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scaramoosh

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 30, 2014
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When it's on my Watch gets a day of battery life, when I turn it off and only tap the screen, I'm getting 3 days of battery life. Now I'm not using the Watch any less, to me it just proves that the screen keeps turning on when it doesn't need to. I constantly notice it turning on when I have the feature on.... Apple really messed up on the design of that feature.

Getting it right on the Watch 2 will be the single biggest battery life performance improvement.
 
When it's on my Watch gets a day of battery life, when I turn it off and only tap the screen, I'm getting 3 days of battery life. Now I'm not using the Watch any less, to me it just proves that the screen keeps turning on when it doesn't need to. I constantly notice it turning on when I have the feature on.... Apple really messed up on the design of that feature.

Getting it right on the Watch 2 will be the single biggest battery life performance improvement.


Ignore it. Stop looking at your watch all the time. It will last an average day for most users. If you want yours to last three days turn it off. Apple did not "plan" on you not charging for three days.

The wrist raise works great for me and I would not turn it off as I charge my watch every night!
 
When it's on my Watch gets a day of battery life, when I turn it off and only tap the screen, I'm getting 3 days of battery life. Now I'm not using the Watch any less, to me it just proves that the screen keeps turning on when it doesn't need to. I constantly notice it turning on when I have the feature on.... Apple really messed up on the design of that feature.
The other likely use of battery in this case is that the sensors and CPU are more active trying to detect wrist raise. In other words the CPU is constantly churning over movements that look like a raise. Turn the detection off, and the watch can effectively go to sleep until you tap the screen.

I have an idea that should give us weeks of battery life. Just turn the watch off after you look at it. Turn it on when you want to know the time and then immediately turn it back off. With this strategy, we could probably go a month or more on a single charge. The other option is to keep the watch in Power Reserve mode all of the time.
 
As someone who works with the kind of accelerometers that Apple uses to detect the wrist raise, I think they've done an incredibly good job of making the watch reliably detect the motion of raising your wrist to look at your watch. This is incredibly difficult to pick out of all the noise that a sensor like this picks up. The fact that it turns on at times when we don't need it isn't surprising in the least.
 
I think they've done an incredibly good job of making the watch reliably detect the motion of raising your wrist to look at your watch. This is incredibly difficult to pick out of all the noise that a sensor like this picks up.
I ditto this. And it is unrelated, but I find it similarly magical that my Garmin knows what swimming stroke I am using (freestyle, breast stroke, backstroke, or butterfly), when I turn in the pool, how many strokes per length, and when I am resting. Magic like that does not come free of charge. Apple's wrist raise is some serious magic, and magic takes CPU which takes battery.
 
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That's like a dumbphone owner coming to the iPhone saying if they only use the talk function of the iPhone it'd last nearly as long as their dumbphone. Dumbphone owners got over charging their new iPhones nightly and you should too with the AW.
 
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I have absolutely no problem with the battery life. And it only fails to wake when I'm doing weird movements. 95% of the time it's right on
 
I have absolutely no problem with the battery life. And it only fails to wake when I'm doing weird movements. 95% of the time it's right on

Oh yea that's another problem, it wont turn on when I'm at an angle... like doing a workout.



Any one who says it's good is crazy, it doesn't work when you want it to and it drains 2/3 of the battery.
 
Any one who says it's good is crazy, it doesn't work when you want it to and it drains 2/3 of the battery.

I seriously doubt wrist activation itself drains 2/3rd of the battery. More likely you're perturbed every time you see it come on and interact with it longer/more often. As another poster said, you need to learn to ignore the random activations, and interact with it as often as you would if you had it disabled.
 
And from the other side of the equation, I think Apple needs to make the whole raise to wake more dependable. Half the time, I have to shake my wrist or tap the screen to get the watch to wake up.
Me too. Somehow glad to read that as I was suspecting my watch to be malfunctioning.
 
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Thanks for the professional opinion of calling me crazy, but I'll reject that assessment.

And no, it works 95% of the time as I explained in my post, and my battery life is plenty fine.



Dear Dr. Scaramoosh,

Thank you for referring Mr. Melman101 to me. I reviewed his records and concur with the diagnosis of craziness. He also appears to be in denial with regards to his current mental state and the action of the Apple Watch. As you know, the screen does not often activate or there is a significant delay with raising the wrist, and this can be a problem, especially when trying to look at the watch for directions. Having a sensitivity setting would be helpful, and patients would be able to reduce the activation sensitivity if it adversely impacted their battery life.

I remain hopeful that either Watch 2 or WatchOS 3 will lead alleviate all concerns. I don't think Mr. Melman101 will need any further treatment. The prognosis is anticipated to be good.

Sincerely,

ftlum, MD
Department of Neurology
Cupertino, CA. :)
 
When it's on my Watch gets a day of battery life, when I turn it off and only tap the screen, I'm getting 3 days of battery life. Now I'm not using the Watch any less, to me it just proves that the screen keeps turning on when it doesn't need to. I constantly notice it turning on when I have the feature on.... Apple really messed up on the design of that feature.

Getting it right on the Watch 2 will be the single biggest battery life performance improvement.

with wrist raise turned on I get about 1.5 days of use out of my Apple watch. Not a big fan of turning it off as it transforms from a "watch" to a device you tap on your wrist to see the time.

FWIW other smart watches out there that do not have eInk displays don't do much better for battery life.
 
