Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How to Get More Battery Life Out of Your Apple Watch
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Best tip...turn off the Siri Watch face. My battery life was tanking with that abomination. I pulled my watch off charger at 11am yesterday, ran 10 miles, and used my watch all throughout the day. I forgot to charge it last night, and now at 5pm today I’m at 45%. The battery is awesome on this watch (series 2).
True, I have done few resets. usually every couple months. I noticed especially on the Activity app there are bugs here and there.
I'm usually at 70-75% at the end of the day on my AW2 with using Now Playing about half the day, notifications all day from various sources (but mostly text and email), tapping to see time (I wear on inside of my wrist, so no raise function for me), weather, and calendar going constantly, and timers/Siri at the end of the day for cooking. I've had no issues with the battery and I can easily get two very full days out of it. I don't see the point, as many have mentioned, of cutting all the features to save a couple percent.
I easily get 2 days of battery life from my watch. I typically run/exercise about 30 minutes a day and turn on theater mode at night. I disabled a few notifications of stuff I don't care to receive, but I still have Siri enabled. I usually just throw my watch on the charger when I jump in the shower. When I first got it I would wait until the charge was at 100%, but anymore I just take it on and off and don't pay any attention to my charge level. I don't think I've ever gotten below 20% and I believe when it got that low it was on the third day. Granted, I don't use it to make calls, but I do use it to listen to music while I run. I'm definitely not a "heavy" user though.
True, but then you don't get any of the features that an Apple watch has.
I don't worry about battery life. Not only do I get 2+ days on my LTE series 3 watches but I have three watches so that I can just swap watches when one needs charging. I did the same thing last year with the series 2, bought more then one so the battery would not be a problem.
I love my Apple watches.
I upgraded from my Series 0 to a Series 2, and the Series 2 battery lasts for 3 days whereas the Series 0 would die at EOD. The only three apps on there are Dark Sky, Arccos Golf, and 2STP. So if you want to increase your battery life upgrade!
My face is modular, With date/time/calendar, 2 world clocks and dark sky.
My face is modular, With date/time/calendar, 2 world clocks and dark sky.
Right, but is that the point behind the article? We are discussing a smart watch battery improvements, not a mechanical watch. Entirely two different things.
Never had issue with battery, the only day I finished with less than 10% I did several workouts and I guess it was about 3 hours as a whole, tracking heart beat in the meantime. With a normal workout, let's say an hour, I don't have any problems. watchOS 3 was better for battery life, but I can still go to bed with a solid 30 or 40% left
So turn off convenience features that make the watch easier to use, select a mostly black background screen with the screen brightness turned down instead of something individual and personal, and turn off the health apps that were probably a big reason why you purchased the watch in the first place.
I have an idea of what Apple can do with the nearly one trillion dollars of profit that they reportedly have, although they should have done this 7-10 years ago. Invest in battery technology.
I have an idea of what Apple can do with the nearly one trillion dollars of profit that they reportedly have, although they should have done this 7-10 years ago. Invest in battery technology.
It's not. There are some nights during the week that I don't sleep in my own apartment and I do this to avoid having to bring my charger since I don't really need to.
Not that I do any of that, but some folks might want to minimize their overall battery usage in order to maintain battery life for many many years. By turning the watch off every night, one could reduce the number of charging cycles on the battery, thus allowing the watch to have a longer useful lifetime.
Me? I can't be bothered rebooting the watch every morning. Takes way too long. I just put it on a charger every night and slap it on a hour or two before I get out of bed. Wind up with 40 to 50% battery left every night.
Since I wear an AW at night, my normal charging regiment for my 38mm S0 was to charge in the evening between bathing kids and going to bed and in the morning when showering. It normally lasted me the full day, although there have been a few times when it would die or get close to dying by the time I was ready to bathe the kids. I recently got a 42mm S3, and I swear that I can last at least 2 days on a full charge or need to cut my charge time to last a day to 1 of the aforementioned times. If I start my day at only 50 percent, I'm still going strong by bedtime.
I find battery life annoying with the Apple Watch. It's a superb watch but they should focus on better power management. If I charge my watch to 100%. On my bedtime table 8 hours later it would have lost 30% battery life. It should be able to detect it is not in use for a set period and turn everything off, then when it detects movement, power everything back up again.
I had a Pebble Time and that used to do that. So, Apple Watch being as good as it, should be capable.
I will visit China and charging is an issue so I will use an Amazfit Bip by xiaomi (one of the top 3 manufacturers of activity trackers, ahead of Apple at one point). It's got GPS, Barometer, always on screen, notifications, native sleep tracking, gorilla glass, HR sensor and only cost about £40 ish.
