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Comment by haney | Hacker News Reader

I keep hoping they're going to announce battery life that lasts longer than a day, not this time...

It charges to 80% in 45 mins. I don't wear it overnight, but some friends who do, charge it in the office without much of an impact to usage.

For me it's never been a problem, it wouldn't have changed my usage pattern to have 1 week of battery.

The challenge, at least for those that want to use the watch for sports, is not the "daily" use, but that the watch runs out of juice so quickly when using its location tracking, aka GPS sucks battery.

So, the reason that I want longer battery life is not, per se, to charge once a week, but so that I can use it on a longer run, and not be afraid that the battery will give out as I get close to the finish line.

Without any special preparation my apple watch will last a full day of hiking while recording the GPS/heart rate/etc. (i.e. 5-7 hours hikes in the mountains.)

Cellular, on the other hand, can drain the watch relatively quickly. Mine lasts 2-3 hours when streaming music from the cloud and relaying to bluetooth headphones during a workout (i.e. when it can't piggy-back off the phone's cellular.)

would be nice to reverse-charge from phone to watch - is this possible?

The S10-line from Samsung has that feature so it's certainly not impossible

There was speculation when the 8/X came out that they would have that feature. I would love it. Too many times, I have forgotten to charge my watch in the morning and only remember when I go to to run errands and see it in red. It’s not like you can just plug it into a lightning cable in the car and top off. I refuse to get a watch charger just for the car.

That's not possible (and probably ill advised as the watch will usually outlast the phone) - however it is possible to charge your devices from an iPad.

My issue is that I wear it overnight and through the day. And what happens is that around an hour before bedtime, the battery gets to 20-30% but since I'm not constantly checking, I forget about that and don't take it off my wrist to charge it.

The only low battery notification I get is at like 10%. It'd be handy (heh) at least if we could get better notification reminders that align with our schedules to know when exactly to charge the watch so there's enough power for a night of sleep.

My Apple watch pops a notification to "charge before bedtime" if it's going to die while I'm asleep. Does yours not? Maybe it only does it if you have the sleep features enabled?

That's odd, I definitely have the sleep features enabled and it's a Series 6.

There is an option in the Watch app on the phone (what?). Look under Sleep for “charging reminders”. It will give you a reminder on your phone just before bedtime and you can use that time to charge it up before sleep tracking. It gives you the reminder no matter what charge level it is at.

Mine definitely only gives the reminder if it actually needs to be charged. I don't get the reminder if it doesn't.

Another downside to wearing at night and charging during the day - automatic updates don't happen automatically.

I charge it when I shower and get ready to go to bed, then put it back on to wear overnight because I like the sleep tracking. Never runs out of power.

Likewise. I suppose an always-on display is a big boon for most customers, but I would like if I had the option to opt out of that and get considerably longer battery life instead. Conceptually I really like the watch with all the health-related sensors and such, but until the battery life improves, it's hard to be convinced.

You can opt out. I have, my wife hasn't. It definitely has an impact on the battery life (we both have the series 6). My watch easily makes it a full 24 hours, I charge it in the mornings when I work from home, or in the evening when I'll be at the office the next day. Hers lasts about 18 hours right now, though I also suspect that the fact she drops it on the charger both in the morning and as soon as she gets home from work has impacted the battery life in her case.

I wouldn't like it for camping or long hiking trips (not day hikes since I'd be able to charge it at some point easily enough), the Garmin's are definitely better for that if you want something for tracking your hike and heart rate.

I have Series 6 with the always on display enabled and make it to 30 hours. I have 55% left after 18 hours.

Do you do any workouts with it? I can't see going through 24+ hours on my Series 5 with always-on display and workouts.

Ah, no I don't. Once I can workout again I'll definitely watch the battery life if that is a drain.

Workouts use a lot more sensor and GPS data. Series 6's 18-hour quoted battery life includes an hour workout. However, if you want to run it with a continuous workout, you can get "up to 11 hours indoor workout, up to 7 hours outdoor workout with GPS and up to 6 hours outdoor workout with GPS and LTE".

