Watch faces & battery life

[djr7572]

Are there some watch faces that tend to use more battery power than others? Or do you think the difference is so minimal that it's not worth even mentioning?

Just curious

 

[ReardenMetal]

It does make somewhat of a difference. As I understand it, an awake OLED screen when black expends no energy whereas a face that lights up in various ways, such as a full color or white face, uses energy.

 

[revmacian]

It does make somewhat of a difference. As I understand it, an awake OLED screen when black expends no energy whereas a face that lights up in various ways, such as a full color or white face, uses energy.

Right, a black pixel in an OLED screen emits no light, whereas a colored pixel does emit light. This is different from a backlit LCD screen where the light is being shown “through” the LCD layer all the time. Hence the term “backlit”.

A black watch face will use much less energy than a white watch face on the Apple Watch.

I think it would be great to have an Apple Watch with an e-ink display.. the battery would most likely last for months because an e-ink display uses no energy once a screen is rendered.

 

[djr7572]

It does make somewhat of a difference. As I understand it, an awake OLED screen when black expends no energy whereas a face that lights up in various ways, such as a full color or white face, uses energy.

Makes sense to me. Thanks 👍

 

[ReardenMetal]

Right, a black pixel in an OLED screen emits no light, whereas a colored pixel does emit light. This is different from a backlit LCD screen where the light is being shown “through” the LCD layer all the time. Hence the term “backlit”.

A black watch face will use much less energy than a white watch face on the Apple Watch.

I think it would be great to have an Apple Watch with an e-ink display.. the battery would most likely last for months because an e-ink display uses no energy once a screen is rendered.

I wish Apple would make an e-reader too.

 

[revmacian]

I wish Apple would make an e-reader too.

That would make sense, wouldn’t it? I mean we already have the Books app, it would seem a logical step to produce an eReader.

 

[xraydoc]

That would make sense, wouldn’t it? I mean we already have the Books app, it would seem a logical step to produce an eReader.

Apple’s eReader is the iPad. Not saying an eInk device wouldn’t be interesting, but it wouldn’t go with Apple’s design philosophy.

But, to get back on topic, watch faces with more active (non-black) pixels will use more energy. This is why Apple’s white watch faces and other faces with large blocks of color (Numerals Mono and Duo) turn black/outline when the AOD goes idle. How much extra power the face actually uses depends on how often the face becomes active, though a busy Infograph face with every inch of space used will take more power (active or dimmed) than say a Simple face with nothing but the hour/minute hands showing.