In my experience an ultra always lasts a day, always… unless you do over 12+ hours of gps use like on a day hike you are tracking or a full length Ironman. I’m sure using it as a cellphone for a lengthy time would also kill it. But “normal” watch use? A busy day kills around 50% at most for me.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Watch Series 11's Increased 24-Hour Battery Life Has a Catch
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Battery life depends on many factors: Which apps you are using, the number of notifications, screen brightness, how often you wake up the display, temperature, etc.
I hear you, but the headline number from the keynote and the website is 24 hours, when it’s been 18 for the last ten years. The obvious implication, and the one that I took away, was that battery life was up 33%, which it isn’t. There’s no way they didn’t know people would see it that way, and that’s why I’m sticking with devious.
Stuff like this is why I really dislike Apple not just giving full tech specs. I don't care if the advertising says 24 hours battery life or 40% faster, but somewhere on the website it should be required to give battery mAh and other things that are easily comparable to other phones/devices. Nobody would put up with "now with 25% more storage capacity" without a phone maker actually spelling out what the capacity is in gb/tb.
well giving the battery capacity would still not give an apples to apples comparison because things like the 5G modem, the ultra getting LTO3, etc. could be argued to provide a lower or higher rate of battery usage so a smaller battery could get more battery life or a larger battery could get less. apple does provide very, very detailed (far more than garmin or competitors) information of how they determined the battery life in the fine print at the bottom of the specs page, but yes... you have to go looking for it. if you just look at 18 to 24 hours it might feel like a true 33% in battery gain year over year but it absolutely is not when you look at how they tested (which is there... in teeny tiny print.)
I don’t this is much of an issue. I don’t think anyone expects to be awake 24 hours of the day. Even if it’s just a little extra to support sleep tracking I’d still count it as 24 hours’ use time.
Everything default with hardly any notifications. Even turned off those mindfulness and stand up ones.
I think it’s nuts that they did 6 hours of sleep…. I mean, you’re topping off before bed for a full sleep at that rate. I’m debating whether I’m going to keep my order or not now that I realize what they did.
Marketing seems to have too much influence at Apple these days.
Marketing seems to have too much influence at Apple these days.
Dang, I’m glad I pre-ordered the Ultra. I need quite a bit more battery life than my S7 provides, and was under the impression that S11 would provide 33% more battery life than S7 based on the advertised hours, so almost decided I didn’t need the Ultra. Turns out I probably do need the Ultra.
Can't remember that part in the keynote, but where in the website are you referring? I see this, which seems decently clear:
Unless one reads very selectively, one should be able to get from this that the 24 hours includes sleep time, and that the extra sleep tracking is a result of the battery life "leap" from previous battery life.
It could be clearer of course. If it were me in charge, I would have kept the "24 hours of battery life" because there really should be one number as a basic answer to that question. But I would have replaced "Always a positive" with something like "18 hours battery life during the day plus 6 hours sleep tracking" (maybe not use the word "day" since that's not entirely accurate, the 18 hours can include usage at night--have to be very precise with words in marketing), because I would want to get that clarification out quicker. But Apple opted to give the explanation in more words a little further down, and prioritized that space for a catchy marketing phrase, because they love their marketing phrases. Questionable priorities? Yes, in my opinion. Devious trickery? No, in my opinion.
Since ordering essentially ever useable feature has been announced to actually be coming to all the models and the battery life improvement was the one feature that could have made it worth it (since would be trading in the old one from last year). But now that it appears even that was false, and either no battery life improvement or negligible real world difference defiantly no worth it.But now preparing to ship so will have to wait for it to arrive to return. Imagine this maybe one of their most cancelled/returned products.Watched the live announcement and was so incredibly misleading on what is new about the watch. Clearly other than 5g which only will add to the battery drain, there were essentially no differences (as the glass improvement isn't applied for the higher end models).
The health of your battery will greatly depend on how you use your watch. If you don’t ‘stress’ your battery, it should last you a good long many of years.
I have a 2 year old AW SE2 which I’ve battered through workout runs in extreme cold winter last winter and then super humid days this summer. The battery health is now down to 79%.
My Apple Watch 7 is almost 4 years old now at 86%. I wear it every day all day and for sleep tracking.