That would be great if it helps. My AW4's wifi has been popping on for no apparent reason, even though the Watch was near my iPhone.
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.
Battery life on series 4
- Thread starter k1ckdapro
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That would be great if it helps. My AW4's wifi has been popping on for no apparent reason, even though the Watch was near my iPhone.
Hopefully this may help you decide which way to go.
I do have Fenix 5 for bike use (cadence/speed/power sensors) but still wear the AW4 SSB 44mm while out. It shares the TickR heart strap. Today, I'm currently at 51% battery after 3.5hrs usage and 21hrs standby. Use theatre mode at night so I don't accidentally turn on the screen.
During the day I use it to sort emails, and control Deezer on my iPhone that is streaming music to my AirPods. I also use the weather app quite a bit and weather pro along with Fantastical 2 for my calendar use. Today includes 105mins of GPS activity with Workoutdoors app. This evening, I'll stick it on charge for an hour between 9pm-10pm and its normally back to 100% at that point. Back on the wrist, rinse and repeat.
I have found the optical heart rate sensor to be significantly better than the one on the Fenix 5, that is very prone to sticking when it's faced with sudden changes in heart rate and if it's cold..... forget it. I've managed to get down to -4 wind chill with the AW4 while wearing a t-shirt and the optical sensor still match the Fenix that was attached to the heart rate strap.
I'd love it to have the battery life of the Fenix 5 but, the Fenix 5 cannot do have the things the AW4 can do. The Fenix is now retired to bike or rock climbing use and the AW4 is now my main watch. It doesn't record every second while not in an activity but to be fair, it's not really needed at that frequency. The raw data in the health app seems to vary from 2-3mins and up to 10 mins. Apparently the frequency will depend on how much you are moving. You can have it at every second if you open the heart rate app.
The two faces I use the most are Simple (+4 time zones) and Utility (Activity, 1x Time zone, Hear rate data). Battery life will be affected by what 3rd party apps you use.
Anyway, hope this is of some use.
Funny, I also have a Fenix 5x which is now only used when running or biking.
I also realize that my S4 battery life is worse at work than at home on weekends (40%-50% vs 60-70% left before sleep), but I have no idea why. I wonder if it is the bad wifi signal at work, but it shouldn’t be, because my phone is always in range.
[doublepost=1539023287][/doublepost]I forgot to add: It seems that I always have the location services arrow showing at the watch control centre. I wonder if this is also causing drain.
I was testing today and it would appear wifi is ALWAYS connected. Even if your phone is within range and its connected to the watch.
I've been monitoring my router and setup a ping and its always connected. It only passes data when the phone is out of range. Otherwise it's just there ready.
More interesting is that turning wifi off didn't actually save any battery. The way apple have implemented it means it's very efficient. Not like wifi of old.
So my advice. Leave wifi ON. The battery saving is only around 1-2%
The exception to this is if your phone is often out of range and it does a lot of actual work over wifi. Then the battery drain is a lot more.
Could well be.... I know when I go round to the inlaws, their routers wifi seems a little erratic at times, no great signal and my iPhone ends up dropping in charge a lot quicker there with the wifi turned on. I now switch it off. I guess it's the same with poor cellular signal.... drains the battery faster.
The location service will definitely do it though. This was my 1st AW and I noticed when you finish an activity, make sure you scroll down and exit out fully from the app otherwise it carries on running. Both the AW Activity app, WorkOutDoors and Viewranger. ViewRanger also needs to be closed down fully on the iPhone otherwise it tries to connect with the watch.
i charged my AW4 44mm LTE yesterday from 9 to 11 am. I am going to see, if i can make it all the way till tomorrow morning 9 am, and see if i can recharge my battery once in the 2 days.
I run it solely of LTE, not connected to my phone. I leave LTE on during the night. If it is sucsessfull i will try turning off LTE when i come home to see how far i can stretch it for future charges, perhaps i can squeeze 2.5 days or even 3 days out of it.
I have most features turned off as i dont need them for my lifestyle. just the heart rate monitoring, LTE and the activity rings are turned on, the rest is all off.
I run it solely of LTE, not connected to my phone. I leave LTE on during the night. If it is sucsessfull i will try turning off LTE when i come home to see how far i can stretch it for future charges, perhaps i can squeeze 2.5 days or even 3 days out of it.
