Series 3 "Always On" Screen Coming?

[JamerG]

This would be the single biggest thing Apple could do to get me to upgrade to series 3 from my series 0.

At the end of the day the Apple Watch is first and foremost a watch. It's primary function is to tell the time. It does this worse than any other watch you can buy, because you can't just glance at the screen without moving your wrist in some way to switch it on.

I can't believe that Apple are not aware of this and don't have plans to address it in future versions.

 

[exxxviii]

At the end of the day the Apple Watch is first and foremost a watch. It's primary function is to tell the time. It does this worse than any other watch you can buy, because you can't just glance at the screen without moving your wrist in some way to switch it on.

This is a great summary-- I had not thought about it in those terms before. I have adapted to the AW's wrist raise, but I do not like it. With a real watch, I can read it while typing or doing other work when my watch is in view naturally. Not with an AW. I have another smart-ish watch with an always-on screen, and although the screen quality is below the AW's screen (lower resolution, lower brightness, lower contrast, etc.) the other watch's usability for its time telling time reading its smart data crushes the AW.

 

[pkahleeb]

Really? I actually think it's pretty damn remarkable battery life I get out of mine - The AW 1st gen was good, but my S2 is amazing - often above 50% when I go to bed even on a day at the gym or going for a run - Above 70% without gym/running

I've only had my AW2 for four days and I am pretty amazed at the battery. I wear mine from 10pm to 8pm the next day. Battery has been 70% on normal days and 60% with an hour workout without gps. Very happy.

I have no idea how you guys get battery life like this out of Apple Watch. Do you not get many notifications? Do you not have any complications on your watchface?

I have the default brightness (and have tried lowest) on both a Series 1 (that I returned) and a Series 2. Series 1 was quite a bit worse than the Series 2 but a 8:30 AM to 2:30 AM day my watch is so much lower than yours. I think people may not get as many texts, gmail messages, etc like I do. I don't use Apple mail, I use the GMail app because notifications work better with that app. I also only use official apple complications. I currently have the battery, messages, date, and fitness bars.

 

[xDKP]

I have no idea how you guys get battery life like this out of Apple Watch. Do you not get many notifications? Do you not have any complications on your watchface?

I have the default brightness (and have tried lowest) on both a Series 1 (that I returned) and a Series 2. Series 1 was quite a bit worse than the Series 2 but a 8:30 AM to 2:30 AM day my watch is so much lower than yours. I think people may not get as many texts, gmail messages, etc like I do. I don't use Apple mail, I use the GMail app because notifications work better with that app. I also only use official apple complications. I currently have the battery, messages, date, and fitness bars.

Granted yes, I almost never use 3rd party apps. I don't know if any of them are power hungry - I use different watch faces but almost always Minimal with weather, activity and calendar and alarm clock or the new analogue with a big number on it and date as the complication... I get quite a lot of notifications and do dictate texts once in a while, but not a lot. I have brightness on max as well as haptic

 

[pkahleeb]

Granted yes, I almost never use 3rd party apps. I don't know if any of them are power hungry - I use different watch faces but almost always Minimal with weather, activity and calendar and alarm clock or the new analogue with a big number on it and date as the complication... I get quite a lot of notifications and do dictate texts once in a while, but not a lot. I have brightness on max as well as haptic

I rarely use third party apps. Maybe once a week. I use the watch to sometimes turn off my podcasts with the Now Playing app. I am pretty sure this is an Apple one. I have removed just about everything from the dock and have set my haptic to high and the brightness to mid level.

During the week, I can never make it a full day with more than 40% battery. I have yet to do an actual workout with the watch. My wife is the runner--not me. I need to do this sometime with a walk though.

I wish I knew how you guys did it. There is another thread where some of you have your watch on from Friday to Sunday without charging it once!!

