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jwolf6589

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 15, 2010
4,962
1,670
Colorado
Almost every time I see someone with an apple watch (which is almost daily) the always on feature is not enabled. Perhaps many choose to turn it off or perhaps the SE model is very very popular in Denver, CO I dont know. What do you say? Same experience in your city?
 
Almost every time I see someone with an apple watch (which is almost daily) the always on feature is not enabled. Perhaps many choose to turn it off or perhaps the SE model is very very popular in Denver, CO I dont know. What do you say? Same experience in your city?
I do not use always on. I don’t pay attention to other people’s watches so I don’t know if it’s popular.
 
For me, it is a combination of battery life and I found when I did have always display on it was a distraction to people I was talking to.
A distraction for me definitely. I turn it off and on and even sometimes use theater mode when I sleep, am at the movies, or dont want to be constantly looking at the clock.
 
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Almost every time I see someone with an apple watch (which is almost daily) the always on feature is not enabled. Perhaps many choose to turn it off or perhaps the SE model is very very popular in Denver, CO I dont know. What do you say? Same experience in your city?
Or maybe they don’t have a model that has AOD. Just because they have an Apple Watch doesn’t mean they are using the latest model.

I see people with Apple Watches daily. Not once has it ever crossed my mind if they have or use AOD.
 
Or maybe they don’t have a model that has AOD. Just because they have an Apple Watch doesn’t mean they are using the latest model.

I see people with Apple Watches daily. Not once has it ever crossed my mind if they have or use AOD.
I always look at the watches unless I am in a large crowd and cant look at everyones watch. But I am happy people are using the watch because it brings popularity to the iPhone.

My mom has the 1st Gen SE and probably won't even replace it if it ever broke.
 
I think on the Ultra it's what, a ~10% battery hit, but on the normal Apple Watch, north of 20% to have AOD on? I'm kinda ball parking it but that's what I remember reading here.
 
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I have it on all the time. It doesn’t bother me, and doesn’t drain my battery. It wasn’t even the top 5 battery drainers, I disabled stuff which was draining my battery.
 
I find AOD distracting. It's not always fully on. It goes into some kind of power saving state, where display elements are dimmed or otherwise changed to save power, then when you raise your wrist, it shifts back into a full power state. I find this shift visually unpleasant. I prefer how without AOD, when I raise my wrist, the display immediately snaps on to full powered state.
 
I think on the Ultra it's what, a ~10% battery hit, but on the normal Apple Watch, north of 20% to have AOD on? I'm kinda ball parking it but that's what I remember reading here.
Seems a bit high, but I’m also sure that with the S5/6 that’s what people reported here but also seem to recall that for later models it has improved
 
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I find AOD distracting. It's not always fully on. It goes into some kind of power saving state, where display elements are dimmed or otherwise changed to save power, then when you raise your wrist, it shifts back into a full power state. I find this shift visually unpleasant. I prefer how without AOD, when I raise my wrist, the display immediately snaps on to full powered state.
I remember from my older watches that raising the wrist worked maybe 80-90% of the time for me, so I am very happy keeping AOD on… at least this is a feature that has a toggle
 
I think what you're seeing is this: Apple Watch is a very popular, yet expensive, mass-market gift to many... at the lower end of the price range ($399 or under). At the higher end of the price range ($499 and up), it's more of an enthusiast device, for the minority of people (like the ones on this forum). It's a fairly expensive "want," not a "need." All variations are pretty durable, so people keep using them for many years. I'd guess the upgrade cycle for an Apple Watch, especially a low-end variation, is pretty long (on the order of 3-5 years). Consequently, the majority that have been purchased over time don't have the Always On feature: they were purchased before that feature was introduced, or they were variations at the lower-end of the price range.

I'd wager that very few people intentionally switch off Always On (<1%), simply because it's a default and most people don't even know it's an option to do so. I leave it on because I like it, and battery life on the Ultra is no longer a limiting factor. To me, a black square on my wrist with nothing in it seems like dead space, and I do frequently sort of glance at the time without having to move my wrist or body. Wake on wrist raise always felt like a (clever) stop-gap to me.
 
Of all the Apple Watches I see when I'm outside, I'd say ~10% has AoD.
Like the previous poster said, I see the watch as an enthusiast device, or a gift device. I think a lot of people have the SE actually.

And I think only nerds know how to turn the AoD off.
 
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I think the series 7 (my current model) has a more powerful battery than the series 4 ( my last model).

If only there were some universally available resource that allowed facts to be known instead of guessed.

The battery in the AW7 has 5.89% more capacity than the battery in an AW4, but that's not why it has an AoD. Screen efficiency, processor efficiency, and other hardware and software optimizations are how Apple manages power draw and charge longevity. The AoD relies on LTPO OLED with a variable refresh rate (as low as 1Hz) + a low brightness state. This allows the screen to consume almost no electricity. There's little to no penalty to keeping the AoD on and it has f-all to do with the battery.

Worth noting the Series 4 is where Apple introduced LTPO OLED for the Apple Watch, but chose not to enable AoD on that model. There may have been other barriers, technological or otherwise. Knowing Apple, probably marketing and artificial feature gate-keeping played a part.
 
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I think what you're seeing is this: Apple Watch is a very popular, yet expensive, mass-market gift to many... at the lower end of the price range ($399 or under). At the higher end of the price range ($499 and up), it's more of an enthusiast device, for the minority of people (like the ones on this forum). It's a fairly expensive "want," not a "need." All variations are pretty durable, so people keep using them for many years. I'd guess the upgrade cycle for an Apple Watch, especially a low-end variation, is pretty long (on the order of 3-5 years). Consequently, the majority that have been purchased over time don't have the Always On feature: they were purchased before that feature was introduced, or they were variations at the lower-end of the price range.

I'd wager that very few people intentionally switch off Always On (<1%), simply because it's a default and most people don't even know it's an option to do so. I leave it on because I like it, and battery life on the Ultra is no longer a limiting factor. To me, a black square on my wrist with nothing in it seems like dead space, and I do frequently sort of glance at the time without having to move my wrist or body. Wake on wrist raise always felt like a (clever) stop-gap to me.
AW has saved me a few times. It's told me I was about to have an anxiety attack as my heart rate was going up and down.
 
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Of all the Apple Watches I see when I'm outside, I'd say ~10% has AoD.
Like the previous poster said, I see the watch as an enthusiast device, or a gift device. I think a lot of people have the SE actually.

And I think only nerds know how to turn the AoD off.
True most dont know how to do that.
 
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