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Heartrate Monitor OFF - BEST Battery Life!

M

Mapple86

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 13, 2015
349
52
Hi everyone,

maybe its not the best solution, but I tried to take off the constant Heart Rate Monitoring every 10 minutes.
The Battery life now is really really good.

For Example:
My 38mm Watch is now 5 hours off the charging cable and I am at 91% Battery.
Yesterday after 13 hours, I was at 75% in the evening.
With Heart Rate Monitor on, I was at 20-25% in the evening.

For me this is no problem, because I was not very interested in the health part of the Apple Watch.
What do you think?
 
Mapple86 said:
Hi everyone,

maybe its not the best solution, but I tried to take off the constant Heart Rate Monitoring every 10 minutes.
The Battery life now is really really good.

For Example:
My 38mm Watch is now 5 hours off the charging cable and I am at 91% Battery.
Yesterday after 13 hours, I was at 75% in the evening.
With Heart Rate Monitor on, I was at 20-25% in the evening.

For me this is no problem, because I was not very interested in the health part of the Apple Watch.
What do you think?
Click to expand...

Sure, you saved some battery. But was there ever a problem if you still had 20-25% remaining at the end of the day?
 
Expected really; the optical HRS does use a lot of juice. Guess if you don't want the HR tracking then it makes sense to turn it off. I'd prefer to be able to adjust the interval from 10 mins to say every 60 mins. That way I'd get 18 or so readings a day that show in my health app on the iPhone.
 
I'm not surprised it makes a significant difference, but I am surprised that it would be that much. So, just a bit more suspicious until there are a few more data points to corroborate.

That said, it doesn't really matter to be right now - I'd recharge every night anyway - but if there starts to be more useful stuff that eats battery and I can't make it easily through a day, the heart rate monitor would be one of the first things I'd turn off.
 
oddysea992 said:
Expected really; the optical HRS does use a lot of juice. Guess if you don't want the HR tracking then it makes sense to turn it off. I'd prefer to be able to adjust the interval from 10 mins to say every 60 mins. That way I'd get 18 or so readings a day that show in my health app on the iPhone.
Click to expand...

I agree. An adjustable interval of time is a great idea. If enough people mention this, Apple should add it in to an update.

I'd like the monitoring, but don't need 6 updates an hour.
 
Guess what? If you turn the watch off entirely you'll be at 100% battery at the end of the day!

:cool:

Seriously though, why do people want to neuter the product to end up with more battery at the end of the day, when they had more than enough in the first place?
 
I think it is a wise way to conserve battery when you know you won't be able to charge it that night, however, I personally love the health tracking and I know that in order for the phone to properly calculate calories and what not, it uses my heart rate as part of its algorithms.

If you don't care for the feature, shut it off
 
dbknightx said:
Guess what? If you turn the watch off entirely you'll be at 100% battery at the end of the day!

:cool:

Seriously though, why do people want to neuter the product to end up with more battery at the end of the day, when they had more than enough in the first place?
Click to expand...

To lengthen the life of their watch?


Edit: on further thought - the HRM helps determine the caloric burn, and Apple probably determined 10 minutes as the optimal trade off between battery life and being useful for this purpose.
 
Last edited:
dbknightx said:
Guess what? If you turn the watch off entirely you'll be at 100% battery at the end of the day!

:cool:

Seriously though, why do people want to neuter the product to end up with more battery at the end of the day, when they had more than enough in the first place?
Click to expand...

Because many of us couldn't give two ***** about heart rate. I run 50+ miles a week (200 a month), mostly on trails.. and I honestly don't give a crap about my heart rate.
 
Well the 20% With Heart Rate on i reached without using the watch for any other thing than get push notifications.
I believe with heart rate monitoring + a hard use of apps will drain the battery to under 10% after 6 hours.

Later, when apps are avaible like facebook, whatsapp which I would hardly use, I dont think the battery will last the whole day incl heart rate Monitoring.

Whag I dont like: only on or off is possible.
I would like the possibility to use the heart rate monitor for a work out or anything else and just shut off the constant monitoring.
You can shut it off on the iphone app > privacy? (In German: Datenschutz)
 
msb3079 said:
Because many of us couldn't give two ***** about heart rate. I run 50+ miles a week (200 a month), mostly on trails.. and I honestly don't give a crap about my heart rate.
Click to expand...