I disable Always-On at home and only enable it temporarily when I’m going out and feel like people need to see my edgy anime faces.

Then turn it off? It’s in the display settings

Did they actually make the battery a lot bigger to support always on? I have one from before they added always on, and its battery life is also naff.

> I would like if I had the option to opt out of that and get considerably longer battery life instead

If you would really like that you would have clicked on display settings and realized that they’ve had the option to opt-out since the day Always-On Displays were announced.

You can. My Series 6 lasts about 36 hours per charge.

Not going to happen.

The only upgrade that makes sense is 7 days.

2-3 day battery life means that people will forget to charge, because there is no routine. And then they run out of battery and blame Apple for shitty battery life.

45 minutes from 0 to 80% isn't that much. You won't be ending many days at 0% and don't need a 100% every day.

Since I wear my 6 at night, I need to charge it in the morning. That takes about an hour. The last 10% is at about one quarter of the bulk charging rate.

If life interferes, and I have to pull it off the charger after 40 minutes, the watch typically won’t make it through the following night.

Two days would be helpful. Either that, or cut the charging time down to 30 minutes, which is about the time it takes me to get ready in the morning.

I know there are limits to battery technology but I'd much rather see the watch track towards 7 days than see additional sensors / a larger brighter screen.

This may be compounded by the fact that the watch needs its own special charging cable, my main pain point is that I always forget to pack the watch charger when I travel so my watch always dies if I'm going for a night.

My aged Pebble Time Steel lasts 8 days (fresh from factory, it was 10!). I still consider it the pinnacle of smart watch tech.

The tradeoffs are that the screen is "e-paper" without touch functionality. Personally I think it's the right choice: always-on tech and having tactile controls vs a clumsy touch-screen (due to small size).

The watch itself is pretty small so there's room to increase battery life by making it bigger.

We’re in 2021, why wouldn’t a watch last a month. I don’t know, use e-ink, use something else than bluetooth, have a solar panel behind the screen, innovate!

If you want a watch whose battery lasts that long, it can’t be a smart watch.

All the other stuff these things do use too much power for to get that battery life from just switching to a even a (not physically plausible) 100% efficient photovoltaic e-ink screen.

It could be a fitness tracker like the Fitbit Zip (advertised at 4-6 months), or a plain watch like the Casio F-91W (when I had those as a kid, the battery outlasted the straps), but it can’t be a smart watch.

It's like people speaking fondly of their old nokia phones with week-long battery life, while ignoring that it only had a 2 hour talk time. The Apple watch lasts all day when used normally (workouts, apps etc) - for people who are just using it to receive notifications, a bit of siri and telling the time - it easily gets up to 30+ hours.

All of this is moot anyway, it can get 8 hours of sleep tracking in 8 minutes, or fast charge in 45 minutes to 80% - these are far better metrics than if they managed to get it to last 2-3 days.

You can get a smart watch with battery life over 30 days: Garmin Enduro.

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/702797

Huh, I’m genuinely surprised! Thank you :)

> Get up to 80 hours of battery life in GPS mode[1], up to 300 hours in max battery mode[1] and up to 65 days in smartwatch mode with solar charging[2].

2-3 day battery life is perfect for weekend trips without worrying about charging.

If you have a daily routine like charging your phone, why not just charge your watch as well?

Seems like more cognitive effort to change routine just because you take a weekend trip.

It's fine if I don't need a different additional cable.

Right, I have a Garmin 245 that I regularly get 3-5 days on a charge (lots of GPS runs though) and I don't have a problem finding an hour here and there to charge it. Once a day would become a big frustration though, because I typically have a days window where I know I'll need to charge in the next 24 hours and can be flexible.

45 minutes can be a lot if you keep it in hand over night for sleep tracking. You'd then need a to find a 45 minute slot every day to charge it and be consistent with it. With one day battery life you can't forget to charge it every morning for example. Or what if you didn't bring a charger with you for an overnight trip? Anything less than a full two day battery life is a deal breaker for me.

I've found the iPhone notifications to be very handy in this regard though - I throw my watch on the charger when I shower and then pick it up whenever my phone notifies me it is done charging.

https://daringfireball.net/2021/03/your_watch_is_fully_charg...

