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Bummer, no always-on time display

bbates123

bbates123

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 2, 2010
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I was really hoping that Apple would offer us the option for always on time display with OS3 or the new watch. Sadly it doesn't look like this will be an option. Am I the only person who cares about this? There are many times when I just want to look at my watch without raising my wrist, especially if I'm sitting down. I realize that this would suck up more battery life so I can see leaving it off by default, but how about an option to turn it on for those of us who are willing to make that battery sacrifice. To help in that department you could have the always on display be dim, like the Microsoft band. You could have the display drift, to counter any retention issues. This would have also been nice for nightstand mode.
 
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maflynn said:
The battery life is bad enough as it is, an always on display would be down right devastating to the battery life
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I'm thinking a small enough display (just the time - taking up as much space as the time currently takes on a modular display) wouldn't be all that bad. At least offer it as an option.

And why it's not always on during nightstand mode (at least as an option) is beyond me. Certainly there must be a way to get the time display to move, to prevent retention issues.
 
Ditto... I get that an always-on LED display is a massive battery sucker. But, I was hoping that Apple could have offered a hybrid LED-LCD display that would enable an LCD always-on while the LED hits for wrist raise.

I have another fitness watch that can double as a smart watch. It has an LCD screen that is always on, and it is awesome. Having gone back and forth between that and the AW as daily wear, always-on is very nice. I can read the time just by looking at my arm, without a wrist raise. I was unaware of how often I do this until I had the contrast.
 
I would have liked to have seen this too. I have no problem with battery life and would love to have had an always on display option. Oh well... maybe the 3rd version will be the charm.
 
convergent said:
I would have liked to have seen this too. I have no problem with battery life and would love to have had an always on display option. Oh well... maybe the 3rd version will be the charm.
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I would like to see it come on anytime a notification is received. Then you could just glance at your watch and see the notification. Sure you can just turn you wrist, but that is kind of obvious to the people you are with or talking to.
 
genekend said:
I would like to see it come on anytime a notification is received. Then you could just glance at your watch and see the notification. Sure you can just turn you wrist, but that is kind of obvious to the people you are with or talking to.
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with "screen on" on notifications, it would also be obvious to people... plus, they would be able to look at the notification.
with "screen on" on wrist rotation, you can wait to be alone to watch the content
 
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I wish they would give us an option to toggle it on/off so we could choose.

The Gear S3 has the always on screen and reportedly lasts up to 4 days on a charge - call me skeptical on that claim. If they had iOS support out of the box with them I'd consider it, but it is coming "later" so is probably not an option.
 
Yea always on would kill my battery (from my experience). And I have always found the watch completely responsive when raising it to check the time.
 
Moto 360 Sport anyone? It has a hybrid display and is always on. When it's not in use or it is outside (ambient light sensor) it looks much like a Pebble and has a reflective display allowing you to see the time using already available light, when it's in a dark room the backlight is very very dim while also being in reflective mode and you can still see the time without raising your wrist. Battery impact is very minor as I can easily go from 7:30 AM to 11:30 PM and still have around 50% battery left.

Then when it is in use or raised in normal lighting IE indoors it goes to a normal LCD type display like any other. Pretty cool deal IMO.
 
This was one of the biggest random complaints I had when the watch first came out. My old Moto 360 was a great nightstand clock with low/dim clock always on so I could roll over in bed and look at it. I don't want to have to smack my table to check the time on my Apple Watch in nightstand mode, seems silly.
 
This is the single biggest reason I won't buy an Apple Watch.

Sometimes I don't want to have to shake my wrist to see the time.

And like some others have said, why doesn't Apple at least give the user the option to leave the time always on?
 
smileman said:
This is the single biggest reason I won't buy an Apple Watch.

Sometimes I don't want to have to shake my wrist to see the time.

And like some others have said, why doesn't Apple at least give the user the option to leave the time always on?
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the single biggest reason I won't buy a refrigerator. When you close the door the light goes off. Why can't it be on all the time?:D

Shaking your wrist won't cut the screen on.

And like others have said if you leave the display on all the time you probably only get 3 or 4 hours battery life.
 
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This was one of my biggest conplaints - before I bought one... Now I think it's fine as it is. I don't use the watch in nightstand mode as I wear it all night for sleep tracking and during the day I wonder why it should display anything when I'm not looking at it...
 
Restlesslegs said:
This was one of my biggest conplaints - before I bought one... Now I think it's fine as it is. I don't use the watch in nightstand mode as I wear it all night for sleep tracking and during the day I wonder why it should display anything when I'm not looking at it...
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With the managed battery life as it is on the Apple Watch, I'm fine with not having an always on display. OLED also has burn in, which I'm not sure how that would affect screen size of the Apple Watch. Eventually, Apple could move this route if they improve the efficiency of the processor and the battery to manage always on display.
 
Restlesslegs said:
This was one of my biggest conplaints - before I bought one... Now I think it's fine as it is. I don't use the watch in nightstand mode as I wear it all night for sleep tracking and during the day I wonder why it should display anything when I'm not looking at it...
Click to expand...

Same here. I'm a long-time Pebble wearer, and rubbished the AW for not having an always-on screen. Now I've got an AW and it's not an issue for me at all.
 
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I've found the battery life to be really good. I sleep with it overnight, and it makes it to the next night with ease. I don't log much exercise, though, so that could be a factor.

There are often times I wished the screen was always on, especially when I am lying down. In that case, turning and raising the wrist to show the display isn't reliable in the slightest.
 
Jws said:
I've found the battery life to be really good. I sleep with it overnight, and it makes it to the next night with ease. I don't log much exercise, though, so that could be a factor.

There are often times I wished the screen was always on, especially when I am lying down. In that case, turning and raising the wrist to show the display isn't reliable in the slightest.
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That's one thing I can ever get used to, was trying to sleep with the Apple Watch. It just wasn't comfortable enough for me to want to do so. I do think Night Stand Mode was nicely Done with Apple when wanting to see the time in landscape. I think it be a nice small feature if we could change the colors on nightstand mode from green to something else.
 
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Relentless Power said:
That's one thing I can ever get used to, was trying to sleep with the Apple Watch. It just wasn't comfortable enough for me to want to do so. I do think Night Stand Mode was nicely Done with Apple when wanting to see the time in landscape. I think it be a nice small feature if we could change the colors on nightstand mode from green to something else.
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This could be an easy feature to implement: some different colors in night stand mode and the option to keep always on in night stand as well.
 
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