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Series 1 or Series 2 real world battery life?

M

MadCar

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 21, 2014
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So many will have had a few days with their new watches but how are you finding battery life compared to the series 0?

Interested to see if anyone is noticing better battery life if they aren't using the GPS or if the S1 is better with the more efficient processor.
 
I'm noticing a substantial improvement in my S2 battery. Specifically I've been using the Sleep Pulse app to track my sleep so I've been charging my watch before bed and then wearing it all night. Before I got my new watch I would wake up to 70-80% battery left. I swear, today I woke up with 98%. I thought something was wrong but it tracked my sleep and hardly used any battery. Note that I turn off raise to wake before I go to sleep.

It's also holding a charge much better during workouts (not outdoor using gps).

I'm happily surprised.
 
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Aml216 said:
S1 here.
1h 34m usage
8h 13m standby
44 m workout
66%
Click to expand...

I wish! my battery is draining like crazy, only a couple notifications, no background app refresh, low brightness on the display, haven't worked out yet today, i'm already at 61%
 
And which model do you have?

The reason I raised the question was my better half wants one. But she says she doesn't want GPS as she will take her phone on a run anyway for safety and the waterproofing isn't a benefit.

But if people with the S2 are seeing 2 day battery life with normal daily usage then its a serious consideration to get the S2 for the extra money.
 
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MadCar said:
And which model do you have?

The reason I raised the question was my better half wants one. But she says she doesn't want GPS as she will take her phone on a run anyway for safety and the waterproofing isn't a benefit.

But if people with the S2 are seeing 2 day battery life with normal daily usage then its a serious consideration to get the S2 for the extra money.
Click to expand...

I have the 42mm S1
 
Took my S2 out of the charger at 7am EST. Still has 73% left. And I've been using randomly.
 
it honestly shows up as blank on my phone, go figure, I just know I unplugged at 7:15am EST and by around 11:30am it was already down to 79% and thats with minimal notifications and usage
 
Series 1 with a bigger battery and no GPS and same brightness on the display should have much better real world battery life than AW0?

Series 2 with a bigger battery than AW0 and if the watch stays near the phone (so it's own GPS is not used) should also have somewhat better battery life than AW0?

Anybody seeing anything like the above? Would love to hear how it's going now they've been out for a few days.
 
Here my experience with a Space Black SS Series 2 42mm....woke up yesterday morning at about 7AM and put the watch on. Went to work until 2 and hit the gym for an hour. Then went for a 30 min GPS run later that night. Realized at around 10PM my battery was at 68%....BATTERY IS AMAZING...
 
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Excellent looks promising for both models then which is great.

I wonder why Apple didn't make a bigger thing about the battery life with it being such a negative to so many. Its certainly not up to some of the rivals getting 4-10days but lets face it you can do a lot more with an Apple Watch.
 
JIannacone said:
Here my experience with a Space Black SS Series 2 42mm....woke up yesterday morning at about 7AM and put the watch on. Went to work until 2 and hit the gym for an hour. Then went for a 30 min GPS run later that night. Realized at around 10PM my battery was at 68%....BATTERY IS AMAZING...
Click to expand...

I need to do whatever you're doing to get that battery life! Watch went on at 2AM, 45 min workout, 2PM now. 51%. :(
 
battery life is great, on saturday i was up at 730, went to the gym and had a 1 hour workout, went to bed at 4am and it was at about 8%. also since its my first apple watch ive been using it much more than i probably will typically
 
42mm SS Series 2 - New AW user so have been using it more than regular I guess.
Sunday I logged 3 indoor workouts for an hour each (I'm guessing this type of workout doesn't use the watches GPS) plus plenty of usage and by 11pm I was in power reserve mode?
Monday was a standard day 7am wake up with two workouts (outdoor run for 30 mins) and by 10pm is was in power reserve mode.....
I have been using more than normal but I'm hoping once I have all my settings right I will be able to get to the end of the day with a good amount of usage without going into power reserve.
I've also turned on crown to wake to help reduce battery
 
Aml216 said:
S1 here.
1h 34m usage
8h 13m standby
44 m workout
66%
Click to expand...

Ugh... my Series 1 38mm is getting far less than my Series 0 did. Conveniently, I am also at 66% battery left, but with only 6 hours standby, 43 mins usage, and no workout. Yesterday I had to put it on the charger during the day for the first time after months and months of owning the original model. I'm ending the days in power saving mode when I used to end with 40+ % left.

