Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I am really getting shocking battery life during workouts. Today I did a 35 min indoor workout. Elliptical and played an on watch playlist and the battery ran down from 69% to 21% during this workout. I thought things were going really well when I left for the gym with 69% available since coming off the charger at 7.00am.
I have Siri and Noise monitoring off but AOD on! I am thinking of returning this and sticking with the series 3 as it was excellent for this type of usage.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1377.jpg
    IMG_1377.jpg
    95.3 KB · Views: 343
Just my minor experience; I was quite satisfied with my AW3 battery life for nearly two years using it with sleep tracking and charging every morning plus occasional extra to top up. I got the AW5 on launch day, set up up as new watch and experienced terrible battery life. I had to charge it up in evening not to risk dead watch in the morning. Turned off AOD and noise monitor which helped a bit but even after 13.1.1 it was really bad. After a reboot and extended charging in the weekend I am back to normal battery usage similar to what I had with the AW3. Will monitor a few days before trying AOD again.
 
To add to the mix, with AOD on and raise to wake off (no longer needed with AOD).

Yesterday the watch lasted;
- standby time - 23hr 16 minutes
- usage time - 4hr 31 minutes
- battery drain - 72%

based on this usage I can reasonably get a full day and a half between charges! Not too shabby.

This was with nearly an hour of workout using GPS.

(EDIT - this is with noise detection switched on)
 
If you need to turn off AOD then you are better off with AW4. AW4 has excellent battery life, a much brighter display, and no AOD.

AW5 only makes sense as a purchase if you use the AOD.

I found my battery life on the AW5 was pretty good all day 71% at 415pm and then went off a cliff last night. It seems the California watchface is very energy efficient, but the Infograph kills the battery. I switched to Infograph around 5pm.

I have huge concerns around this watch. It may be a total waste of money. If I have to use it in a very narrow way to get a day out of it, then I would be better off with the AW4.

Plus the display brightness is a significant downgrade
 
My series 5 really has a f-king poor battery life. It deserves the swear word.

Holy s**t (and it deserves 2). I just did my morning run with my AW5. 41 minutes, total wear time of 1 hour and 1 minute, and down to 53% battery.

It’s unthinkably bad. I had LTE on for exactly 11 minutes (Got an email and turned it off). No streaming anything, no connected BT. Noise meter off. Walkie talkie off. I didn’t even have raise to wake on - just the always on display.
 
Posted in the other thread (but I'm this frustrated):

I just did my morning run with my AW5. 41 minutes, total wear time of 1 hour and 1 minute, and down to 53% battery.

It’s unthinkably bad. I had LTE on for exactly 11 minutes (Got an email and turned it off). No streaming anything, no connected BT. Noise meter off. Walkie talkie off. I didn’t even have raise to wake on - just the always on display.
 
From me in short; for me so far a REBOOT of the Watch this weekend helped a lot with the battery drain.
 
I found that the ios 13 watch app suddenly enabled syncing music to the watch. I just disabled it and see if it improves any battery life.
 
S5 cellular... watchOS 6.0, iOS 13.1.1 (all release versions, no betas).

I turned off watch wifi last night, rebooted and charged overnight to 100%, then turned wifi back on. Other settings: AOD on, fall detection on, raise to wake on, background app refresh on (for selective apps; most off), cellular off (but plan connected), Infograph Modular face, no 3rd party complications currently displayed.

So far battery usage is only 2.5% per hour this morning, including a 20 minute walking workout. Looks promising. Perhaps there's a wifi bug that's (hopefully) addressed in 6.1. Keeping wifi powered up even if there's a Bluetooth connection to phone??

Will update later today as to how battery usage goes.
 
Got 63% left at 14.15pm

2 hours, 54 mins usage
6 hours, 43 mins standby

Just hope the workout at 6pm will not make the battery die too early
 
Got 63% left at 14.15pm

2 hours, 54 mins usage
6 hours, 43 mins standby

Just hope the workout at 6pm will not make the battery die too early
So almost 5.5% per hour. Thats 16.5 hours to low battery warning @ 10% without any workout.

My S4 on WatchOS5 uses around 3% per hour in typical usage. At bedtime last night, 16 hours standby and 4:14 Usage, I had 63% remaining battery. I did not go for a run yesterday.

Workouts can take a toll on battery. I'll see 20-25% consumption on a 45 minute outdoor run without my phone, so GPS & cellular on, HRM in full active mode, and streaming podcasts/music over cellular to my bluetooth headphones.
 
So almost 5.5% per hour. Pretty high. My S4 sits around 3% per hour in typical usage.

Workouts can take a toll on battery. I'll see 20-25% consumption on a 45 minute outdoor run without my phone, so GPS & cellular on, HRM in full active mode, and streaming podcasts/music over cellular to my bluetooth headphones.

My 40 min workout cost me 15% on Friday...
 
So, out of the blue, I’m getting amazing battery life from my S5. Like, 4-5% and hour. All I did differently was, on the phone, choose “Set up” under cellular, sign into my account, but then NOT add or activate the LTE service on the watch. After doing so, the Watch recognizes that the cell network is ATT, but not enabled. Perhaps there is a bug with the LTE / cellular service on watches that have not enabled it?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.