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Series 2 battery life
- Thread starter TorontoSS
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Almost 11:00 PM now and 73% left. So far so good.
Will probably keep it on at night. But might do a quick charge in the morning, because i'm planning to workout tomorrow.
Wore my 38mm series 2 without charging, since yesterday 7am. Only have Messages and Mail apps in my Dock. Have only one watch face added, and background refresh is enabled for all apps. Messages, Mail, Battery, Calendar, and Weather are the complications on my watch face. Brightness is set to the middle.
Apple definitely underestimated the runtime of the watch.
After 24h, i woke up with around 65% left. And this was the first day, when i was still playing around and configuring it all the time.
Charged it while getting ready in the morning, back up to 98%. (Which was 7:30) and now it's 17:00 and it's down to 90%!
Phone is down to 77%, so it doesn't seem to drain much. Maybe i'm even saving battery, because i don't have to look at the phone as often.
How can this be possible? I am wearing 38mm series 2 as well but it does not last a day....
Did you do some exercise using workout app? Heart sensor on as well?
Can you tell me how you configured your watch and the way you used it please?
Thanks
I did one 30 min run with heart sensor on. It's defiantly the dock that kills battery life, depending what app you have on it. My first several days, battery life was horrible. Another poster advised me to remove apps from the dock. I did that and restarted the watch, and noticed a drastic change. I only keep Messages and Mail apps in my dock.
I wouldn't mess with background refresh settings. Some notifications failed to come in when I disable background refresh. So I have background refresh enabled for all apps, and battery life is still great.
Did you also set the haptic strength to medium and turn on reduce motion and reduce transparency? What about wake screen on wrist raise feature?
Also how do you remove apps that appear in the dock? Not the ones you keep in the dock, ones that appear automatically when you open an app on the watch.
The first few days I had my 38mm S2 I got very inconsistent battery drain. One day I wore it 8AM to Midnight and went to bed with 64% left. I used a sleep tracker with it for the first time that night. The next full recharge drained the batter at about the rate of my S0, which is to say not well.
But.
Here is what I found: third party complications kill my battery. I used to have Wunderground as my main complication - no matter what face, it took the most prominent position. Since Watch OS 3 though, it hasn't been working well, not on my S0 or my new S2. I tried a few other complications, fiddled, and finally realized I got killer battery when I used only the Apple complications, including for Weather (which has gotten better btw). Since then my watch can easily go a full day with > 50% left, and I've done workouts, scribbled texts, and still checked WUnderground from the dock, unlock my Mac many times a day. I have background refresh enabled for everything I have on my watch (hint: most Watch capable apps are a complete waste), and I am SO glad I got the S2. Only things I haven't tested yet are the built in GPS and swimming with it.
Right now, I've been up since 6:30AM, now 4PM, I'm at 81%.
But.
Here is what I found: third party complications kill my battery. I used to have Wunderground as my main complication - no matter what face, it took the most prominent position. Since Watch OS 3 though, it hasn't been working well, not on my S0 or my new S2. I tried a few other complications, fiddled, and finally realized I got killer battery when I used only the Apple complications, including for Weather (which has gotten better btw). Since then my watch can easily go a full day with > 50% left, and I've done workouts, scribbled texts, and still checked WUnderground from the dock, unlock my Mac many times a day. I have background refresh enabled for everything I have on my watch (hint: most Watch capable apps are a complete waste), and I am SO glad I got the S2. Only things I haven't tested yet are the built in GPS and swimming with it.
Right now, I've been up since 6:30AM, now 4PM, I'm at 81%.
Wow, I am surprised you get that rate of battery drainage. I have used my S2 from 8am until now (9:44pm) and 24% remaining. I have done running without an iPhone for an hour so I think I used GPS for an hour there but still I am not satisfied with the rate of battery drainage atm. I am using modular watch face and only using Apple complications - whether, world clock, activities, calendar, and workout. Also, I have turned on reduce motion and reduce transparency, medium brightness, medium haptic strength. As you can see, I did all I could do to maximise battery life. Did you also change settings like myself or they are all set as default.
I didn't reduce motion or transparency, and it's on medium brightness and strong haptic. My guess is a third party app that's draining it; maybe a case of turning off background tasks. Definitely reboot if that doesn't do it. Or it could be GPS, I haven't used that at all yet. It's 12:25AM now, I've had my S2 off the charger since 6:30AM (18 hours) and I'm at 57% remaining. Modular face, date, weather, battery, sunrise, activity. I did about 45 minutes of workouts (with iPhone, so not GPS). I dunno what I'm doing differently. But this is the 3rd or 4th day it's been this good.
It is weird as I do not use any third party apps. Hmm...I have also rebooted and repaired with the iPhone but there was not much difference.
How many notifications did you get and did you turn off wake screen on wrist raise?
Would apps recently opened and stay in the dock affect battery life as well? I have now removed all apps in the dock but can't remove those which appear under recent tab.
That depends on the app. iPhone apps started behaving themselves a lot better when Apple started "battery shaming" them. I wish you could do the same on the watch.
For your previous question no, I didn't disable wake on wrist raise or take any other power saving measures. I get plenty of notifications during the day - mostly text messages. I wonder if it performs some system tasks when it is new, and if resetting the watch made it do it over again. This is purely speculation.
I wore my watch for 22.5 hours straight (fell asleep on the couch
) and it was down to 51%, there has to be a solution for you.
Mines been pretty amazing. I lose about 10% for an hour workout at the gym. I top off when I get home at 630am. I am usually home from work and have been about 65-70% most days. On the original Apple Watch I'd be at 35-40% for the same type of day.
been getting the best battery life so far with mine today.. took off charger at 5 am and it's now 2:00 pm and still at 95%.
My battery level seems to be way better than my 1st generation watch - I've put it on max brightness and haptic (like I did on 1st gen) and even with an hours workout 6.30 am this morning it's still 76% battery 12.30 pm after lunch... better than usual - Yesterday took it on 11 am from the charger and used it quite a lot - no workouts though, but answered texts with siri and more - and 74% when I took it off around midnight - that's crazy good! Need to try out a two day stretch just to see how it goes...