I just made a bunch of settings changes. Hopefully that fixes things. I'm guessing that most of my settings didn't carry over to the new watch.
 
It does seem that some don't get great life and others do, I guess different watch faces and how often you are using it can make a difference amongst other things.
 
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MadCar said:
It does seem that some don't get great life and others do, I guess different watch faces and how often you are using it can make a difference amongst other things.
Click to expand...

I was surprised to see I even had 40 mins usage time. I feel like I glanced at the watch a few times and never even interacted with it before it got down to 66%. I've had an Apple Watch since the original launch, so I'm not messing with it every second.

I charged it back to full. Now it's at 90% after 10 mins usage time. Had deleted all but 3 things from my dock, turned off most background app refreshes. Didn't touch the screen one time for my supposed 10mins of usage. The ONLY thing I left was a complication for Dark Sky and a complication for Focus. So I'll troubleshoot them next.

Honestly though, if I can't use complications and I can't make it through a full day where I don't even interact with the watch, I don't see why I upgraded. I got the time and notifications just fine on the first gen.

Part of me thinks that there has to be some kind of hit to Series 1 as it has the old battery but new processor. My battery life is about 30% less than it was on Gen0... seems awfully similar to the 35% larger battery in series2.
 
Is there a way to find out what is using the battery on the Apple watch?

I thought the new processor was more efficient than the S0 even though it is more powerful??

That battery drop seems quite high though for any of the watches. Have you tried powering it off and re-starting it?
 
Update: I removed the Dark Sky complication. Also turned the Watch off and then on again. Battery life has improved immensely. Originally lost 10 percent with 2 hours standby and 10 mins usage (though I didn't even use it). After changes I lost 6% in 2 hours standby with 25 new minutes of usage.

This is the battery life I got with series0! Think it's all good now.

Wish there was a usage per app/complication for future issues.
 
I got my first Apple Watch (Series 1 - 42mm) on Friday and I'm not sure if my battery life is good or not. I have no comparables, so I hope you guys can help me.

Yesterday I was down to 5% after 4 hours 35 minutes of usage and 14 hours 34 minutes of standby.
Right now, I'm down to 53% after 1 hour 57 minutes of usage and 8 hours and 15 minutes of standby.

What do you guys think?

And are there any known heavy battery drain settings that I can turn off to immensely increase battery life?
 
That is a lot of usage in the day you are down to 5%. My thought is that you are not using it for 4+ hours so I would start looking at your apps in the dock and complications. Unless you are playing games. :)

Make sure docked and complication apps are all OS3 and background refresh is only on for apps that really need a lot of updates like scores and temperature.
 
BlueMoon63 said:
That is a lot of usage in the day you are down to 5%. My thought is that you are not using it for 4+ hours so I would start looking at your apps in the dock and complications. Unless you are playing games. :)

Make sure docked and complication apps are all OS3 and background refresh is only on for apps that really need a lot of updates like scores and temperature.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply.
This is what I was wondering about too. I don't play any games, I only get a couple of notifications for iMessages and mails and I check my activity rings every now and then but that's basically it.

I just turned off the stocks complication on my watch face which provided real time stock prices, maybe that will help.

So, if background refresh is turned on and the watch occasionally updates content for apps, this will be counted as usage as well, right?
 
QquegChristian said:
Update: I removed the Dark Sky complication. Also turned the Watch off and then on again. Battery life has improved immensely. Originally lost 10 percent with 2 hours standby and 10 mins usage (though I didn't even use it). After changes I lost 6% in 2 hours standby with 25 new minutes of usage.

This is the battery life I got with series0! Think it's all good now.

Wish there was a usage per app/complication for future issues.
Click to expand...

I don't have any complications worth noting, but maybe a simple restart may work wonders -restarting my Apple Watch now!

infinitejest said:
I got my first Apple Watch (Series 1 - 42mm) on Friday and I'm not sure if my battery life is good or not. I have no comparables, so I hope you guys can help me.

Yesterday I was down to 5% after 4 hours 35 minutes of usage and 14 hours 34 minutes of standby.
Right now, I'm down to 53% after 1 hour 57 minutes of usage and 8 hours and 15 minutes of standby.

What do you guys think?

And are there any known heavy battery drain settings that I can turn off to immensely increase battery life?
Click to expand...

That seems like some pretty steep battery life there. I would think something is refreshing in the background all the time to experience that kind of drainage. That, or as mentioned above, you're playing game on it or using the workout app like a beast.
 
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