Battery life on series 4

[blwade]

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.

Sure, the apps can’t really prove a “quality” but when you start to see some consistent numbers you can gauge what’s normal for you.. I use it more to see times when I’m moving and my heart rate elevates indicating I’m not in a deep sleep.


Also, my father discovered that he was Afib by his ‘nonsense’ sleep traking when his heart rate was spiking in his sleep which led him to going to the dr and getting help... seems like a very good thing to me.

 

[DeNachtwacht]

Also, my father discovered that he was Afib by his ‘nonsense’ sleep traking when his heart rate was spiking in his sleep which led him to going to the dr and getting help... seems like a very good thing to me.

Just as you’re saying yourself it’s the heart rate sensor that’s reliable enough to detect AFib, that has nothing to do with sleep tracking.

Sleep tracking is a gimmick that everyone wants to use these days, but, unless the devices will be able to record scientific reliable statistics, will be gone within a few years. It’s just data that means nothing. Every statistician knows that there is no such thing as a “useable pattern” if the data input is unreliable. Would you use a weigh scale if it would have a 5% error margin? Meaning that your weighing yourself and it displays 100 kilograms, and the next minute you measure again and suddenly it displays 95 or 104? No, you wouldn’t. The error margin of sleep tracking would be at least 10% or even 20% to 30% so there’s no point in using it.

 

[TwiceNightly]

What’s the general opinion now on whether to have the WiFi on or off on an LTE watch?

I turned mine off but feel like as it’s normally on by default I’m missing out!

 

[Mercenary]

What’s the general opinion now on whether to have the WiFi on or off on an LTE watch?

I turned mine off but feel like as it’s normally on by default I’m missing out!

In my tests wifi on with phone in range uses no power.

WiFi on with phone out of range but on the same network (so wifi is actually used) uses marginal power

WiFi on and your phone is not contactable uses no power.

Conclusion. Leave it on unless your watch is always having to talk using wifi and you don't actually want it to.

Your watch uses a combination of Bluetooth and WiFi to do its work.

 

[geachy92]

After the initial 1 or 2 day settling in period I've found the battery life to be excellent.

I have all apps on background refresh, except Maps, News and Stocks.
Raise to speak for Siri is on
Brightness to lowest setting (always plenty bright enough, still)
Infograph watch face as my main display
Auto-detect workouts is on
Detect Gym Equipment is off

Did a 'normal' day yesterday. Off the charger at 7:30am. Slow stream of notifications and reminders throughout the day, connected to my phone all the time. Went out for a 1 hour 20 minute run around 7pm with GPS and heart rate going the whole time. Watch off at 10:30pm at around 65% battery.

The run alone would have used 50%+ on my old series 2.

 

[TwiceNightly]

In my tests wifi on with phone in range uses no power.

WiFi on with phone out of range but on the same network (so wifi is actually used) uses marginal power

WiFi on and your phone is not contactable uses no power.

Conclusion. Leave it on unless your watch is always having to talk using wifi and you don't actually want it to.

Your watch uses a combination of Bluetooth and WiFi to do its work.

Thanks, I turned it back on.

I always thought that when the WiFi icon in the Control Center is Blue that it meant that the watch is connected to WiFi, this isn't the case. it just means that it's turned on. When it actually connects to WiFi it shows the WiFi symbol above all the Control Center icons and shows the name of the network it's connected to.

Just thought I should post that in case anyone was thinking the same as me.

 

[Lennyvalentin]

In my tests wifi on with phone in range uses no power.

Yes, because it's not actually using the wifi functionality in that case; it's relying on bluetooth.

I've had my own S4 for a few days now, not really tried to push any boundaries or anything - been tired and under the weather generally and my feet have ached so no long walks either. Plus it's been miserable autumn weather some days so who wants to take a walk when it's raining icy cats and dogs. Still, I've gotten an inkling of battery performance, and it's been very good so far, and that's with raise to speak and hey siri off (because I don't like talking to my gadgets, I feel stupid), display brightness to full, prominent haptics and haptic crown enabled, haptic strength at full, raise to wake display on and almost all of my watch apps with background update enabled.

Yesterday when I used the watch very little I put it back on the charging puck with 79% battery left at the end of the day, that's pretty awesome. My S0 was never that good even when it was brand new; I'd get like 65% left at the end of a good day, and that's with me always having it on low brightness, most of the apps' background updates turned off and for the first couple years raise to wake display always off as well. And of course, S0 didn't have the haptic crown feature at all which I just love to toy with because it feels so wicked - which surely has to consume some amount of power - and still have nearly 80% left...!

Now I've turned off raise to wake display and lowered brightness to medium (because full is kinda crazy really compared to what I'm used to from OG watch), just to see how big a difference that makes.

 

[brewno]

I picked up at 7am, battery fully charged. Used it as usual. With sound and everything. Lasted 2 full days. To be precise, it lasted 47h --- it was off at 6am after two days. Mine's a Nike+ 40mm.

 

[DeNachtwacht]

I picked up at 7am, battery fully charged. Used it as usual. With sound and everything. Lasted 2 full days. To be precise, it lasted 47h --- it was off at 6am after two days. Mine's a Nike+ 40mm.

Do you use much complications? Did you turn off specific settings? I get around 32-35 hours out of my Series 4 40mm, so am a little disappointed. It’s just 5 hours too short to get through the second day...

 

[blwade]

I'm happy to see my S4 (44mm) is getting better. 12 hours standby, 1.5 hours use - 84% charge left.

