I think I figured out why Apple hasn't added navigation for sports to AW.

[trumptman]

I went on a run with my Apple Watch series 8 today. It has 90% battery health.

I put the route in Maps and started it on the watch. Then started my music that was downloaded to the watch, then went out on a run.

The watch was in lower power mode for the run which was about 70 minutes.

I got done with the run, watch battery level is.... 50%.

I get I could turn off this that, and the other.

For right now though, I think it has to be chewing major battery and so Apple isn't "improving" it enough to make people use it more.

 

[arc of the universe]

here is a comparison with my Series 8 cellular model.

purchased jan 2023. so about 2.5 years in use.
battery health is 84%
always have all functions at full measuring. rarely use Low Power mode.
i track my sleep with it as well. its over 95% when i go to sleep.
mostly always wearing it except to charge it during dinner time.
at wake up: battery about 88%
i have it set to get a lot of notifications for my work.
and i use it to receive a call or two during the day.
when i go for my outside run early afternoon time its at about 60%
my outside run is about 80 minutes. when i arrive back the battery is about 30%-35%
when i begin to charge it at around 7 pm its about 15%

so, after 2.5 years i'm still letting it do everything at max monitoring, average brightness, and always on screen.
it charges during dinner. and in around 1 hour 15 minutes or so it gets back to 100%.

i think that's doing great for a Series 8. i'm happy with it.

to maximise the battery i learned to limit phone calls and always carry my iPhone within bluetooth range when im outside. i think cell phone tower coverage around here is adequate, so not a lot of trying to find a cell tower i think. i also use maps (google and apple) that are pre-downloaded on both my iPhone and Watch.

but. i'm looking forward to getting the battery replaced after it drops below 80% battery health.

 

[stanza.richi]

I use my Ultra 2 with LTE only for my 60 minutes run with Strava and Apple Music. Most of the time I lost 15% of the battery during this usage.

 

[rbart]

It’s possible to have map feature in a workout app with reasonable battery drain.
Some apps are doing it.
Of course there is a small impact if you keep map on screen permanently, drawing a map requires a lot of calculation, but it’s feasible.
Maybe Apple will push this as a new feature on Ultra 3 ?