Apple Watch Ultra Will Get Up to 60 Hours of Battery Life With Software Update Later This Year

[Danfango]

The Ultra casing would actually be able to fit up to four AAA batteries, in theory. One AAA battery should have roughly the same battery capacity as the Ultra battery, in terms of Wh.

I wasn’t suggesting that. When you get stuck out in the middle of nowhere you can only buy AA batteries. So your equipment better use it.

A friend of mine found that recently when she couldn’t find anywhere in Tibet to charge her power bank up to charge her watch and phone from. But you could buy some hooky AA batteries for her eTrex!

 

[JGIGS]

This is not meant for a person doing the 7 Summits Challenge, but it's perfect for the weekender who takes fitness seriously. Show me it isn't.

(and the haters have arrived on schedule to put down everything Apple does).

Gee I make one comment about battery life and now I put down everything Apple does?

Did you watch the keynote?

This has been marketed for extreme adventuring the apple watch already meets the need of the weekender taking fitness seriously.

 

[EdT]

For that stuff you only need a regular apple watch and can top up the battery in the mornings. You get lost in extreme settings and that apple watch and phone run out of battery and you don't have the ability to charge it. You better bring a good map.

If your just a yuppy and want to flash off apple watch ultra fine you get 3 days use on optimized settings that don't exist yet.

I know you only need a regular watch. I only have a series 4 myself. It's the battery life claim that I am pointing out. By this reasoning we ought to already have EV's that can travel 1000-1500 miles on a single charge and only take 5 minutes to recharge. Which we don't, but its not like a lot of big automakers wouldn't like to. If it was that easy then someone would be doing it now. Or if the technology is that simple, they would have done it years ago.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

Made up my mind after the announcement. I’m upgrading my Fenix 6 Sapphire for the Fenix 7 Solar Sapphire.

 

[JGIGS]

I know you only need a regular watch. I only have a series 4 myself. It's the battery life claim that I am pointing out. By this reasoning we ought to already have EV's that can travel 1000-1500 miles on a single charge and only take 5 minutes to recharge. Which we don't, but its not like a lot of big automakers wouldn't like to. If it was that easy then someone would be doing it now. Or if the technology is that simple, they would have done it years ago.

Fair, wasn't really the point I was trying to make it was more about it needing to be in an optimized battery mode that doesn't exist yet even and it being marketed as an extreme adventuring device. I have a series 3 that still gets me through a day after what 5 years of owning it? Granted I mostly only use it for notifications and at one point 5k runs but I would think a Series 8 should meet most peoples need to get through a day and charge it before bed or while taking a shower. If the series 8 had a similar design with a flat face and even with its current battery life I think most people would chose it over the Ultra.

I'd like to have a Garmin on my other wrist if I'm using the ultra for extreme adventuring on long trips.

 

[matsan]

Not an adventurer but do multi day hikes, ocean kayaking, running and triathlon. My Garmin Instinct 2 easily gets me through a weekend kayaking, including sleep tracking without the need for a recharge. It does many of the things such as fall detection when I’m out running (alerts require an iPhone though) and much of the same dynamics for running. Sleep tracking is fantastic and possible for several nights without a recharge!
For sure the integration with iPhone is limited to notifications and music control, the monochrome display could be boring but I prefer a device I need to charge once a week over all the fancy stuff any Apple Watch offers.

 

[steve09090]

Gee I make one comment about battery life and now I put down everything Apple does?

Did you watch the keynote?

This has been marketed for extreme adventuring the apple watch already meets the need of the weekender taking fitness seriously.

It was a general comment not targeted at you. I’m sure you’ll see a whole bunch of people hating of every function. And yes. Watched it first thing this morning.

I believe it’s targeted at people taking adventure seriously, but not the ultra serious. For example, you won’t see a cave diver using this, or a professional scuba diver, but you will see a general underwater photographer or hiker. Just my thoughts.

 

[jjduru]

Made up my mind after the announcement. I’m upgrading my Fenix 6 Sapphire for the Fenix 7 Solar Sapphire.

Get the Fenix 7x Solar Sapphire. You won't be sorry, I promise.

 

[Chocomonsters]

For only $50 more than stainless Apple Watch, we get double battery life, bigger brighter screen, better GPS, and titanium frame. Last year's Apple Edition costed more than $50 for just titanium frame.

Think I am getting one. Orange, I think

 

[klasma]

I wasn’t suggesting that. When you get stuck out in the middle of nowhere you can only buy AA batteries.

Right, but AA batteries wouldn’t fit even the Ultra casing. The original Palm Pilot for example ran on two AAA batteries (for weeks…), and that would already be an improvement for an Apple Watch-like device. You’d just take a couple of spare batteries with you for (say) a week-long hiking trip.

 

[ouruniverse06131986]

I would buy it JUST for the awesome battery life but I know that I would just use it to send and receive messages 🤣🤣🤣

 

[cjwillsiii]

For one of their stated target audiences -- endurance athletes (marathon & triathlon) -- this is closer, but still not a Garmin replacement. Plusses: LTE, crash & fall detection, body temp, better GPS, more workout options. Minuses: Advanced run & bike metrics still lacking, still no cycling power meter support (at least none advertised), and too many caveats on the battery-life number (it's based on low use of HR and GPS -- the two very things that long distance athletes use). Also, no ANT+ support (not a huge issue for me - for me, the real deal-breaker is no power meter support even on BT). With EOL of iPod Shuffle, Apple Watch is my music on long runs. Would love to be able to streamline equipment, but for now, I'm still a two-watch runner.

 

[chicagofan00]

I imagine a lot of people will buy this model just for the extended battery life

That’s exactly why I did.

 

[Born Again]

Any real athlete knows this watch still isn’t a substitute for a Garmin watch.

