Apple Watch Series 11's Increased 24-Hour Battery Life Has a Catch

[alongdingdong]

So the S11 battery lasts longer when you DO include sleep tracking?

sleep tracking puts the watch basically in battery saving mode, it turns off stuff only a few things remain actively tracking your sleep. So its misleading, because it basically includes a "lower" battery consuming mode in the total number.


Yes factual you have more battery but the way you get it is less then practical, and you end up recharging the watch halfway the morning the following day.

 

[ultratiem]

Annnd welcome to Cook’s Apple. Faked feature promos and demos. Empty promises. Sycophantic support for the Trump administration (and that god awful glass plaque they gifted him). And peculiar design decisions across the board in both hardware and software. Also, price hikes. Lots of those.

Well, they barely made a decade without Jobs. In another ten they’ll be on par with MS.

 

[kirky29]

My S7 lasts more than 24hrs with sleep tracking and at least one workout session a day. I do blank the screen at night with theater mode thought that is mainly to prevent the light from shining in my eyes in bed.

Impressive, maybe theres something running on mine making it worse than it should be. Sadly I don't think the Apple Watch has a battery monitor in settings, does it?

 

[GioGiusi]

You barely using it then, because many many many many people will easily debunk you, that with normal use and some excessive tracking it will not last you full two days.

Tired of the twisting of truths, misforming and just straight up lying. Like most after 24 hours with sleep tracking and a few exercise tracking your AW10 is under 30%

i really despise people telling ********.

Just stop talking if this is how you're going to act. There are people all over this thread saying the same thing. It routinely runs multiple days on a single charge. We're not running the workout app for 5 hours continuously. That doesn't count as barely using it.

 

[jecowa]

A problem with using sleep tracking in battery testing is that sleep tracking does not work when the battery’s charge is under 30%.

 

[nutmac]

The workout estimate is also increased from 7 to 8 hours. So I think the improvement is some combination of health sensor (heart rate), slight increase in battery life (weight is slightly higher across all configurations), and some energy use optimization.

 

[Séamus Boyle]

You barely using it then, because many many many many people will easily debunk you, that with normal use and some excessive tracking it will not last you full two days.

Tired of the twisting of truths, misforming and just straight up lying. Like most after 24 hours with sleep tracking and a few exercise tracking your AW10 is under 30%

i really despise people telling ********.

I use my watch for stress measurement and heart rate, decibels measurement. Sleep tracking also and everything on except for the display. I have it wake up on wrist raise. I also have background refresh on and 2 walking workouts a day. I just got 44 hours out of it before it finally hit zero. What you say or think about what I’m getting in terms of battery life is irrelevant to me. You wanna come to NYC and spend 44 hours with me to see how it lasts?

 

[jecowa]

Do you have the always-on display and raise-to-wake features disabled? Display uses up lots of battery.

 

[applevisionpro]

dude this is too complicated to understand for the average internet user! /s

 

[bmark]

My Apple Watch 5 still works well! There is no new features that make this a must upgrade.

 

[macduke]

This is the logic:

Series 10 is dead after the 18 hours test;

Series 11, after the 18 hours test, has approximately 5-10% of battery left, which is enough for 6 hours of sleep tracking or, probably, a couple of hours of normal usage.

Yeah, and after a year or so, it won’t even be able to do sleep tracking without a charge as the battery depletes. Especially if people are running it down to 0 every single night with tracking.

 

[jayhawk1941]

This makes no sense. Check your logic before posting.

The Series 11 is doing more work than the 10 (which gets to slack off with no sleep tracking), yet still manages to go 6 hours longer. If anything, this suggests the 11 is even more improved than stated.

This is what I'm not understanding...

Apple Watch Series 10 rated at 18 hours of battery and tests did NOT include sleep tracking
Apple Watch Series 11 rated at 24 hours of battery and tests DID include sleep tracking

This doesn't track with the article's logic - the added sleep tracking should have a negative effect on battery life, not a positive. This article makes no sense.