I have most features turned off as i dont need them for my lifestyle. just the heart rate monitoring, LTE and the activity rings are turned on, the rest is all off.
There has to be some sort of 'break in period' for the battery of the S4. Here's my findings...
Brand new S4 GPS from launch, noticed greatly reduced battery life from the S3 Nike. Where I would get 3 days plus some leftover, I barely get by 2 days with the S4. Background app refresh and auto app installs are turned off.
I updated the S4 to 5.0.1 when it came out, unpaired the watch, and did a clean install. Noticed slightly better battery life. Yesterday the watch was fully charged at 9a and put on. Did an overall four hour workout (hike) in the afternoon with 2h15m moving time, pausing when we stopped for photos/lunch. Finished the day around 10pm at 70%.
Last night I opened my new S4 Nike+ GPS. Paired, updated to 5.0.1, unpaired. Did a new pairing as a clean install this morning, and at 9am it was 100% and I put it on. This afternoon I did a 1hr15m workout (cycling), without ever pausing since it was a nonstop ride. As I type this around 10pm I'm at 61%.
Yesterday with the S4 GPS I utilized and touched it A LOT more often than I did with the S4 Nike+ today, yet the battery drain is much greater than yesterday. I'm now expecting that after a week or so and cycling the battery is would get better.
Brand new S4 GPS from launch, noticed greatly reduced battery life from the S3 Nike. Where I would get 3 days plus some leftover, I barely get by 2 days with the S4. Background app refresh and auto app installs are turned off.
I updated the S4 to 5.0.1 when it came out, unpaired the watch, and did a clean install. Noticed slightly better battery life. Yesterday the watch was fully charged at 9a and put on. Did an overall four hour workout (hike) in the afternoon with 2h15m moving time, pausing when we stopped for photos/lunch. Finished the day around 10pm at 70%.
Last night I opened my new S4 Nike+ GPS. Paired, updated to 5.0.1, unpaired. Did a new pairing as a clean install this morning, and at 9am it was 100% and I put it on. This afternoon I did a 1hr15m workout (cycling), without ever pausing since it was a nonstop ride. As I type this around 10pm I'm at 61%.
Yesterday with the S4 GPS I utilized and touched it A LOT more often than I did with the S4 Nike+ today, yet the battery drain is much greater than yesterday. I'm now expecting that after a week or so and cycling the battery is would get better.
Vast improvement overnight having installed 12.0.1 on the phone, watch remained (as far as I can tell) Bluetooth connected all night, so the battery drain from 100% was 18%, still not as good as the S3 though.
My watch has now been paired for 4 days, let's see if it improves further.
I'm not sure if this is anything or if it's just related to iOS 12.0.1 but I should let you know anyway just in case...
On the Infograph face I turned off the "Earth" complication. I put my watch on at 7am this morning, it is now 11:45am and my watch just moved down a notch to 97% - pretty good going!
On the Infograph face I turned off the "Earth" complication. I put my watch on at 7am this morning, it is now 11:45am and my watch just moved down a notch to 97% - pretty good going!
Well, I think that was just a glitch. Since then, I’m easily getting it charged to 100% in about an hour and a few minutes. I turn on Theatre Mode at bedtime, and Do Not Disturb on my iPhone at nights, so I wake up with > 75% and usually still have close to 50% at 24 hours...I think i could go almost two days without a charge.
I think one must put the watch thru at least a couple of charge cycles before it stabilizes. Anyway, far greater than the advertised 18 hours.
if you charge overnight, like it's meant to be, it's damn near impossible to drain the battery in one day
So, then it's 'nonsense' for developers to offer sleep tracking apps for the apple watch? It's 'nonsense' for people to want to use their watch for sleep tracking? It's 'nonsense' that the heart rate and movement tracking can give you a good idea of how you slept overnight?
the apple watch doesn't officially support sleep tracking because the battery isn't there yet, what else do you need to know?
That's another baseless fact..
It may not be on Apple's top priority list as they are more concerned with adding new technology and providing features in the Apple Watch that can't be done right now due to hardware limitations. Would Apple advertising that the Apple watch can sleep track attract more users to the Apple watch? Maybe. As much as finding some way to measure blood pressure or other potentially life saving features such as the EKG?