 

[Sword86]

FWIW....I charged my AW4 at noon Tuesday. I sleep track every night with DND and theatre mode enabled. I had already done a workout prior to charging it fully on Tuesday, so any workouts since then were simply outdoor walks. I do not have ‘raise to wake’ on. I did the usual stand, breathe and checked texts and E-mails. It only wakes when I touch the screen.
This morning I received a low battery alarm (10%) at 11:35 a.m.
I put it on charge and it was back at 60% in an hour, and was at 100% in 1 hour and 40 minutes. What’s that? 47 hours?
Up until that I had been charging it regularly in the mornings after I get up. It was usually at about 70% or so. S

 

[daviddth]

Just hit 20% on my 44mm AW4. 1day 18hrs standby, 5hrs 24 min usage. No cellular on this as I can’t see the point for my use.

Darn, that’s not bad, and I sleep with it on as well. Took it off for 5 mins for a shower last night, otherwise it’s been on all the time.

 

[brewno]

Do you use much complications? Did you turn off specific settings? I get around 32-35 hours out of my Series 4 40mm, so am a little disappointed. It’s just 5 hours too short to get through the second day...

I use the Infograph Modular face.
I use it at Brightness level = lowest (its bright!!)
Wake for 15 seconds
Location services on

I charged it in the morning around 7:30am (so it was 100% around 8am). It's now 11:22am the following day at 50%. This will last me until tomorrow morning I'm sure.

 

[rwilliams]

I saw a big improvement from turning off Walkie-Talkie on my Series 4, even though others haven’t noticed any difference from doing so. I went from losing about 3% battery per hour to under 2%.

 

[k1ckdapro]

I still have to report worse battery life at work (desk job) compared to at home, even though there is not much difference in usage. I wonder if it has anything to do with the worse wifi signal at work. However, the wifi signal should not matter as I always have my phone in range (at work and at home). Anyone experiencing the same?

 

[TwiceNightly]

I still have to report worse battery life at work (desk job) compared to at home, even though there is not much difference in usage. I wonder if it has anything to do with the worse wifi signal at work. However, the wifi signal should not matter as I always have my phone in range (at work and at home). Anyone experiencing the same?

Just a theory but when you go to work do you play music or podcasts or anything like that on your phone?

I wonder if the now playing button that now appears all the time has anything to do with it?

 

[k1ckdapro]

Just a theory but when you go to work do you play music or podcasts or anything like that on your phone?

I wonder if the now playing button that now appears all the time has anything to do with it?

Good point, I also thought about that, because I listen to audible in my car for 30-45 minutes in the morning, streaming from my phone. However, I don’t seem to lose a lot of battery during this time, I tend to have 98-99% left when I arrive at work. I also deactivated the automatic ‘now playing’ screen.

 

[TwiceNightly]

Another thing that may help as discussed before in this thread I think is the choice of face.

Today I’m using the Explorer face with calendar, date and battery complications. It’s been on my wrist for 6 hours now and just moved to 97% battery.

Infographic faces seem to drain a lot more battery, which makes sense due to the number of complications on them

 

[k1ckdapro]

Another thing that may help as discussed before in this thread I think is the choice of face.

Today I’m using the Explorer face with calendar, date and battery complications. It’s been on my wrist for 6 hours now and just moved to 97% battery.

Infographic faces seem to drain a lot more battery, which makes sense due to the number of complications on them

Indeed... I guess I’ll have to charge my watch daily as I really like having a lot of complications ;-)

 

[gymratjudy]

Do you use much complications? Did you turn off specific settings? I get around 32-35 hours out of my Series 4 40mm, so am a little disappointed. It’s just 5 hours too short to get through the second day...

Same here, a 40mm SG and max getting about 32-35. I do use the workout function at least twice a day for my 20 min walk to and from work and at least once for about an hour for a gym workout. I also use it overnight with a couple of sleep apps running. I'm at the moment at 14% with Usage 6 hours 1 minute and standby 1 day, 1 hour.

 

[avkam]

S4 seems to be pretty good when using Watch gps. Just finished 6h5min mtb ride. Started from 99%. 44% left when I finished my workout. Used WorkOutDoors. Watch was in flight mode , so no other connections. No LTE. HR was on and HR data was perfect.
Could easily go 8+ hours without a phone.

 

[TwiceNightly]

Quick update - changing from the Infograph face to the Explorer face made a huge difference!

16.5 hours on my wrist now and the battery is at 78%, this will easily get me through tomorrow too.

 

[tromboneaholic]

So obviously the batter life is the Achilles heel of this device. How many more iterations do you think we will have to wait for 3-4 day battery life?

A couple of hours on the charger gets it to 100% from depleted.
Series 4 has better battery life than any of the previous models.
Those of us who actually own Series 4 are pleased so far.

 

[k1ckdapro]

Quick update - changing from the Infograph face to the Explorer face made a huge difference!

16.5 hours on my wrist now and the battery is at 78%, this will easily get me through tomorrow too.

Great news. I think the explorer face is exclusive to LTE watches, because I don’t have it. My problem is also that I really like having a calendar complication on my watchface indicating my next event... I don’t think any simple watchface does that.

 

[shinseiromeo]

A couple of hours on the charger gets it to 100% from depleted.
Series 4 has better battery life than any of the previous models.
Those of us who actually own Series 4 are pleased so far.

S3 has the best battery life of any other models at three full days of use. S0 was the worst, and now my S4 is decent at two full days.