 

[TxWatch]

My 42MM AW S0 lasts from Saturday morning to Sunday night on most weekends with about 20% left. I have a couple third party apps that I use every day. (Fantastical and Carrot Weather) Others, I use when I am traveling. (United Airlines, CityMapper, TripAdvisor, Google Maps)

I do most of my runs during the week with my Watch and I always leave my phone at home. I am usually over 40% battery on days with a 60+ minute run using the Workout App, but I do not use the HR monitor on the Watch. (Turn it off in My Watch > Workout > Power Saving Mode: On) I still charge it every night on weekdays even though I might be able to squeak by two full days.

TxWatch

 

[Zaft]

Style wise I want an always on watch. Now it looks like a mini phone on my wrist.

 

[wegster]

Wait a second... I am calling BS here. Android Wear watches do it. It can be done by dimming the screen, removing complications and only showing the time, etc. I can't imagine the Huawei Watch has that much more battery power to make this happen. If it can't be done, I call lazy programming of the OS by Apple. This needs to happen or be made possible as option. For the record, I would take an Always on screen versus having two days of Battery Life in a second.

I guess I should have phrased slightly different as battery tech in relationship to both what Apple is doing and wants the watch to.

I'd love to see a breakdown comparing all of the various watches - displays and power draw on half and full brightness, CPU power consumption at 'idle' on up, etc...then we'd see a bit more clearly what's what.

Just glanced at the Huawei watch - looks decent enough. A day and a half to 2 days battery usage:

The battery lasts for about one and a half to two days with normal usage. This includes 24 hours of heavy usage with the screen on and 8 hours of screen-off time (in sleep mode). The watch can complete the following typical tasks in a 24-hour period on a single charge:

Important:

The battery life may vary significantly depending on how you use your watch. The example given above is for reference purposes only.

We can find benchmarks and specs for the Snapdragon 400 CPU in the Huawei, but I haven't been able to find much on the AW S2 CPU - you?
The AW (38mm) battery is 3.77 V and 273 mAh - the Huawei is ~300mAH best I can find - pretty comparable, and I believe the screens are as well.

I'm not seeing a huge difference there - Apple claims ~18 hours, Huawei the same + half a day or so.

So 'should' always-on be posslble? Ok, sure. Will Apple and users both want to forego complications and other things to get there? Don't know. Do I expect there remain some optimizations that could be done both in the CPU itself and the OS? Very likely. I'm unsure what fab process the S2 is using - maybe there's what gets things there, next jump to smaller process/better efficiency...

I guess we've all got our opinions - once it can run a week, with or without always on watch face, I'm pretty happy - but there's a ways to go, and the comments on battery density remain true. It's also possible the display power consumption is less than I'm thinking it is, or there are upcoming wins in that area. Fun article on AMOLED power consumption if anyone's interested: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9394/analysing-amoled-power-efficiency

*shrug* Let's see what WatchOS 4 brings...or the next gen. If it becomes an option, it'll come down to how much difference in power usage there is (as in real life runtime) and what if anything needs to be sacrificed to get it to <whatever your reasonable battery life level is>.

 

[julesme]

I guess I should have phrased slightly different as battery tech in relationship to both what Apple is doing and wants the watch to.

I'd love to see a breakdown comparing all of the various watches - displays and power draw on half and full brightness, CPU power consumption at 'idle' on up, etc...then we'd see a bit more clearly what's what.

Just glanced at the Huawei watch - looks decent enough. A day and a half to 2 days battery usage:


We can find benchmarks and specs for the Snapdragon 400 CPU in the Huawei, but I haven't been able to find much on the AW S2 CPU - you?
The AW (38mm) battery is 3.77 V and 273 mAh - the Huawei is ~300mAH best I can find - pretty comparable, and I believe the screens are as well.

I'm not seeing a huge difference there - Apple claims ~18 hours, Huawei the same + half a day or so.

So 'should' always-on be posslble? Ok, sure. Will Apple and users both want to forego complications and other things to get there? Don't know. Do I expect there remain some optimizations that could be done both in the CPU itself and the OS? Very likely. I'm unsure what fab process the S2 is using - maybe there's what gets things there, next jump to smaller process/better efficiency...

