Does someone have a first impression on the battery life yet? I would assume it goes down with all the background activity.
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watchOS 3 - battery life?
- Thread starter CmdrLaForge
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It's actually been decent for a first beta but I can't wear it to bed like I did with 2.2.1 cause it drains really quick. I have about 30-40% left at the end of the day.
The battery drain while I sleep is about 1% per hour with raise wrist off and silent alarm set and the pillow sleep tracking app. Do not disturb is also active. Battery drain wasn't a huge difference during the day either, but when I loaded the dock with several active apps that update, it seemed to drain about 1-3% more per hour than before. Removing maps from the dock helped a little but overall, a typical night of sleep is the same battery drain rate for this beta version. Ending the day with 25-35% when before it was closer to 45%.
It's not bad at all, but it is beta and also has the ability for up to 10 apps to refresh in the background. Impressed with the battery life considering how much I have been testing and changing complications and the dock.
In the "3.0 impressions" thread, shearm posted this (post #51):
Please share your 3.0 impressions
I'd say, for now, the battery life you get can be affected by whether any apps are behaving badly. I've experienced the same a couple times in watchOS 2.
Please share your 3.0 impressions
I'd say, for now, the battery life you get can be affected by whether any apps are behaving badly. I've experienced the same a couple times in watchOS 2.
Well my watch was at 70% by the afternoon and then all of a sudden completely died on me. Charging now but screen won't turn on.
Reading this article by Jason Snell
https://sixcolors.com/post/2016/06/with-watchos-3-apple-watch-gets-a-do-over/
I see it is somewhat expected that the battery life is down as that's how Apple engineered it. With all the background updates it is clear to me that the battery cannot be the same as before. Just how bad does it get is the question. A bit too early too tell with the current beta.
https://sixcolors.com/post/2016/06/with-watchos-3-apple-watch-gets-a-do-over/
I see it is somewhat expected that the battery life is down as that's how Apple engineered it. With all the background updates it is clear to me that the battery cannot be the same as before. Just how bad does it get is the question. A bit too early too tell with the current beta.
I have had my crash several times and it didn't start until yesterday afternoon. Had to hard restart to get it to come back on.
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This is a good point. I am going to minimize the amount of apps I have running in the dock, only 4 or 5 right now I think, and see if it improves today. Either way I knew what I was getting into so no biggie.
That is the same range as me with OS2 and OS3. I was usually around 45-50% at the end of the day and with OS3 it is closer to 35-40%. Granted, I wear my watch at night and usually wake to about 91-93% and I then a 45-60 minute workout.
Yesterday I golfed for two hours and burned about 28% running a workout but no third party golf app. On OS2 it was about 25% for the same. Not too bad.
The new Activity watch faces seem to burn through battery a little more and are slower to load.
Beta...
i took it off the charger an hour ago and haven't touched it, not even worn it since then. the battery is at 88% already.
it and iOS 10 are horrible so far.
it and iOS 10 are horrible so far.
I seem to be getting as good - if not better - battery life as in watchOS 2. But it heavily depends on the watch face and amount of complications you have. The new analog activity watch face is nice looking and all, but because it animates the rings every time the screen activates it eats quite a lot of battery. And even though you may not notice it, the screen activates numerous times through out the day as you move your hand.
With the analog activity watch face I usually ended up having 10-20% at the end of the day. With the new Numerals watch face I yesterday had about 70%. But I didn't use the watch much yesterday. Numerals only has one complication and the screen is mostly black. On OLED screens, the blacker the screen the less battery it drains. On LCD screen, it doesn't matter what is displayed on the screen - it will always drain as much battery.
With the analog activity watch face I usually ended up having 10-20% at the end of the day. With the new Numerals watch face I yesterday had about 70%. But I didn't use the watch much yesterday. Numerals only has one complication and the screen is mostly black. On OLED screens, the blacker the screen the less battery it drains. On LCD screen, it doesn't matter what is displayed on the screen - it will always drain as much battery.
I had a bigger battery drain with the new Activity watch face but back to normal even with the Modular. I completely agree that the drain could be as simple as the activity watch face. It has a noticeable delay coming up when you raise your wrist and to draw the rings. I think it is a bug for this beta because the app for the activity ring is also slow to draw the rings that wasn't there with OS2.
Modular has a lot of complications but doesn't seem to drain as much as the activity though... Now I want to test with the new numerals as that is a very good point - especially with beta.
I noticed a bigger drain with third party apps in the dock that are not written for OS3.
Modular has a lot of complications but doesn't seem to drain as much as the activity though... Now I want to test with the new numerals as that is a very good point - especially with beta.
I noticed a bigger drain with third party apps in the dock that are not written for OS3.
Now that I reverted back to iOS 9 and my poor watch unable to be paired, I've noticed a night and day battery life increase
On the other hand, my test device, a 5S, has decent batter life on iOS 10 while unpaired from the watch.
I think once I go back to beta 2 once it's available, I think the fact I'll have to re-pair the watch should hopefully fix it's bad battery life too. My watch was losing 10% battery just over an hour, not being used or worn. Horrible.
On the other hand, my test device, a 5S, has decent batter life on iOS 10 while unpaired from the watch.
I think once I go back to beta 2 once it's available, I think the fact I'll have to re-pair the watch should hopefully fix it's bad battery life too. My watch was losing 10% battery just over an hour, not being used or worn. Horrible.
That 10% battery drain without even wearing the watch very much could have not been related to beta at all. It's been a common thing since the very beginning of watchOS and how it updates that the battery will be extremely bad, un-pairing and re-pairing has always fixed this. It's not confined to just beta either, it's anytime the watch updates to a newer version (even x.y updates) It's very common to happen.
It's highly dependent on which apps you put in the dock. I put Cardiogram there and it sucked my battery dry in 6 hours. If you have complications that need to monitor heart rate, or apps in the dock that measure heart rate, they are not optimized for background refresh yet and they will kill your battery.
With all that removed, I'd say it's about 20% battery at the end of the day, so 40% remaining is now usually 20% remaining. It is the difference between keeping it on at night and sleep tracking, then charging it in the morning during my shower and get up routine, and charging it for a little bit at work before I leave for the day if I want to sleep track that night.
With all that removed, I'd say it's about 20% battery at the end of the day, so 40% remaining is now usually 20% remaining. It is the difference between keeping it on at night and sleep tracking, then charging it in the morning during my shower and get up routine, and charging it for a little bit at work before I leave for the day if I want to sleep track that night.
I notice when doing a workout, I burn 15% per hour with OS3 when it was 10% with OS2.
I use a new sleep tracking app called pillow which I like a lot, but it appears to burn 15% each night when sleep pulse and sleep ++ would burn about 7-9%. Still not bad for a first beta and better features for the workout.
Once again, while golfing in The heat, I never lost my heart rate once. Since I have an app that graphs your heart rate the entire time, I can visually see that I have now completed 8 workouts with OS3 and not once did I lose the heart rate. No 54bpm or "measuring".
I use a new sleep tracking app called pillow which I like a lot, but it appears to burn 15% each night when sleep pulse and sleep ++ would burn about 7-9%. Still not bad for a first beta and better features for the workout.
Once again, while golfing in The heat, I never lost my heart rate once. Since I have an app that graphs your heart rate the entire time, I can visually see that I have now completed 8 workouts with OS3 and not once did I lose the heart rate. No 54bpm or "measuring".