Redesigned Apple Watch Series 7 Could Prioritize Longer Battery Life Over Additional Sensors

[One2Grift]

It’s a good and interesting question. Like everyone I like a longer battery life for my device. OTOH the features and performance are part of the excellence of the Awatch. I bought the S6 in part to get the newest sensor, BloodOx. The constant historical data makes it a solid investment in health. Adding more sensors makes it an even more solid investment. So Imho go with adding the new monitoring hardware and accept the lower battery life.
I’ve owned my S6 for only several weeks but it was easy to get in a charging rhythm. Get up in the morning, put it on the charger, make coffee, shower, just before work put it back on.

On a general note, The Awatch has been a great enhancement to the Aeco and it shows in that sector’s sales. In the holiday quarter, wearables and accessories revenue (powered by the Awatch) hit almost 13% of Apple’s 112B in revenue.

-70million all types smartwatches WW we’re sold in 2020.
-Apple’s wearables and hearables were the market leader at 36% (based on last quarter sales).
-Apple sold 33.9 million smartwatches WW in 2020. 41% of market.
-The 2-5 seller companies (Huawei, Samsung, BBK Fitbit/Google) combined for 32.7 million smartwatches sold
-Samsung and Google/Fitbit sales are expected to grow substantially faster than Apple/the rest in coming years.
-Expectation is for huge growth in smartwatch sales2025 totaling 160m for 130B (usd) WW

 

[Gsmaniac]

Just checked the battery health on my series 4 - 97%. I was shocked it was still so high.

 

[pauloregan]

The Watch started out that way, with far less focus on fitness. It turned out that either Apple didn't make a compelling case, or it wasn't what people wanted. They wanted a high-end fitness tracker with other features on top. And that's what the Watch is now, and it's pretty good at that.

The watch at the start wasn't powerful enough to do anything other than tell the time and give you a few vague health stats. The apps couldn't function properly. There is a case to provide a cheaper wearable ipod. This would be a good choice for those that are self aware enough to know they don't need the high end fitness tracker (as they don't work out, or do so infrequently enough that stats are meaningless).

 

[spac3duck]

I appreciate that additional sensors can be beneficial to a few or many users, however I feel they are situationally dependent. Improvements to battery life are a foundational improvement for everyone, all the time.

For context, I’ve had an S3 that I had to charge every night but have recently been using a Garmin Fenix 6 Pro that lasts 14 days. (I guess it’s a trade off between a smart watch that has fitness capabilities versus a fitness watch with smart capabilities)

Wish list - an S7 with seven days battery life (nice ring to it 🤣) but I’d switch back for one that lasted even 3-4 days. Enough for a weekend trip or a marathon/fitness event

 

[deckard666]

I'm fine with the AW6 battery - I use Heart Anaylzer and Pillow to track heart rate and sleep pattern over night with watch on Do not Disturb (Moon mode) and most days even with display on I'm around 30% by nightfall and around 20% by morning. More battery life is always great but currently for me its pretty much zero issue (YMMV) plus it charges so quick...no wonder they are untouchable in this field.

 

[Psychicbob]

I’d think the best they could do is to double the battery life to 2 days. It really needs to be 5 to 7 days though, IMHO.

 

[ralphyman]

The battery of my 6 is doing just fine, I’ll wait for the 8 then

 

[the future]

Battery life is fine already. Watch needs to get thinner.

 

[chucker23n1]

The watch at the start wasn't powerful enough to do anything other than tell the time and give you a few vague health stats. The apps couldn't function properly.

Be that as it may, the Watch was originally presented with a much broader set of features, and (despite becoming more powerful) became more focused on its use cases after a year or two.

 

[ian87w]

This is good news. Many of the features are region specific anyway so extra sensors are useless in regions like my country where most of the health features are not available. I'd rather see a universal feature like better battery life.

 

[Diskutant]

I use the Series 4, I have no problem with battery life, I was thinking about getting a Series 7 because some new sensors that were rumored before were a nice addition and because the Series 4 has no always on display which I find annoying now.
But now with these rumors I still want a new one because of the missing always-on display, but other features I wanted will come with Series 8.
Maybe I will just get a cheaper Series 6 when the 7 is out, and upgrade to 8 next year. 🤔

 

[yegon]

Unless it leaps to 4 or 5 days, increased battery life beyond 36 hours or so seems kind of pointless. Only edge cases, endurance runners and triathletes would really benefit on a day to day basis, and those people likely use a Garmin or equivalent anyway.

I’d guess super fast charging would be more welcome for most people, although that might worsen battery health quicker I suppose.

 

[MrPresident]

Longer battery life is desperately needed. My non-cellular SE is normally sub 50% every day with very little usage. If I actually use it track a workout or as golf range-finder it normally enters power-reserve mode before the evening. During longer workouts; a six hour hike, it usually fails to stay powered on for the full period.

It would be nice to have a fully functioning watch for an entire day rather than worry about it dying mid-way through a workout or having to recharge it twice a day.

 

[emrelee]

IMO a wristband with battery inside could have been a better solution to those who needs more battery life. The orange wristband in the images can have pill shaped battery packs inside those bumped up parts of the wristband.

 

[yegon]

Longer battery life is desperately needed. My non-cellular SE is normally sub 50% every day with very little usage. If I actually use it track a workout or as golf range-finder it normally enters power-reserve mode before the evening. During longer workouts; a six hour hike, it usually fails to stay powered on for the full period.

It would be nice to have a fully functioning watch for an entire day rather than worry about it dying mid-way through a workout or having to recharge it twice a day.

