If I turn of "raise to wake" do you think the Apple Watch (42mm S3) will last 6.5 hours-- slow runner here.
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Full Marathon
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Not if you will be using GPS during your Marathon.
Edited to add: You could wear two Apple watches and turn the second one on, once the first one starts to get low battery.
Edited to add: You could wear two Apple watches and turn the second one on, once the first one starts to get low battery.
Depends on the race, from what I understand. Course-open times are only getting longer, for what that's worth (overall a good thing, I think).
OP - I used an AW in my last marathon. I'm a little quicker (2:32 in Boston) but I didn't charge it from wakeup (4am) until bed around 10, including GPS for my warmup (literally .3 mile!) jog. Worked fine... would trust a Garmin over it, though.
I did a long run this weekend, 2:15. I was at 100% when I left, and got back with 22% left. This was using the workout app and listening to music at about 75% stored on the watch and 25% LTE streaming. I didn't have my phone with me and the watch was also a S3 42mm.
Using a bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor would probably have enough of a battery life reducing effect, without looking so ridiculously dorky as to wear two watches.
I think there are a lot of variables. If you are just looking for it to track your activity, you turn off cellular & raise to wake, don't plan to listen to music, and use an external bluetooth heart rate monitor, the answer is almost certainly yes. If you start adding those other variables back in, your answer gets a bit muddier.
I think the best thing to do would be to try it out on some of your shorter runs and see how long the battery lasts, then extrapolate from there. Essentially you need to get the battery usage down to around 15% per hour in order to make it work.
I'd start with it working as listed above (stripped down, but maybe not the external heart rate monitor) & see how long it lasts on some of your runs. If you see that you have 85% left after a one hour run, you should be fine. Then you can see how adding back in different factors (playing music or turning on raise to wake, etc) impact the battery life.
Did you look at what he/she was actually doing?
- No phone = LTE connection & GPS
- workout app = constant heart rate monitoring
- listening to music = streaming audio over Bluetooth
- I’ll assume (as they said 25%) of the music was streaming over LTE = about 30minutes of LTE music streaming
That’s quite demanding on the watch. And pretty much a max usage scenario, the only thing more demanding would be 100% streaming audio over LTE.
Not really, this is such a niche requirement they won’t focus on it directly. If you are running a marathon, take a phone. If you are running a 5k, don’t.
You can also futz with settings, use a BT heart rate monitor and ensure all music is on device. 6 hours is on the upper end of marathon times as I recall.
Considering the watch was playing music (I assume over Bluetooth), running the GPS and also powering the LTE radio... I'd say those are very good numbers.
I am not saying it wasn't a taxing situation, but Apple packed all of these features into the watch. Using all of them shouldn't deplete the battery reserve so drastically. Maybe a better battery should have been implemented prior to having so many radios in the watch.
To be honest I have brought my iPhone on my marathons with my Apple Watch - My time is between 4 hours and 4,5 so even my AirPods struggle. I don't think my S2 will last me through an entire marathon with music playback (even though it's on the watch itself) so I have brought it.
6,5 hours is a lot for full GPS and everything so I would buy a Flipbelt if I were you and bring the phone.
6,5 hours is a lot for full GPS and everything so I would buy a Flipbelt if I were you and bring the phone.
If you bring your phone the watch will leverage GPS tracking to the phone, increasing it's ability to GPS track for up to 10 hours. If you use an external Bluetooth heart rate sensor (Scosche Rythm+ for example) you will get even more battery life.
So Apple should either remove features??? Or implement a 'better' (so you actually mean bigger or are you sitting on a multi-$B battery invention) battery by making it MUCH, much larger/heavier?
you're walking most of the marathon anyways so just bring your phone with you.... what do you need the Apple Watch for specifically anyways during the marathon?
Anyone have any current marathon experience with the AW s3 these days? Thinking about getting the 4 cellular and having music and gps on. I am not familiar with the way that the cellular works but do not want to bring my phone with me if possible. Would i be able to turn off the cellular data and turn it back on as soon as I finish to call the wife? Would that make much difference?
I think it will be close and will depend on how long it takes you to finish. I think the exercise time with heart rate, Bluetooth music streaming and god but no cellular is around 4 hours. Obviously that fluctuated a bit and also depends on how loud you play your music. If you do it, definitely turn off the raise to wake feature so you don’t burn battery life every time your wrist moves. And definitely download your music to the watch beforehand and turn off lte data during the run to make your battery last as long as possible.
One of the editors at another Mac website ran a half
Marathon with his watch, streaming music and all and if only lasted a bit over 2 hours.
One of the editors at another Mac website ran a half
Marathon with his watch, streaming music and all and if only lasted a bit over 2 hours.
Well, that's LTE for ya. It's power hungry, because of the distances involved. Plus the old-style Watch isn't optimized for cellular reception, since the device is shaped like a metal cup, which makes connectivity more problematic (and likely means bumping the transmission power level.)
Way easier said than done, mate... Y'cannae change the laws o' physics!
You need a Suunto or Garmin watch, unless you are very fast and can finish in about 2.5 hrs.
If you need a good running watch, I have a barely used Suunto I will sell you. I don't use that particular model for running anymore, although I still use Suunto for my long distances (26+ mile runs).
And if you can run sub 5:45 minute miles for a marathon your SHOULD have a REAL running watch anyway.
Even though my mile averages about 6 mins, I agree.And if you can run sub 5:45 minute miles for a marathon your SHOULD have a REAL running watch anyway.
That may sound slow for many people but, when it comes to long distance (over 26 miles), it is very good, in my opinion. Thanks, I have a Fenix that i use now that does amazing was just thinking about getting a series 4 for the future. If the battery life Is that bad i will not give it any more thought.
I think that’s a pretty conservative estimate. With the cellular turned off you should be closer to 4 hours.