Dear Dr. Scaramoosh,

Thank you for referring Mr. Melman101 to me. I reviewed his records and concur with the diagnosis of craziness. He also appears to be in denial with regards to his current mental state and the action of the Apple Watch. As you know, the screen does not often activate or there is a significant delay with raising the wrist, and this can be a problem, especially when trying to look at the watch for directions. Having a sensitivity setting would be helpful, and patients would be able to reduce the activation sensitivity if it adversely impacted their battery life.

I remain hopeful that either Watch 2 or WatchOS 3 will lead alleviate all concerns. I don't think Mr. Melman101 will need any further treatment. The prognosis is anticipated to be good.

Sincerely,

ftlum, MD
Department of Neurology
Cupertino, CA. :)

I am literally laughing out loud. But again, it's not an issue for me, lmao.
 
I seriously doubt wrist activation itself drains 2/3rd of the battery. More likely you're perturbed every time you see it come on and interact with it longer/more often. As another poster said, you need to learn to ignore the random activations, and interact with it as often as you would if you had it disabled.

I would bet it drains more than you think it does, because it's not just lighting the screen. Because of the way 3rd party apps are handled currently, they cannot update data in the background while the screen is off. So every time the screen comes on, that's their only opportunity to update, so you have a fair bit of data transfer and CPU activity at the same time.
 
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Put my watch on at 6am this morning, now 1pm and my watch is at 94%. Whenever I want to look at it I tap it, I'm not using it any less. When I have the wrist raise on if be at 50%, the thing was always turning on. Like when I'm wiring or something it's always turning in when I don't want it to just because I'm moving my arms around soldering and stuff.

It's ****, they need to improve it, maybe out an iris scanner on there or something like the Windows phones.

Saying I'm wrong is just the weird Apple excuse for pretending everything is fine, Apple fanboys always do this. Then whe. Apple do improve it suddenly they're amazing and they admit the problems.

When raise wrist gets it wrong so much and drains that much battery, it's broken. I can now get three days of use compared to one... It proves it.
 
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Oh yea that's another problem, it wont turn on when I'm at an angle... like doing a workout.



Any one who says it's good is crazy, it doesn't work when you want it to and it drains 2/3 of the battery.


Jesus Christ...... here I go....

My wrist activation works fine, I can go 2 days without charging that's inc day to day use, notifications, text replies and also workout app, let alone the everything it does (i.e step counts & heart rate)

if you can't make it last a day, you're crazy mate. What are you sending drawings of daisy's and your heart rate to your mates every 5 seconds?
[doublepost=1457443321][/doublepost]
It's ****, they need to improve it, maybe out an iris scanner on there or something like the Windows phones.

If it's that s*** send it back and stop coming up with these crazy idea's, you want something like a product but you haven't gone for it, you went opposite.....
 
Saying I'm wrong is just the weird Apple excuse for pretending everything is fine, Apple fanboys always do this.
I am a pretty harsh Apple critic, but I occasionally drop into the sarcasm trench. Anyway, you may have a defect with your watch or it may be that your usage pattern tricks the Wake Screen on Wrist Raise more than it does for other people. If I were you, I would schedule a Genius visit and maybe lobby to get the watch replaced.

Or, like the heart rate sensor, it be one of those situations where it works great for most people but simply dose not work at all for some. It sucks if you are one of the "some."
 
I would bet it drains more than you think it does, because it's not just lighting the screen. Because of the way 3rd party apps are handled currently, they cannot update data in the background while the screen is off. So every time the screen comes on, that's their only opportunity to update, so you have a fair bit of data transfer and CPU activity at the same time.

True, but a 2/3rd battery drain sounds excessive from wrist activation alone if you do no further interaction with the AW. Unless the OP is exaggerating, it must be due to a defect or a third party app stuck in a loop in the background.

However, the OP indicates that he/she does get a day's worth of battery with the wrist activation turned on. This is normal, so I think the OP is merely being anal retentive about it.
 
My watch is normally between 60-70% battery at the end of the day. Occasionally, it will be below 50%. I have gotten in the habit of charging it every night, so battery life is not an issue for me. I do see mine light up when I am driving with my Watch hand at the top of my steering wheel, but it has not been a battery drain issue for me.

The OP must have a job that mimics the wrist raise motion over and over throughout the day.

Since I always have at least 40% battery remaining, I would like them to add a "low power" screen-always-on option in the next version of the OS. This will allow me to see the dimmed display when my arm is in an unusual position and a wrist flick does not always work.

TxWatch
 
My watch is normally between 60-70% battery at the end of the day. Occasionally, it will be below 50%. I have gotten in the habit of charging it every night, so battery life is not an issue for me. I do see mine light up when I am driving with my Watch hand at the top of my steering wheel, but it has not been a battery drain issue for me.

The OP must have a job that mimics the wrist raise motion over and over throughout the day.

Since I always have at least 40% battery remaining, I would like them to add a "low power" screen-always-on option in the next version of the OS. This will allow me to see the dimmed display when my arm is in an unusual position and a wrist flick does not always work.

TxWatch
Pretty much describes my battery life at the end of each day except I charge from 9-10pm usually and wear it for my silent alarm and sleep monitoring.

I would like to take advantage of the extra battery life for an always on time for those wrist raises that doesn't work or better yet, let me choose which apps update every 5 minutes if I want.
 
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Oh yea that's another problem, it wont turn on when I'm at an angle... like doing a workout.



Any one who says it's good is crazy, it doesn't work when you want it to and it drains 2/3 of the battery.


Well call me crazy as I have had wrist raise on from day one and still have at least 40% of my battery left at the end of each day. If you use some common sense you will see it works fine for most except you!
 
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