 

[EdT]

For one of their stated target audiences -- endurance athletes (marathon & triathlon) -- this is closer, but still not a Garmin replacement. Plusses: LTE, crash & fall detection, body temp, better GPS, more workout options. Minuses: Advanced run & bike metrics still lacking, still no cycling power meter support (at least none advertised), and too many caveats on the battery-life number (it's based on low use of HR and GPS -- the two very things that long distance athletes use). Also, no ANT+ support (not a huge issue for me - for me, the real deal-breaker is no power meter support even on BT). With EOL of iPod Shuffle, Apple Watch is my music on long runs. Would love to be able to streamline equipment, but for now, I'm still a two-watch runner.

On my Battery app on my iPhone there is a Watch battery indicator. I honestly haven’t looked to see if there is one on the watch itself.

My original reason for getting the watch wasn’t music or pictures or remote controlling my phone but text messages. I had a sick relative and we weren’t allowed to use our phones even to just check text messages. They had a heart condition (they were over 80 years old) and they had already made 4 or 5 trips to the hospital because of a tight chest, shortness of breath and pain in their arms. I got in trouble several times for reading text messages on my phone. But with the watch I can put it on vibrate, silence the phone and feel when a text came in. I could look at the watch like a regular watch and at least see who it was from. Usually I had a couple of seconds to look at the text that was sent. But that just looked like me glancing at the time.

I had shown and explained why I was reading text messages, but my reason didn’t matter to my boss or the owners. They said that if they let one person break a rule then soon everyone would. My sick relative died about 8 months to a year after I got the watch, and I quit looking at texts as they came in, they were usually advertising now. But I did start to look to see what else the watch could do, and I was honestly surprised by how many things that it was capable of.

I bought the watch on whatever year/day that the I-Watch 4 was released. Not sure how many years ago that was. Despite my list of uses I seldom did a lot of them on the same day. I usually have 30% or more left at the end of the day. But I’ve been surprised by the things that I have found useful. Even Siri is a little more bearable when all she is is a couple of buzzes on my wrist telling me I need to turn right or left at the next street. Don’t need to take my eyes off the road. I’ve found that this works better in a city where 2 or 3 streets don’t meet at the same location, and a street doesn’t magically change names without notice, but my town that doesn’t happen. Minneapolis and Chicago were different stories.

 

[Someyoungguy]

It depends on your use case.
For me a day of mountain biking without my iPhone would be perfect - especially knowing I can track my rides wile using cellular for messages and calls and not worry about the watch dying on me part way through the day.

I wonder if you’ll have cellular in the 60 hour mode. Probably not.

Sheeessh! that's an insane amount of battery life. Best for hiking and camping.

Enjoy your one day camping trips.

Yes, I‘m bitter. It should at least get you through a weekend outside of low functionality mode. That would have brought me back.

 

[Bolt1982]

No non cellular model? That sucks

 

[steve09090]

No non cellular model? That sucks

Neither are Stainless Steel. You’re just getting it, and you don’t have to use it.

 

[Born Again]

I called it btw. So many of you said it was going to ugly and wouldn’t buy it. Now it’s even uglier and you want to buy it. Oh the humanity lol

 

[JosephAW]

They shouldn’t have promised that. Better to make it a surprise update.

 

[Uofmtiger]

That’s exactly why I did.

Me too. Though, I also like the bigger size and screen. If they only sold it to people doing the stuff in their video, it would be a huge failure. People I know around here that scuba dive, go maybe twice a year.. in a good year. The rest of the time, they will be using it like the other 99 percent that buy it.

The battery life pays off later, too, when the watch battery starts dying. I am seeing more and more warnings on my Apple Watch 4 these days before the day is over. Will be glad to have that extra battery down the road, too.

 

[JosephAW]

60 hours is catching up to my $39 Wyze watch.

 

[clive27]

For those people saying 36 hours is not enough for their extremely awesome adventure Amazon trip they are doing every weekend, do you guys not charge your phone while out there? Are you guys so hardcore that you just don't bring phone, external battery, etc. Just your watch? I don't understand. Why can't you just charge at night, while pooping, eating, or doing something that you don't actively have to use the watch? I mean, out of 36 hours, there must be tens of minutes that would allow you to charge your watch.

 

[steve09090]

Me too. Though, I also like the bigger size and screen. If they only sold it to people doing the stuff in their video, it would be a huge failure. People I know around here that scuba dive, go maybe twice a year.. in a good year. The rest of the time, they will be using it like the other 99 percent that buy it.

I think that’s the market. Why buy a watch for 2 days worth of recreation. People will do that though for those 2 days. The Ultra means they don’t have to.

The battery life pays off later, too, when the watch battery starts dying. I am seeing more and more warnings on my Apple Watch 4 these days before the day is over. Will be glad to have that extra battery down the road, too.

I’m usually at 50% after 18 hours on my AW4 and never get a warning, which made me wonder if I needed an upgrade. I decided I do! (SS model 8)

60 hours is catching up to my $39 Wyze watch.

Sounds like other than the battery, they’re identical! 😂

 

[chicagofan00]

Me too. Though, I also like the bigger size and screen. If they only sold it to people doing the stuff in their video, it would be a huge failure. People I know around here that scuba dive, go maybe twice a year.. in a good year. The rest of the time, they will be using it like the other 99 percent that buy it.

The battery life pays off later, too, when the watch battery starts dying. I am seeing more and more warnings on my Apple Watch 4 these days before the day is over. Will be glad to have that extra battery down the road, too.

Agreed, the bigger size and screen are a plus as well.

I also agree with the battery life for both the right now and the future. I’ve currently got a Series 6 and I’m usually down to 10% battery by the time I go to bed each night. This should allow me to continue to upgrade every other year and still have great battery life by then.