Apple Watch Gets Slow Charger Warnings in watchOS 26

[polyphenol]

According to a new Apple support document, if your Apple Watch detects a charging experience that could be improved, a Slow Charger message will be displayed in the Battery section of the Settings app. Instances of slow charging are shown in orange, while fast charging speeds are displayed in green.

It all hangs on the meaning of "improved", doesn't it?

If they can detect the charging speed, why not display a number? Or some other visual representation of speed beyond slow/fast.

Even allow me to choose? Fast if needed, slow if in no hurry, such as overnight or some other reason it doesn't matter.

 

[svish]

Good to know. Charging speed on my Series 10 is very good. Few minutes and the charge increases considerably.

 

[kiranmk2]

Time to buy stock in Anker ...

This feature is coming to the iPhone for sure.

And millions if not 100s of millions of people will suddenly realize their $3 chinese knock-off charger is no good...

I am an absolute fan of the best chargers, and I am always amazed what kind of super [bad] chargers people use for their $1500 devices... not all but a good 90% cheap out on chargers.

If we suddenly have this warning on a billion iPhones, charger sales will go through the roof.

A lot of cheap Chinese chargers will have a USB Power Delivery chip and so will be able to fast charge just fine. Whether they will last longer than a year and be safe to use (overheating, sparking, poor grounding, general build quality) is another matter...

 

[Powerbooky]

Time to buy stock in Anker .....

Anker isn't that good, except for frying an egg. Most chargers are not great. We had a low power Belkin wall charger, its ports burned out within 2 months after just a few times charging an iPad. I also have desk charger with more ports from RAVpower, a model that isn't availabe anymore, that one still works and doesn't get insanely hot even when charging a Macbook. But newer models have failed/burned out after 6-10 months. You have to be lucky.

 

[tomtad]

And the time it will take to get to 80%?

 

[torakaru]

Slow charging should not harm the battery, quite the opposite, right? (no matter how little it is)

It also feels a bit FOMO to me; personally I think Apple should tweak the message so it doesn’t come across as a danger warning but rather as advice: “If you want, you can charge at higher power without worry.”

 

[NazgulRR]

for me, the night that my U2 charges, I wear my S7 for sleep tracking

You’re missing out on sleep apnea monitoring, which is on S9+ / U2+

 

[whelmedjedi]

So apple is now promoting faster battery wearing.

 

[GtrDude]

This is ridiculous.
One way to push people who don't know any better to get another charger.

 

[MrRom92]

I basically only use the slow USB-A charger because I worry about battery degradation. However, after just 1 year, my battery health is at 93% already on my S10.😢

My s7 is already at 79% so considering it is almost only ever on the slow charger, I am not convinced this helps preserve battery health. In fact it may actually be harming it (charging longer = becoming hot for a longer period of time?)

 

[polyphenol]

A lot of cheap Chinese chargers will have a USB Power Delivery chip and so will be able to fast charge just fine. Whether they will last longer than a year and be safe to use (overheating, sparking, poor grounding, general build quality) is another matter...

Other than genuine Apple products, both the best and the worst chargers I've got are medium to low price Chinese.

One of the worst was a decent branded product - though I cannot remember the make. Went from working, to intermittent, to utterly failed in a few weeks. And a distinct burning smell though no smoke.

 

[xpxp2002]

I'm surprised at all the negative feedback on this. Personally, I like being able to finally know which of my watch chargers are capable of fast charging. With iPhone and iPad, you can get that info through apps like Coconut Battery and iMazing, and the Mac actually puts it in System Information (charger wattage). There was no way to know on the watch whether you were actually taking advantage of fast charging until now.

 

[Howard2k]

I'm not sure why there are complaints about Apple showing charging speed. I think the extra information is useful. I have a charger and I was pretty sure it was a slow charger but not 100%. Sure enough, now I know.