I guess we've all got our opinions - once it can run a week, with or without always on watch face, I'm pretty happy - but there's a ways to go, and the comments on battery density remain true. It's also possible the display power consumption is less than I'm thinking it is, or there are upcoming wins in that area. Fun article on AMOLED power consumption if anyone's interested: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9394/analysing-amoled-power-efficiency

*shrug* Let's see what WatchOS 4 brings...or the next gen. If it becomes an option, it'll come down to how much difference in power usage there is (as in real life runtime) and what if anything needs to be sacrificed to get it to <whatever your reasonable battery life level is>.

Great post, thanks. I am waiting for Chipworks to finish their S2 teardown for confirmation, but I think it's safe to assume the fab process is 14 nanometers (vs. 28 nm on S0). Meanwhile, I continue to finish each day with 30% or more battery life as I close in on two weeks with my S2. I continue to wonder if always on could be added to S2 w/o any hardware changes!

 

[xDKP]

Great post, thanks. I am waiting for Chipworks to finish their S2 teardown for confirmation, but I think it's safe to assume the fab process is 14 nanometers (vs. 28 nm on S0). Meanwhile, I continue to finish each day with 30% or more battery life as I close in on two weeks with my S2. I continue to wonder if always on could be added to S2 w/o any hardware changes!

For some of us it could - maybe with a very simplistic minimal analogue face without anything but the clock like this

And then the rest could turn on (complications or more detail) when you raise your arm...

But this thread seems to signal a different battery life for many

 

[JamerG]

For some of us it could - maybe with a very simplistic minimal analogue face without anything but the clock like this

And then the rest could turn on (complications or more detail) when you raise your arm...

But this thread seems to signal a different battery life for many

Good call - this is exactly what I think Apple should do. After all you wouldn't want active complications on all the time anyway, as you'd keep accidentally activating them.

 

[Teamzissou1884]

I really hope this is a reality in series 3. I made a weight loss goal of losing 30 lbs, and then i can get an apple watch. Assuming that will put me at about the time the series 3 comes out!

 

[jakerichva]

You can put me in the camp of those who don't want it. I get two days on my AW2, even with workouts every day of about 90 minutes, but would immediately turn off the "always on" feature if it arrives. I'll take the longer battery time. It's not really a watch. It's a small computer/communicator on my wrist that happens to tell time, but I use it for much more than than. I do understand the advantage of the quick glance at it, surreptitiously in a meeting, for example, but I don't want to give up battery for that function. But hey, if Apple implements it, that's fine, as long as it can be toggled off.

 

[Closingracer]

I think it also depends if Apple transitions into Micro LED for always on display. I think it's possible by version 3, but a stronger battery with a less power hungry processor.

OLED displays are still better for battery life than LED and I assume you mean a LCD screen ( LED is LCD in terms of TV's at least).

 

[Eddie3345]

Not sure what everyone is doing with their watches. I have a staff of 15+ and get 30+ emails a day and all are on my watch. Plus i start my day @ 4am with the gym and don't go to bed till 9/10 and i still have 60%-40% left on my watch daily. Sometimes i go 2 days with out charging my watch because i want to get the battery low to under 5%. I even try to reply and use my watch more to see if i can drain the battery daily and can't get under 40%

( series 2 btw)
[doublepost=1480298357][/doublepost]

I really hope this is a reality in series 3. I made a weight loss goal of losing 30 lbs, and then i can get an apple watch. Assuming that will put me at about the time the series 3 comes out!

eat really well and work out hard. even if its 20 mins a day make sure you're heart rate is high and you get sweaty.

 

[44267547]

OLED displays are still better for battery life than LED and I assume you mean a LCD screen ( LED is LCD in terms of TV's at least).

OLED isn't 'Always' better. It depends on how OLED is managed. OLED also suffers from burn in pending the display. And no, Micro-led (Which is exactly what I meant from my first post) is completely different. Also, research micro-led, this is where a lot of manufacturers are heading, but this technology is still evolving.

 

[jakerichva]

@Eddie3345, Lithium Ion (LiON) batteries do NOT like being discharged that much. The battery will last much longer if you keep it in the 40-80% range. In fact, it would last the longest if you kept it closer to 100% but with a portable device like a watch, that's almost impossible.