 

[jayhawk1941]

So the S11 battery lasts longer when you DO include sleep tracking?

Right? This article make zero sense.

 

[jayhawk1941]

Are you trolling? It makes perfect sense, check your insults at the door.

The series 11 test is a longer window that includes a low power activity naturally leading to a longer tested battery life. The chip is the same as the 10.

I agree with them though. I'm having a hard time seeing the logic...an added test should not add more to the battery life. Genuinely, I don't understand how they came up with a longer battery life from an added test unless the battery is physically larger.

 

[imola.zhp]

Wait, hold the phone...

They included sleep time in the figure? Because they think people will sleep within a 24 hour period?

Has someone alerted the press to this?

*rolls eyes*

 

[macduke]

What’s funny is this is a main new feature. Aside from a more scratch resistant glass and a 5G option on cellular models, the sleep score and hypertension are coming to older models. Sounds like Apple fudged this because they really didn’t have much new to show. Apple Watch seems to be stagnating. Makes me wonder if some new health tracking feature like glucose monitoring fell through. I’ll be interested to see the tear down.

 

[Weasel13]

Well, the obvious answer is I need to buy two watches and alternate.

 

[jecowa]

Well, the obvious answer is I need to buy two watches and alternate.

This is a supported feature. You can have two watches paired and switch between them using the watch app.

 

[shenfrey]

W*t*f will upgrade from AW10 to AW11?

Anybody who wants a better watch.

 

[t0rqx]

Sticking with my series 9 (which I bought on launch) because I’ve not seen any meaningful upgrades to warrant the cost. I’ll give credit to Apple for not locking the hypertension measurement to only the 11 — it was the only thing that had my finger hovering over the pre-order button.

The S11 is the S9, just in a new shell. Actually its an S6.

 

[imamacperson]

Apple could you just be honest? Is that too much to ask?

 

[novagamer]

A problem with using sleep tracking in battery testing is that sleep tracking does not work when the battery’s charge is under 30%.

This is not true, it will tell you to charge before bed if it's lower than that but it will still track the data and use all the sensors until it dies.

 

[QCassidy352]

It's not devious or illegal to change battery life measuring methodology as long as they are clear about it, which it appears they were. I mean, in a 24 hour period, it makes total sense to include some sleep time so that's probably why they changed it. Until the Series 11, the Watch probably didn't have enough battery life to include that minimum 6 hour sleep time to make it to 24 hours.

The new methodology is totally fair and may well be better, but the part that’s devious is that they haven’t updated the S10 or earlier with the same methodology. So when you use their comparison tool to put S10 next to S11, it says 18 hours for the 10 and 24 for the 11, but that’s a meaningless comparison without a consistent methodology.

Still, an 11% larger battery (42mm model, which is my favorite) isn’t nothing.

 

[CloudChief]

That means they’re assuming the screen is off and notifications/haptics are disabled for 6 hours, right?

 

[subjonas]

The new methodology is totally fair and may well be better, but the part that’s devious is that they haven’t updated the S10 or earlier with the same methodology. So when you use their comparison tool to put S10 next to S11, it says 18 hours for the 10 and 24 for the 11, but that’s a meaningless comparison without a consistent methodology.

Still, an 11% larger battery (42mm model, which is my favorite) isn’t nothing.

Well as I mentioned, the new method probably doesn't apply to the 10 because Apple probably (barely) doesn't consider it to have enough battery life to include sleep time, so it can't be updated to the new method.

I agree though that the compare tool should ideally be clearer about the different meaning of the numbers. But I wouldn't go so far as to say it's devious because it's likely not motivated by deceit. Apple likely just didn't want to write out the explanation directly in the comparison since it takes more than a few words and the compare tool is meant to be a visually quick and easy way to compare, so they opted for putting it in the small print, which people technically should be reading (even though many don't). Hopefully the very similar low power mode comparison numbers (38 vs 36 hours) directly underneath will give people more reason to check the small print.