We don't know why Apple hasn't chosen to address sleep tracking.. but the apps that already exist out there do a good job of measuring it based on movement/heart rate. The Apple watch has been capable (battery wise) of being used as a sleep tracker since S0.
Also want to note that as long as the battery in a device doesn't last forever or the battery isn't easily replaceable when it does die, the watch will have to be charged sometime... So, if Apple gets the battery to last a week and implements sleep tracking does that mean it's no longer 'meant to be' charged over night?
I'm not at all arguing that the battery couldn't be better.
I think the watch is in an interesting place.. Due to the size of the watch and the room they have for a battery, it's hard to get a battery that can run high power functions such as using LTE or doing a work out and on top of that have other features such as always on display. They have to make sure the watch is stable for people using LTE/workouts for long periods of time. As you stated, it's hard to kill the battery in the time you are up and active (which is why they give 18 hours usage time). This means that for the average user, the battery lasts plenty long enough to sleep track and top off in the morning as you are getting ready for the day or in the evening before you go to bed.
The 2 sleep tracking apps I've used just analyze movement/heart rate data from overnight the next day and use it and some info you provide (such as general sleeping hours) to determine when you went to bed and when you woke up. They don't even run an app on the watch. This means battery drain is minimal.
So after losing 3% per hour hr S4 on WIFI and much more if doing any strenuous activity with 12.0/12.0.1 iPXs & 5.0.1 S4, I switched off WIFI on S4.
I went from 100% to 92% in 5 hrs, including a 15 min leisurely walk with slow sniff-every grass blade dog. Used old modular face during this test.
switching now to Hermes split-color face with only date complication.
I went from 100% to 92% in 5 hrs, including a 15 min leisurely walk with slow sniff-every grass blade dog. Used old modular face during this test.
switching now to Hermes split-color face with only date complication.
Ok, so i just figured out that my AW4 44mm LTE space grey alloy watch runs of LTE for the past 48 hours, i calculated the exact time i charged it up till the time it expired to mark the 48 hours.
(charged it from 09-11 am on Monday morning)
I run my watch of LTE while my phone is at home.
I turned a whole bunch of things off though as i do not need them.
I turned off
I will carry around a portable charger though in case i need to top it up for a call when i am out and about. at work and at home i have a apple charger as well, but when i am at home i will use my iphone anyway instead.
My usage is very different, and i dont care what you think about it, its a portable phone on a wrist for me and i love it.
Being free of social media and mail alerts is amazing. i do not do not use the excersize mode, i just look at total rings at the end of the day, as that`s the bottomline thats matter only to me anyways.
(charged it from 09-11 am on Monday morning)
I run my watch of LTE while my phone is at home.
I turned a whole bunch of things off though as i do not need them.
I turned off
- Raise to speak (siri is off)
- WIFI
- auto detect excersize
- raise to wake
- lowest brightness
- most apps refresh turned off minus heartbeat and one other one which i forgot.
- the AW is completely stock no thirdparty apps installed.
- Bluetooth detect gym equipment turned off.
- Turned off excersize alerts and reward notifications.
- Turned of that red dot notification alert.
- Muted audio.
I will carry around a portable charger though in case i need to top it up for a call when i am out and about. at work and at home i have a apple charger as well, but when i am at home i will use my iphone anyway instead.
My usage is very different, and i dont care what you think about it, its a portable phone on a wrist for me and i love it.
Being free of social media and mail alerts is amazing. i do not do not use the excersize mode, i just look at total rings at the end of the day, as that`s the bottomline thats matter only to me anyways.
Last edited:
In fact, sleep tracking indeed is nonsense. It’s something a lot of consumers want, but scientifically the heart rate monitor, barometer and accelerometer do their job reliable and universities participate in studies with it. Sleep tracking however is technically very difficult. I live in the Netherlands and during a lecture of a Dutch sleep professor I asked his opinion about sleep tracking and his simple reply was “toys”. Even in his sleep lab tracking is really difficult and not 100% reliable. Every smart watch and sleep tracking app does it in another way, resulting in a very unreliable, unscientific way of measuring. And what is “sleep quality”? There is no standard measurement for that that the fitness trackers or smart watches use. And that is the reason apple doesn’t implement it.
There is however already basic sleep tracking built in the health app. Set up bed time in the clock app, and with the Apple Watch on your wrist, the Health app from that moment on will detect your bed and sleep time.