I have used it for 20 days so far and still have 39% battery life left and that's with the HR sensor set to take a reading every 10 mins.
Check it out!
https://www.gearbest.com/smart-watches/pp_662581.html?lkid=12805368
I had a Pebble Time and that used to do that. So, Apple Watch being as good as it, should be capable.
I will visit China and charging is an issue so I will use an Amazfit Bip by xiaomi (one of the top 3 manufacturers of activity trackers, ahead of Apple at one point). It's got GPS, Barometer, always on screen, notifications, native sleep tracking, gorilla glass, HR sensor and only cost about £40 ish.
I have used it for 20 days so far and still have 39% battery life left and that's with the HR sensor set to take a reading every 10 mins.
Check it out!
https://www.gearbest.com/smart-watches/pp_662581.html?lkid=12805368
that sounds weird. I don't lose 30% in 8 hours when I'm wearing my watch. I certainly wouldn't expect it to use more battery when I'm not wearing it. Sounds like something is wrong with that AW.
Just curious as to your trip to China. Why would charging be an issue. My impression of China (at least in the cities and suburbs) is that they are very tech oriented. I wouldn't think charging would be that difficult.
From UK to China, the battery won't last for sure. Then I need to carry a charging cable and charger then find somewhere to plug it in. Now, I don't need a charger or have to worry about charging it!
You'd be surprised about Asia. I visited Japan a few years ago and couldn't find free/public WIFI anywhere in Kyoto or Tokyo. It was mostly for those who have a mobile phone contract and can hop onto the free WIFI.
apple watch only gives 3hrs of gps and so so hrm
garmin watch gives 12 hrs of gps and good hrm
polar m600 andriod wear gives 9hrs of gps and good hrm
How do you define "so so" versus "good" HRM? Is it based on accuracy vs an EKG machine? Or is it based on the number of HR readings per minute?
I will say that the AW (series 2 Nike) HR sensor is quite accurate when compared to my Polar H7 chest strap. Within 2 to 3 beats, usually closer. I will say that the lack of continuous HR readings is a little disappointing, but it's a trade-off for all of the other things that the AW does well.
The author of this article seems to have missed what ended up killing my S0 battery: turn-by-turn navigation alerts. I highly recommend turning that off if you don’t use it and you’re on a S0. I wish Apple would make it so when you’re suing CarPlay that wouldn’t engage. What a ridiculous waste of battery to be getting those taps while you’re driving with CarPlay.
Thanks for this. I just bought an Apple watch because of your post. My daughter picked up a Fitbit Charge HR recently which gets 5 days, and so that's what I'm looking for in a watch. Most of your suggestions are exactly what I'd do - same use scenario. I don't actually need a 'watch' - Just HR and activity tracking, sleep monitor and then the cellular notifications sp I can leave the phone at home and my daughter can message from home when I'm out.
Perfect.
Great point. I am here to extend my battery’s lifespan, not its life. I got almost 8 years of use out of my S0, and I’d like this SE1 to last at least 5-6 years to get my money’s worth.
I found the article a bit exaggerated with sentences like “Be ruthless”. I feel like that’s an unhealthy mindset to have. That said, I was appalled by the fact that my new SE1 did not last through the first workout I put it through.
Granted, I was very rough with it. I disabled Hey Siri and most other known battery hogs, but kept all health-related sensors and notifications on because that’s the point of the watch! I also used the AirPods with ANC on and the watch was on cellular all throughout the workout, iPhone at home. I texted a bunch, took a few 15-minute calls on the AirPods through the watch, listened to music on Spotify all through my workout, basically I used the watch like the ads paint us using it.
Battery life was a 5/10. I expected it to last 4-6 hours under this heavy use, but I hit 10% after only 3 hours out and only for around 1 hour of that was I in a workout session.
So yeah, if this is how it performs new, after only 3 days using it I can already tell I will want to upgrade after 3-4 years of battery degradation. Slightly disappointing compared to my beast S0, but considering it does so much more, if it lasts for 4 years I will happily get another one.
On a related tangent, batteries on AirPods Pro 2nd gen completely exceeded my expectations. I purchased it alongside the watch slightly ‘concerned’ about the potential battery drain of ANC; by the time the watch died 4hrs out on the street, the earbuds were still had 67% battery charge left; ANC on for 4 hours and music playback for about 2hrs, and 2 calls somewhere in there. I was completely blown away.
Last edited: