In 10 years, Apple has made no improvements to the battery life of its Watch Series. It seems battery life isn’t a priority for Apple (they prefer add features/power/change design with thinner one... than maintains constant feature but adding battery life). Yet, this is a real issue—in many situations, the battery is absolutely inadequate. And I’m not even talking about extreme sports activities, but just the Dolce Far Niente.
A Series watch fits my daily office routine with an hour of exercise fairly well, especially since being indoors most of the time means the screen uses less power. However, on vacation, lounging at the beach doing nothing, it doesn’t last the day. The issues are twofold: the screen consumes significantly more power in very bright environments like the beach, and occasional swims (leaving the phone on the shore) result in the watch losing its Bluetooth connection and switching to LTE. By midday, it’s dead—unless you put it in theater mode.
Ironically, even when battery life is technically sufficient, it’s still a problem. The watch often finishes the day with less than 20% charge, accelerating chemical wear on the battery. For example, compared to iPhone Max, which drains slowly and maintains 99% battery health after a year, Apple Watch is already at 90% or even less.