The AW is ill suited to fitness tracking beyond a few hours a day. It’s clearly targeted to the gym/spin class/general fitness crowd (me, basically). Unless Apple released a chunkier, rugged sport version, I doubt you’ll ever get the battery life you require.

I have tracked a few hikes with it but stopped doing it as the battery simply isn’t up to it.

If I ran like I did when I was younger, I’d get a Garmin no question.

 

[xyz01]

The SE watch needs to be a notification enabled, music playing watch. No fitness, no gizmos.

As Tom Papa says, we need to move passed the notion that everyday movement is exercise. You either workout or you don't.

I disagree strongly with that - and no, I haven't seen the Youtube video.

I'm not saying that everyday movement will replace exercise in most cases. What I'm saying is that you need both. E.g. I'm working out more than I've done the last year, but it still doesn't make up for the lost activity - going to the bus, walking from the subway to work etc. 10 000+ daily steps and a couple of workout sessions a week is better than workouts every day and almost no everyday movement.

 

[Mr_Ed]

I appreciate that additional sensors can be beneficial to a few or many users, however I feel they are situationally dependent. Improvements to battery life are a foundational improvement for everyone, all the time.

For context, I’ve had an S3 that I had to charge every night but have recently been using a Garmin Fenix 6 Pro that lasts 14 days. (I guess it’s a trade off between a smart watch that has fitness capabilities versus a fitness watch with smart capabilities)

Wish list - an S7 with seven days battery life (nice ring to it 🤣) but I’d switch back for one that lasted even 3-4 days. Enough for a weekend trip or a marathon/fitness event

The AW just never appealed to me and you hit on one of the reasons why. It’s that “trade off” you identified. I’m not a health nut by any stretch of the imagination, I’ve just been trying to make small improvements in my lifestyle in recent years and I find having a wide variety of data collected more frequently helps me in that regard. I have a Garmin Vivosmart 4s that tracks respiration, heart rate, pulse ox, among others during day and night. It’s even decent at figuring out which of the common strength training exercises I am doing (knows I am doing a bench press or lateral raise and counts reps in the set, for example), which minimizes any post workout data entry on my part. I wear a chest strap HR monitor when I use the elliptical and the Garmin tracks within 3 bps (usually within 1) of the chest monitor during the workout, so I’m more than satisfied with the accuracy. The sleep tracking includes heart rate, respiration, movement, and pulse ox readings and the Garmin app presents all that data in an easy to consume chronological graph.

All that (only the stuff I’m interested in, there’s probably a lot more that it does), and as long as I plug it in for 15-20 mins. while I’m in the shower (it’s waterproof, that’s just when I choose to do it), I’m never concerned about having it be anywhere near a low battery condition. If I forget to plug it in for a couple of days (sometimes I’m distracted and just toss it on the dresser) I’m still not worried I can’t log my workout after I get home from work that evening. For me, the battery life advertised by Apple means I’ll be playing Russian Roulette regarding battery life and sleep tracking is basically a non starter.

 

[fhall1]

I've held off getting an AW because of the paltry battery life. Needs to be 3 to 5 days, so you can got the weekend without charging.

 

[twistedpixel8]

Will apple send out letters to Ming-Chi Kuo and mark gurman? Since they sent letters out to other leakers telling them to stop or they’ll get lawyers involved. 🤔

No, because these guys are fed info deliberately to drive hype. It’s part of Apple marketing.

 

[gmarm]

All I wanna say is:

YES PLEASE!

 

[azentropy]

I really don’t consider myself a power user. I use it for fitness (couple of workouts a day), notifications and I have a few shortcuts (toggle garage door, a couple of commands for my Tesla). Pretty much every other day I get a low battery warning on my AW5.

I don’t want just another couple hours though, I want another couple days for it to be a meaningful change.

 

[Populus]

“Apple delays features for the Apple Watch Series 7 so that they will have something to sell for the Series 8.”

(I know, I know, it’s just a joke😉)

I have used Apple Watch since the first generation in 2015 and I’ve upgraded every generation or 2 since then. The battery life has never been a concern for me. I just charge it overnight during sleep and at the end of the day it’s down to around 40-50% always.
I’d prefer more sensors than adding battery life UNLESS they can make it to last 3-4 days.

If they manage to give it a battery life of 4 days... I’d seriously consider getting one. I want to be able to wear it through the night as well, to measure my sleep quality.

 

[MrFootery]

I imagine there are very few people who buy a new Watch every year. I haven't found a survey, but I'd guess the average is somewhere between 2 and 4 years.

Agreed. For those who do upgrade yearly, it’s great, but personally, my watch is in the same generation as my phone. The upgrades and features work in tandem, and will hopefully last me for a few more years.

 

[MrPresident]

The AW is ill suited to fitness tracking beyond a few hours a day. It’s clearly targeted to the gym/spin class/general fitness crowd (me, basically). Unless Apple released a chunkier, rugged sport version, I doubt you’ll ever get the battery life you require.

I have tracked a few hikes with it but stopped doing it as the battery simply isn’t up to it.

If I ran like I did when I was younger, I’d get a Garmin no question.

Probably wishful thinking on my end but a shame non the less that it doesn’t quite have the battery capacity. I hold out hope that the next iteration will be able to provide a full day of heavy usage!

 

[a104375]

This would be appreciated. I would like to take advantage of the sleep tracking feature but I have to charge my dang watch some time.

The number of times I wake up in the morning to a mostly dead AW5 because I forgot to charge before bed is frankly too high. Or the dreaded "charge now or it won't have enough charge to wake you up in the morning" 10 minutes before you were about to head to sleep. So for us sleep tracker AW users longer battery life is a must. It's crazy that so many other smart watches have seemingly similar features and size yet much longer battery life.