Same. Well, minus the 50+ miles part... But the don't give a **** part, that's me. I don't care about that feature, I love the other features, so if this gives me 2 days use on one charge, why wouldn't I try it? 20% at the end of the day is fine, but if you have a very heavy day of use, it means you will probably end up in power reserve mode. Why give juice to a feature you don't use?
 
Mapple86 said:
Hi everyone,

maybe its not the best solution, but I tried to take off the constant Heart Rate Monitoring every 10 minutes.
The Battery life now is really really good.

For Example:
My 38mm Watch is now 5 hours off the charging cable and I am at 91% Battery.
Yesterday after 13 hours, I was at 75% in the evening.
With Heart Rate Monitor on, I was at 20-25% in the evening.

For me this is no problem, because I was not very interested in the health part of the Apple Watch.
What do you think?
Click to expand...

If you don't use the health part, sure, why not. I don't care if I'm at 10% at the end of the night - that means it lasted all day. And I'm usually higher than that. So, I'm not turning off any features.
 
zmunkz said:
Same. Well, minus the 50+ miles part... But the don't give a **** part, that's me. I don't care about that feature, I love the other features, so if this gives me 2 days use on one charge, why wouldn't I try it? 20% at the end of the day is fine, but if you have a very heavy day of use, it means you will probably end up in power reserve mode. Why give juice to a feature you don't use?
Click to expand...

Yep. Heart rate is pretty gimmicky. Unless you are a sponsored athlete and only train... that's your job, or have certain medical issues - there's really no need for it. Of course that's just my opinion, though.
 
half the reason i bought the watch was for the calorie and activity tracking... the part my phone can't do very well.
 
This trend of turning features off needs to stop.

"turn off wrist raise"
"turn off hey siri"
"turn off heart rate monitor"
"don't use animated watch faces"

People are transforming the $350.00 Apple watch into a $80.00 Pebble watch slowly.
 
Armen said:
This trend of turning features off needs to stop.

"turn off wrist raise"
"turn off hey siri"
"turn off heart rate monitor"
"don't use animated watch faces"

People are transforming the $350.00 Apple watch into a $80.00 Pebble watch slowly.
Click to expand...

Turned off hey siri too.
Doesnt use siri often.
Turn on by wrist raise must be on. As I was a Pebble owner I really miss the always on look :/
 
Mapple86 said:
Turned off hey siri too.
Doesnt use siri often.
Turn on by wrist raise must be on. As I was a Pebble owner I really miss the always on look :/
Click to expand...

Just sell your apple watch and wear a pebble dumbwatch
 
Mapple86 said:
Turned off hey siri too.
Doesnt use siri often.
Turn on by wrist raise must be on. As I was a Pebble owner I really miss the always on look :/
Click to expand...

As a Pebble owner what I don't miss are

crappy watch faces with jagged lines
tapping the plastic screen for nothing to happen.
 
Mapple86 said:
Turned off hey siri too.
Doesnt use siri often.
Turn on by wrist raise must be on. As I was a Pebble owner I really miss the always on look :/
Click to expand...

This is an honest question, not snarkiness. What is it that you need the Apple Watch for? You seem to be turning off all of the features.
 
But now you can't send digital heart taps to all of your buddies!!! Im not sure how you will ever be able to live without that! :p

----------

In all seriousness though, I have no reason to be looking at my heart rate. I don't care, like many of you. For some reason though, I look at the heart rate glance a few times a day and I get MAD when it says anything more than 10 minutes ago. Ha. I think body temperature would have been a cooler feature. Give me an alert as it goes over 100, or give me a reason to by my 1 year old one of her own(or hand my down)? Being able to see her temperature from my phone would be great.
 
greytmom said:
This is an honest question, not snarkiness. What is it that you need the Apple Watch for? You seem to be turning off all of the features.
Click to expand...

I use it for the notifications, directions, messaging, and siri. I don't care about the fitness stuff. Could I do that on a pebble? Probably, but it would look like ****. I prefer Apple.
 
Haven't had enough time with the HR monitor, but from my previous experience from Mio Alpha, the green LEDs and the sensor don't use that much juice, always last me months between chargings...
 
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