Should I update to watchOS 4? - Series 0 / 1st gen Watch

[1984power]

Greetings everyone,

I've kept my beloved 1st gen Stainless Steel Apple Watch (Series 0) on watchOS 3 (it's on 3.2.3 currently). I wasn't planning on updating it to watchOS 4, but updating beyond iOS 11.2.6 on my iPhone requires it. iOS 11.3.x brings battery life improvements and I'd like to update my iPhone (iOS 12 is also already around the corner).

In short, should I update my Series 0 Watch to watchOS 4? Do battery life or performance become worse?
How is it compared to watchOS 3.2.3?

Best regards,
1984power

 

[caligurl]

Do you want to update it? Then do it? If you don't want to update... don't.

 

[I am Sampson]

Mine is on OS4. I always update.
It’s pretty slow and drops frames on animations, and the battery life isn’t anything like it used to be... but then I’ve no way to know if this is due to its age or the OS. So not sure how much help that info is.

 

[a.y.n]

Yes!

 

[blco02]

Yes if you’re ok with the price increase

 

[1984power]

Thanks for all of your answers.

I'm just afraid I'll regret it due to worse performance or battery life.
If anyone else could share their experience with watchOS 4 on a 1st gen / Series 0 Watch, I would really appreciate it.

1984power

 

[Soordhin]

I always updated, so my SS series 0 is on the latest iteration of watchOS 4. It is quite slow, but has been for a while now, even in 3, drops frames in animations, native apps can take ages to load, sometimes it feels like it crashed until quite a long time later the requested screen appears. But as i said, i had the same issue before i switched to 4 as well.

Battery life is still quite good, i end most days with somewhere between 50 and 20% of battery left, charge it over night every night. Of course, as usual it depends on usage, with heavy usage it can sometimes go into power reserve, but that has been rare.

But its time has come, ordered a replacement today.

 

[sean000]

My 38mm S0 aluminum Sport is on OS4. I will say that it is definitely slower than it was on OS3, but battery life doesn't seem to have suffered. It still lasts all day for me. I charge it up each night around 9pm, then put it on when I go to bed for sleep tracking. In the morning it's at a bout 85-90%, but I usually put it on the charger to top-off while I shower and get dressed. Then it usually still has between 15-30% by the time I charge it again at 9pm-ish. If I use it to record a workout of an hour or more, it might drop to 10% or below by end of day.

So my experience is that battery life is no problem, but performance might be. My experience with the S0 was that it has never been as slow or as buggy as it was when I first got it in July, 2015. From there the performance improved with every update until watchOS 4. I don't think there was much improvement from watchOS 2 to 3, but 3 definitely wasn't any slower. In my opinion watchOS 3 offered the peak of performance and features for the Series 0. With watchOS 4 I noticed a bit of lag for some activities, but not all. Siri takes longer to respond (and sometimes doesn't), workouts take longer to start, and many actions just require a bit more patience... very much like the watch felt when I first got it in July, 2015. Still useful, but it just requires more patience. I find myself reaching for my iPhone more than I did with watchOS 3.

Personally I am definitely going to upgrade to the S4... hopefully in about a month, but if not then within a few months. Three years plus a few months was about one more year than I expected to get out of the original Apple Watch.

 

[Fry-man22]

Thanks for all of your answers.

I'm just afraid I'll regret it due to worse performance or battery life.
If anyone else could share their experience with watchOS 4 on a 1st gen / Series 0 Watch, I would really appreciate it.

1984power

I would rather deal with the newest version of the OS on the watch than deal with an old version of it on my phone. I have the gen 0 watch and it's on the most recent OS it will run. I don't remember it being slower on the newer os. I actually think things got better once they started being a bit more aggressive with the CPU.

You battery is old and tiny and is going to have issues no matter what you do, that's just the nature of the tech.

I just ordered a new one. The change is big enough now that it's worth giving up my OG.

 

[Avenger]

Isn’t the series 0 basically a series 2 with the older series 1 display (not as bright)? So it is a bit faster than the original version of the apple watch.

 

[Lennyvalentin]

If anyone else could share their experience with watchOS 4 on a 1st gen / Series 0 Watch, I would really appreciate it.

I always update my watch. Launch wOS 4 nuked battery life heavily compared to wOS 3, but also fixed some annoying naggy things (like making the bizarre horizontal dock in wOS 3 scroll vertically instead like you would expect when spinning the crown) and made the workout app better and more convenient (like built-in music controls right in the app for example.) Apple then gave back some battery life in a couple later patches, so now my watch is living longer than early on (assuming you stay away from workouts and/or bluetooth music playback because those features taxes the battery heavily), but it's also not AS healthy as it was with wOS 3. Of course the watch is also older now so the battery will have degraded some more. Hard to say what is really the cause of what when there's unknowable variables like this involved...

A few of the improvements in wOS 4 don't work in S0 watches, like the heartrate recovery monitoring after a workout, and the heartbeat rate background monitoring feature. There may be one or a couple things more as well I don't recall off-hand. (Like maybe any new workouts that require waterproofing for example.)

On the whole it's a give and take. You will maybe lose some battery life, but gain new features and also software fixes against exploits and attacks. (Btw, you should always update all of your gadgets; it's important!)

Isn’t the series 0 basically a series 2 with the older series 1 display (not as bright)? So it is a bit faster than the original version of the apple watch.

In reality there's no such thing as a "series 0"; that's just what some people call the original 2015 model year watch models. It is definitely NOT a series 2 with older series 1 display; the series 1 is basically a series 2 watch with the older "series 0" display (and no water proofing or GPS, and also the old, thinner series 0 chassis.)

Hope I didn't muddle things for you now!

 

[Avenger]

I always update my watch. Launch wOS 4 nuked battery life heavily compared to wOS 3, but also fixed some annoying naggy things (like making the bizarre horizontal dock in wOS 3 scroll vertically instead like you would expect when spinning the crown) and made the workout app better and more convenient (like built-in music controls right in the app for example.) Apple then gave back some battery life in a couple later patches, so now my watch is living longer than early on (assuming you stay away from workouts and/or bluetooth music playback because those features taxes the battery heavily), but it's also not AS healthy as it was with wOS 3. Of course the watch is also older now so the battery will have degraded some more. Hard to say what is really the cause of what when there's unknowable variables like this involved...

A few of the improvements in wOS 4 don't work in S0 watches, like the heartrate recovery monitoring after a workout, and the heartbeat rate background monitoring feature. There may be one or a couple things more as well I don't recall off-hand. (Like maybe any new workouts that require waterproofing for example.)

On the whole it's a give and take. You will maybe lose some battery life, but gain new features and also software fixes against exploits and attacks. (Btw, you should always update all of your gadgets; it's important!)


In reality there's no such thing as a "series 0"; that's just what some people call the original 2015 model year watch models. It is definitely NOT a series 2 with older series 1 display; the series 1 is basically a series 2 watch with the older "series 0" display (and no water proofing or GPS, and also the old, thinner series 0 chassis.)

Hope I didn't muddle things for you now!

Ah thanks. The series 1 was the in-between model. I got confused for a moment.