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I’ve been using the single handed gesture controls (tapping fingers and clenching my fist, etc) and Siri on my Watch many times per day.

With gesture controls on, AOD seems like a necessity since having to raise to wake or tapping the display sort of get in the way of using Watch hands free.

I’ve tried raise to wake and AOD off. But I wasn’t impressed with battery life gains and it made interacting with my Watch feel a lot less intuitive.

AW is not a timepiece but just more consumer electronics -They are made to be used, discarded and then you get a new one.

I won’t be upgrading until battery is unusable. But I’m not going to be babying the battery to any extent.

I also have AC+ for it, so I really don’t need to care.
 
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My AOD remains enabled. I like that I can always peek what time it is without having to make a gesture. Doesn’t impact battery life to the point where it makes a difference in my day to day.
 
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I can't imagine not using it but I do turn it off when I'm watching a movie. What blew my mind was people who turned it off because they were concerned about burn-in when it was released. AOD was the primary new functionality of the watch. 😵‍💫
 
Outside of enthusiasts, how often are people upgrading their watches? Based on what I've seen among friends, I'd guess people only upgrade every 3-5 years. AOD was a Series 5 feature. Apple was still selling the Series 3 until last year and sells the SE which doesn't have AOD. There are bound to be a ton of watches out there in the wild that don't have AOD. Quite probably the majority.

AOD never made much sense to me as a headlining feature. I recall people going wild over it, but never caught the hype. On my Series 4 there was rarely a problem with raise to wake, although it would fail periodically. Even though I never saw much use for AOD, I left it on when I got an S7 and don't pay much attention to it.

I could see people who don't know about Theater Mode turning off AOD if they don't want the screen to stay on in a dark room and never turning it back on. I've come across a lot of people who never knew about the quick options like Theater Mode, flashlight, and pinging the iPhone.
 
I have AOD turned off on my AW6. I just can't handle the battery drain. Disabling AOD means the difference between enough battery and not enough battery to get through the day.
Check your background App refresh. My AOD wasn’t using the battery like those apps in background.
 
its mainly the battery for me, the battery difference between AOD vs off is just too great imo.

Same here. My Series 5 has about 30% battery left each night with AOD disabled, but will die by 7pm if it’s on. I used the feature for the first 18 months of owning the Watch, but noticed such a big battery drain and the health plummeting. I plan on upgrading to a series 9 next month and disabling AOD will be one of the first things I do. Nice feature, but not great for those of us that keep our watches for 4 years or more IMO.
 
I had it on for a week or 2, but found it distracting for me/others so I switched it off and experienced a small, but noticeable battery life improvement.
Given I'm planning on keeping the watch for the long haul battery life is key for me
 
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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?
I used AoD when I get my S8 at release, but I didn't like the hit on the battery. I get some battery anxiety when it drops below 50% and with AoD turned off it never does if I charge once every 24 hours. I also turned off "raise to wake" for the same reasons. I'd like this battery/watch to last a while. 2025 is my target for first thoughts of replacement.

-dan
 
AOD never made much sense to me as a headlining feature. I recall people going wild over it, but never caught the hype. On my Series 4 there was rarely a problem with raise to wake, although it would fail periodically.

It's not so much that it's a "problem" but that it's much nicer. As another example I could take my credit card out of my wallet to pay for things but it's nicer to just double tap a button on my watch and pay immediately.
 
Series 7 here and I have always on display enabled most of the time. I turned it off before bedtime, that's about it.
 
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 use it on the AW Ultra and consider it to be a critically important feature. Battery gets charged at night and has never run out. No idea what others do since the watch is a tool not jewelry to me, and watches/jewelry on others is of zero interest to me.
 
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I'm curious the % that sleep with their watch on (like I do) and those that don't.

I find charging while I shower + a few other times if needed to be enough to keep my watch charged.
 
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I'm curious the % that sleep with their watch on (like I do) and those that don't.

I find charging while I shower + a few other times if needed to be enough to keep my watch charged.
The skin under my watch does better if I give it a break from the watch while sleeping.
 
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I have mine on as I’m a big fan of the feature. I chose the Series watch over the SE for that reason (and ECG). I see other people mostly have it enabled. Perhaps those that have it disabled either are doing it for battery purposes or they have a model that doesn’t have AOD.

Having said all that, I do have a nightly automation that turns off AOD, sets wake on wrist to off and switch to the Nike Bounce watch face. (I sleep with my watch). In the morning, another automation re-enables all these features. It baffles me that there is no easy way to schedule AOD.
 
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