% battery. I've been considering taking it off on the evening, and putting back on for bed and was curious is anyone has any suggestions for sleep tracker apps. She has raised interest in this as well, so any suggestions would be appreciated. My final question is, what apps do you use? Basically, I want to get an idea of how you use your watch.
 
I never installed any third party anything on my Watches (Series 3 and 5). They both just have the apps the iPhone has and auto-installed any third party compatible apps that were also on the iPhone. It's actually more than I'd ever use in the first place.

I came from Android as well and owned many Galaxy and Wear OS devices and I never installed much on those either, other than useful ones that were always missing (such as a calculator or voice note app). Apple Watch has a calculator already as of WatchOS 6. I couldn't imagine what I'd even want to use third party that it's not already got.

As for battery life, they're rated for 18 hours at Apple so a day plus is quite good. I always charge mine an hour before bed and use Theatre mode to avoid the screen lighting up and draining it. Also, disable Wifi if you don't need your watch standalone. There's a bit of drain and for me with the Series 5, a handoff issue causing connection issues with bluetooth if you leave it on default. I don't think I'll ever use wifi on my watch. Helps too to not have too many faces or complication-heavy faces stored to switch between--they're always running like apps. I noticed when I switched between the 10-12 I made that they were showing active data in the previews. I knocked it down to three and kept them minimal.

My favorite sleep tracker app is AutoSleep.
 
I never installed any third party anything on my Watches (Series 3 and 5). They both just have the apps the iPhone has and auto-installed any third party compatible apps that were also on the iPhone. It's actually more than I'd ever use in the first place.

I came from Android as well and owned many Galaxy and Wear OS devices and I never installed much on those either, other than useful ones that were always missing (such as a calculator or voice note app). Apple Watch has a calculator already as of WatchOS 6. I couldn't imagine what I'd even want to use third party that it's not already got.

As for battery life, they're rated for 18 hours at Apple so a day plus is quite good. I always charge mine an hour before bed and use Theatre mode to avoid the screen lighting up and draining it. Also, disable Wifi if you don't need your watch standalone. There's a bit of drain and for me with the Series 5, a handoff issue causing connection issues with bluetooth if you leave it on default. I don't think I'll ever use wifi on my watch. Helps too to not have too many faces or complication-heavy faces stored to switch between--they're always running like apps. I noticed when I switched between the 10-12 I made that they were showing active data in the previews. I knocked it down to three and kept them minimal.

My favorite sleep tracker app is AutoSleep.

Thank you for the suggestions. I am checking those out now. Happy Holidays!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.