Got my wife an Apple Watch for Christmas and wondering whether turning off WiFi will save significant battery life. What are the downsides functionally for turning off WiFi?
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Does turning off WiFi extend battery life for Series 4 without cellular?
- Thread starter acousticbiker
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if you phone is close, the watch will use the bluetooth connection to the phone for data,
the only time the wifi kicks on is if the phone is out of reach.
I'm not sure what the power drain difference between "wi-fi off" and "wi-fi sleeping while connected via bluetooth" is
i've got a s3, and i can get 2 days out of it (put it on when i wake up monday, take off and charge when sleep tuesday) but that kinda cuts it close, so i usually charge every night.
i never turn the wi-fi off
if do a workout using the watch, that does draw a bit more battery, but still leaves a significant amount in the battery at the end of day 1, not quite enough to make it through day 2 though
It also seems to me, most batteries need a week or 2 of exercise to get up to full capicity, not sure if that's because of "new device, and i'm using it more the first couple weeks" or the battery actually performs better once it's had a few cycles on it. But i've noticed better battery life after a bit of time.
the only time the wifi kicks on is if the phone is out of reach.
I'm not sure what the power drain difference between "wi-fi off" and "wi-fi sleeping while connected via bluetooth" is
i've got a s3, and i can get 2 days out of it (put it on when i wake up monday, take off and charge when sleep tuesday) but that kinda cuts it close, so i usually charge every night.
i never turn the wi-fi off
if do a workout using the watch, that does draw a bit more battery, but still leaves a significant amount in the battery at the end of day 1, not quite enough to make it through day 2 though
It also seems to me, most batteries need a week or 2 of exercise to get up to full capicity, not sure if that's because of "new device, and i'm using it more the first couple weeks" or the battery actually performs better once it's had a few cycles on it. But i've noticed better battery life after a bit of time.
WiFi seems like overkill when the watch can connect via Bluetooth. I hadn’t considered that the WiFi could go to ‘sleep’ when the watch is connected via BT - can others confirm that WiFi chips even have that mode and that the watch is actively managing whether WiFi is powered on (vs just keeping it on all the time, which is my assumption)?
The only time turning off WiFi will improve battery life is when your phone is out of range. It's off the rest of the time. (There is no differentiation between off and sleep, as the radios are integrated anyway)
Do we know for sure that WiFi is actually off when there’s no WiFi network? Isn’t it on and in standby waiting to connect the next time a network becomes available?
i think the only ones who can 100% confirm the actual power draw are apple's engineers,
i do know it's not connected to my home network if the phone is on and in bluetooth range, once i turn bluetooth off, it connects.
you can turn it off, but then you loose one of the nice features of not having your phone glued to you all day.
in an apartment, it might not matter, but in a typical 3 bedroom home, on bluetooth, the watch might not connect if it's in the kitchen and the phone's in the bedroom.
I do think you're overthinking a bit, and forecasting a battery life issue, when there probably won't be one.
not to mention adding a layer of complexity and worrying about or remembering to worry about a setting that might gain you a few minutes of run time at best.
Just let it ride for a week or 2, if you have battery issues, then start thinking about it.
most people seem to charge it every night, or if they want to sleep track, will throw it on the charger when they wake up, and grab it once they are done getting ready (probably needs an hour or so daily, with a little extra on a few days)
i do know it's not connected to my home network if the phone is on and in bluetooth range, once i turn bluetooth off, it connects.
you can turn it off, but then you loose one of the nice features of not having your phone glued to you all day.
in an apartment, it might not matter, but in a typical 3 bedroom home, on bluetooth, the watch might not connect if it's in the kitchen and the phone's in the bedroom.
I do think you're overthinking a bit, and forecasting a battery life issue, when there probably won't be one.
not to mention adding a layer of complexity and worrying about or remembering to worry about a setting that might gain you a few minutes of run time at best.
Just let it ride for a week or 2, if you have battery issues, then start thinking about it.
most people seem to charge it every night, or if they want to sleep track, will throw it on the charger when they wake up, and grab it once they are done getting ready (probably needs an hour or so daily, with a little extra on a few days)
Agree there's no way of knowing for sure, but we know how good Apple are at power saving, so it would seem unlikely that they are activating the WiFi radios when Bluetooth is active, save for getting location information (which is itself a way of saving power as it means GPS takes less time to acquire a signal).
TL;DR: Trust apple on this one ;-)
TL;DR: Trust apple on this one ;-)
Can’t think of a more miserable way to use the Watch - I often turn Bluetooth off on my phone to force a WiFi connection that is faster and more pleasant to interact with when I’m on the watch. The battery life is pretty great on WiFi too, nothing like the LTE drain.
If I turn off my watch at night I can go at least two days without charging. You really don’t need to do things like this.
I use my S4 44mm GPS watch for notifications/replying to messages and of course time, it also tracks my activity and I use Apple Pay, I’m getting 3 days (or more? see below) from a single charge, I never turn it off and at night when not on charge it sits on my bed side table, I have disabled background app refresh & handoff and done some other tweaks that save battery, lowest screen brightness, silent mode, turn off Wilkie-talkie as it’s not used, but my BT and WiFi remain on, the WiFi when not in use (in BT distance) really doesn’t seem to use very much power at all, also wake screen with wrist raise is still on too.
I usually charge it on the 2nd night and it still has around 50 - 55% battery, so the extra 50% left would easily take me another day or more if needed, my daily battery usage is around 22 - 25%, and it drains about 4% through the night when on my bed side table, I could potentially get 4 days of usage, but there’s no point when I’m next to a charger.
I really wouldn’t worry about turning WiFi off.
Adam.
I usually charge it on the 2nd night and it still has around 50 - 55% battery, so the extra 50% left would easily take me another day or more if needed, my daily battery usage is around 22 - 25%, and it drains about 4% through the night when on my bed side table, I could potentially get 4 days of usage, but there’s no point when I’m next to a charger.
I really wouldn’t worry about turning WiFi off.
Adam.
I personally notice a significant improvement when I have WiFi turned off. I have a series 3 with LTE service enabled. I’m a runner and when I had WiFi on my battery life would be terrible and I’d get pop up messages that the watch couldn’t connect to X open network, so it would be trying to connect to public networks that I really couldn’t access. I turned off WiFi (in settings, not just from control center) and my battery life is a lot better. I’m sure it varies watch to watch but this is my experience.
Yes, if your phone isn't with you then it will be trying to search for WiFi networks.
I’m fine just having it off.
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I’m fine just having it off.