It takes 8 minutes to charge for a full night's sleep tracking according to Apple. That's about the time it takes to wash and floss your teeth coincidentally :)

I usually take my AW2 off when I wake up and put it in the charger while I do my morning stuff. Same with showering etc.

I imagine that in the near to medium future at least, they'll optimise for fast charging. 45 minutes to 80% is good, but 20 minutes to 80% would mean that you could just charge it while having a shower and it should be practically fully charged.

Several of the higher end Garmin smart watches have battery life longer than 7 days (depending on GPS use).

2-3 day battery life makes sense with sleep tracking, since you can sleep a couple of nights with it before you have to charge it.

I sleep with my watch; my routine has become “charge it while showering”. The ten minutes or so a day is usually plenty to keep up with my usage. Series 6 40mm GPS only.

Yep, I'm hanging onto my Pebble until that happens. The battery life is deteriorating, but I can still get 5 days out of it if I put it in airplane mode overnight.

Oh, that's a nice hack!

It doubles as DND, which is good for work-life balance!

I feel like a broken record but I'm in the same boat. I can't stand a watch that has to be charged daily or is useless. After switching from an early android wear with ~30 hours of battery life to a Garmin watch I just can't imagine being stuck with nightly charging anymore. Countless times I forgot the charger at home on a trip and basically had a fancy bracelet for the week. I don't understand why there seems to be 0 focus on extending battery life, I can't see buying an Apple watch until they get it to at least a week with normal wear and 3+ days if I'm doing hour+ fitness activities every day.

same here - I went for 600km MTB marathon and Garmin devices lasted the whole trip. I had to bring a charger for my iPhone though :(

How long do you want/need it? I have the series 6 and get around ~30 hours. I've been wearing it since 9am and it's now 2:52am, it's still 55% remaining.

It turned out to be more battery than what I thought (18 hours?!?)

Do you use workout tracking ? If I went to the gym it would significantly impact my galaxy watch.

These days I use a withings scanwatch hybrid - it lasts 20 days and is more low-key than a giant screen on your hand. But still has ECG/HR/activities/sleep and notifications (so I can keep my phone muted all the time l). The only feature I'm missing is find my phone.

> Do you use workout tracking ?

Nope :(

I had not considered this impacting the battery, due to being stranded in Singapore I haven't been working out. But now that you and someone else mentioned it I will definitely monitor battery to see how it impacts me when I can get back into a gym.

More than the gym, it's when you're biking/running or anything that uses active GPS tracking. That is the real killer. My garmin can last 7 days without GPS, and 7 hours with active GPS tracking.

I’ve never seen a hit from normal workout tracking, though anything with the gps does hit the battery. It still would normally get through a full day and night with sleep tracking unless I were doing a multi-hour walk/run tracking session, too.

Is it really that low? My fitbit sense gets around 4 days but I just use it for health tracking and nothing else.

Sometimes I get it to go 36 hours but that's only with very light use

I wish it had a charger similar to the Whoop fitness band. It's a separate battery that you place on top of the band while wearing it, so it can charge while you're sleeping or even while you're just wearing it throughout the day.

My series 5 lasts from after breakfast to when I wake up the next day (I sleep with it, it charges while I eat, shower and dress). If that isn’t all day, I don’t know what is.

But I miss my Pebble’s ability to last the week…

Same. Not into smart watches until they have a week long charge at least.

The Steel HR from Withings is the perfect middle ground for me. Doesn’t look like a slab, 3 weeks charge, still some smart features.

Or at least decently fast charging. The new onePlus can get you 0 to 100 in 30 minutes.

Knock it down to 20 minutes and you can charge the watch while you shower in the morning.

It does last longer than a day, but not a full 2 days; more like 30 hrs or so (even with sleep tracking). Using GPS does ding the battery quite a bit.

My Series 5 definitely lasts longer than a day…

Do you use it for anything?

I just use two watches and alternate every night.

my series 6 definitely lasts way longer than a day, and i use it for tracking gps on hikes almost every day. i think being judicious with screen brightness is very impactful.

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