Maximizing AW3LTE Battery Life

[jpy1980]

How are you guys handling maximizing the battery life for the LTE series 3 watch?

Are you leaving the cellular radio off when you have your iPhone connected and only turn on the radio when away from your phone? Or do you have it always on and trust that the software is doing everything to maximize battery life?

Any other tips?

 

[BrettDS]

The watch works pretty hard to keep the LTE modem off... it only fires up if you have no Bluetooth connection to the phone and no known WiFi connection. For normal day to day operation I think trying to manually manage it will be way more trouble than it’s worth.

If you’re away from your phone for an extended time and maybe in a poor signal area and don’t need to watch to be connected all the time, then maybe I could see turning it off manually for a bit, but I think you’re way overthinking things if you want to try micromanage the watch.

 

[alee]

You're overthinking it. For the S0 maybe worth worrying about, but with the S3 LTE, I'm at 15 hrs on battery now, w/30 min of LTE-only use, an hour workout, and battery is still at 70%. This will run all day without any thought, and could easily run 2 days before needing a charge the 2nd night.

 

[sorka]

Anyone have any data on how long the 38mm watch will last on only LTE if it isn't used?

 

[darrinS]

Im impressed so far with battery life. I fully charged it yesterday afternoon. I wore it to sleep. I left my house today at 7am without my iPhone, went to the gym and listened to music thru my Beats and ran the workout app. I started working out at 8am and stopped close to 10am. I didnt make any calls but i did receive several messages and emails. I got back to my home wifi at around 10:30. I used the watch all day, did a breathing session, checked email, the weather, news, espn and the time. Its now almost 8pm and Im charging it because I use it to track my sleeping. The battery was at around 40% left now. That is terrific in my book. I really thought my battery would be almost done after two hours on cellular. I guess we'll see when we can stream Apple Music how it is.

 

[edhchoe]

I talked on the phone/watch for 20 seconds on LTE and it used up a lot of battery.

 

[44267547]

I talked on the phone/watch for 20 seconds on LTE and it used up a lot of battery.

Just using LTE alone on the Apple Watch, the Apple Watch will be rated at one hour of battery life. And in your situation, I imagine that's how most will use their Apple Watch, is for a very brief call or have the ability to make the call if need be.

 

[MrMac2015]

Can anyone else comment on battery life? Will the Lte s3 easily last till midnight living a normal city life? (Phone and WiFi about most of the time)

Think I’m gonna pull the trigger just can’t decide to go for ss or just aluminium. Looks like a 3 year upgrade cycle for me

 

[darrinS]

Can anyone else comment on battery life? Will the Lte s3 easily last till midnight living a normal city life? (Phone and WiFi about most of the time)

Think I’m gonna pull the trigger just can’t decide to go for ss or just aluminium. Looks like a 3 year upgrade cycle for me

I would say so. With phone and WiFi most of the time, you wont be using much cellular anyways. I charged my watch last night and wore it to sleep. From 10pm to 5:30am, tracking my sleep. I left my house at 7am without my phone. Worked out at the gym from 8 till 10ish. Used the music app and workout app the whole time. Went shopping and returned home where my phone and wifi are at around 1pm. So i was on cellular from 7 till 1. Now at almost 5pm my battery reports 51%. I’m sure I can easily get to tomorrow morning without charging, although tonight about an hour befor bed i will fully charge it. The only reservation is what will streaming Apple Music do to the battery? But nobody knows that right now.

My 2cents on the stainless steel vs. the aluminum. For me the stainless steel is too fancy for my taste. I like the sport look of the aluminum. Also I had a silver original stainless steel watch and it showed numerous fine scratches on the metal. I bought a S2 aluminum and after a year it still looks brand new. Not a scratch on it. So for me I knew I wanted the aluminum again. The only other one was the ceramic gray one, but its a lot of money and again, maybe too fancy looking for my taste.

 

[Aleks65]

Can anyone else comment on battery life? Will the Lte s3 easily last till midnight living a normal city life? (Phone and WiFi about most of the time)

Think I’m gonna pull the trigger just can’t decide to go for ss or just aluminium. Looks like a 3 year upgrade cycle for me

I'm not using LTE as my provider doesn't offer it yet, but so far I'm getting over 48hrs of straight usage. During that time, I have 2 x 40min workout sessions, I ask Siri to send txt's here and there and to control HomeKit stuff, deal with notifications, control my music playing off my phone... And I still have about 10-14% left 48hrs in.

I had a Space Black SS S0 and now opted for Space Black SS S3. I looked at my S0 which I'd worn daily since getting it at launch and it looked nearly flawless. The Space Black finish is really good at preventing scratches and the Sapphire display didn't even show a scratch after 2+ years of usage. I like SS simply for the durability of the screen and the watch itself.

 

[darrinS]

Yeah, I have the 42mm. Two days at the gym and I did long workouts. Listened to music through my Beats the M2 PowerBeats and ran the workout app. My battery did go down quite a bit but it was enough to get me through that and more. Like I wrote, today I even went shopping and ate lunch out before coming back home and I still had 50%. 6 hours on cellular. The only thing is I didn’t make any calls.

Oh and once you’re back tethered to your phone, battery life lasts a long time. So the 50%, once I got back home, was enough to get me the rest of the day.