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Why no always on seconds?
- Thread starter jclardy
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Yes, the Apple Watch has a second hand, but it does not show when using the Always On Display (when the display is dimmed). Or are you saying that it does for you?
I’m just saying that the watch does have a second hand. The post I quoted stated that it does not.
No, not on the AOD.
Very much appreciate you coming into the Apple Watch sub forum to let us all know. I was actually just wondering why you don’t wear a watch and now I know.
This is my biggest complaint with the Apple Watch after trying it after 4 years. We’ve got a 1 Hz screen, so I can’t really understand why it’s not an option. It’s kind of mind-boggling how much easier to use and more functional the watch would be if it had the second hand.
What is interesting is that if you start a countdown timer, it shows seconds on AOD only for the first and last minute of the timer countdown.
For example, for a five minute timer, on AOD it will show:
4:52 (minutes and seconds for the first minute),
3:-- (minutes only),
2:--
1:--
0:44 (minutes and seconds for last minute).
How does this make any sense to anyone other than a software writer?
I could maybe see not showing seconds for time remaining longer than an hour or something, but not showing seconds when there is less than 2 minutes remaining is unclear on the concept of a countdown timer.
For example, for a five minute timer, on AOD it will show:
4:52 (minutes and seconds for the first minute),
3:-- (minutes only),
2:--
1:--
0:44 (minutes and seconds for last minute).
How does this make any sense to anyone other than a software writer?
I could maybe see not showing seconds for time remaining longer than an hour or something, but not showing seconds when there is less than 2 minutes remaining is unclear on the concept of a countdown timer.
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I think this is the limit to current technology. Apple Watch has to compromise due to physics, can’t pack anymore battery into this thing with increasing the size. I’m sure they can put this feature like you ask, but there would be negative impact on battery life which is also a big negative for many people. I think your use case needs a regular watch. It’s just not feasible with the current tech. There’s work around sure, using Siri but again you want simplicity and as simple as it may sound, being able to glance and time in seconds using aod battery hit the limit and a size hinder.
Exactly. People whine about the battery life as it is already. This would drain it even fast.
Haha--yep, pretty much. I mean, battery life is pretty decent at this point across the lineup. There's plenty of room for improvement, but I'm confident they'll get there eventually as Apple Watch Ultra features trickle down to the rest of the lineup.
In the meantime, people are obviously finding plenty of other things to complain about, like how they're mad that people wear smartwatches I guess?
Would it really? Is showing a second hand at 1 Hz any more draining than not showing it at 1 Hz? Understand I don't want a sweeping, smooth hand. I want something that "ticks" along, once every second. I would appreciate it even if it was just on digital faces where it won't even look out of place.
They're not only showing it but updating it. Doing that 1 time a minute is a big difference than 60 times a minute.
My understanding is that the screen is still updating 60 times a minute. It’s 1 Hz, not 1/60 Hz. I don’t think taking advantage of that to change the screen vs changing it to the same thing (what’s happening right now) should be that detrimental.
With the screen dimmed and the always on display active? Why would it need to do that?
It’s not that it would use additional battery. It’s that it would look … really, really weird. At least, on analog faces. (Digital seconds, like an old-style Casio, would be okay — but none of the Apple watch faces I’m aware of have such.)
I know what you’re thinking: lots of mechanical watches and clocks “tick” instead of “sweep,” so they instantly “update” the second hand.
But that’s not what’s actually happening.
Instead, the second hand is at rest most of the time, yes. But then it accelerates very rapidly, and immediately decelerates about as rapidly, coming to a stop at the next marker. Some even visibly “bounce” or “vibrate” for a brief moment. It’s like a drag race to get to the next stoplight, and then waiting for the light to change.
If a digital watch with an 1 Hz refresh rate tried to replicate that, you’d instead see the second hand “teleport” from one position to the next. It would be extremely unnatural-looking, solidly in the “uncanny valley.” Plus … we don’t know the total time to refresh the screen in this 1 Hz mode. Currently, almost nothing gets updated with each refresh. But suppose it takes a tenth of a second for the refresh to make it from the one side of the screen to the other; not at all hard to imagine. If you had to update more than a few adjacent pixels in such a system, the “jelly scroll” effect would be over-the-top bad.
I do expect that it won’t be all that many years before we go from “always-on” displays to “always-active” displays, where at most there’s a color scheme change when you lower your wrist (and maybe not even that).
But we’re not there yet.
b&
Didn't even realize this was an option so thanks. Wake Duration setting is also available on the watch under Display and Brightness.
The closest to this are the Solar Dial and Lunar; you can switch to a digital time display and there are second marks that turn on. I personally don't think it would look weird for the second hand to tick, especially if it were an option for people who want to replicate classic watches.
Here's a GIF of an analog clock that ticks every second. (It has 60 frames, one for each second mark.) It doesn't look weird to me. I suppose there could still be a jelly roll effect, but I don't think that would be noticeable either. The timer and stopwatch do show the seconds as a number for the first and last minute when AOD is on, with no weirdness seen (assuming it is using 1Hz).
It's also possible that when Apple says that it's 1hz, it's slightly more or less which means that over time the second hand would not be accurate.
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Interesting point. The second hand would have to skip a beat every now and then to catch up (or opposite), sort of like a leap year. That would look odd.
Pity. If the screen would stay on for 70 seconds after you tap it no matter how you move your wrist, that would be a good solution. As it is, I'm going back to an old fashioned digital watch.