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Comment by jhickok | Hacker News Reader

I love the new Apple Silicon Macs, and the transition for me has been pretty easy.

I can't imagine anything interesting happening to the watch that doesn't include a big increase to battery life. I don't want any other feature except a battery that can make it a full day.

Apple software has seemingly regressed every year recently. Native apps like Music and Podcasts, the only two I would regularly use, have become so bugged that I had to move to other options. Every time I take a look and see if they are working again, they are buggy messes that I have to constantly wrestle with.

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“ except a battery that can make it a full day.”

I’m curious what use case you have where the battery doesn’t last a full day. I generally charge my 40mm S7 once a day but there is always at least a 25-30% charge remaining. I suppose if I did a multi mile bike ride while playing a podcast from the phone that might change. But otherwise it’s ok. I would love a two day charge because since days I miss the morning charge and don’t realize until I’m out of the house but that’s by not common these days.

Edit: I also do sleep tracking each night and walks most days. Battery life was similar on my older S4 up until the last six months where it started running low.

I essentially use it for health-things. I listen to podcasts/music off of it when I run or row so I don't have to carry a phone around. Today, for example, I was at 40%-ish at around noon after putting in on around 6am and exercising for roughly 90 minutes.

That is bizarre. The watch I bought in 2020, lasts me two full days. I go running between 30-60 minutes every day. Battery life has never been an issue for me, and it almost even feels like an old nokia in terms of battery life.

However, I turned off almost all notifications on my watch because they are mostly annoying, except text messages and protonmail. I turned off the “always on” watch face. I keep a very small subset of apps on the watch.

I also don’t have a cellular version of it, wifi only.

I do have the cellular version and I definitely don't manage notifications, and my watch face is always on. So, I certainly could take steps to squeeze enough life to make it last from 6am-10pm, but I just don't really want to.

This might be small, but the Apple watch needs to implement a body battery/stress/recovery score like Garmin, Fitbit and Whoop has.

Apple loves to show off its bloody oxygen sensor and its ECG capability. But they do not take key metrics that the watch measures all day and tell me what they mean. Heck the watch even measures heart rate variability but only logs it into the Health app.

But they need to be taking the resting HR, heart rate variability, HR, respiratory rate and develop a model for determining a stress and recovery score which ties into sleep etc. Showing these metrics on their own is great but they need to take the key metrics and show us what they mean.

Garmin, Whoop and Fitbit all do this and it's a key differentiator. I think the largest differentiator between it and its competitors.

> I can't imagine anything interesting happening to the watch that doesn't include a big increase to battery life. I don't want any other feature except a battery that can make it a full day.

I have to ask: What are you doing with your Apple Watch that drains the battery so fast?

I've never been able to drain my Watch battery anywhere near that fast, even with the always-on screen still enabled.

I work out every day using the Workouts app. I often bike or run outdoors so during a workout GPS, Bluetooth and the heart monitor are all active. At night I use the AutoSleep app to track sleep. I charge the watch just before sleep.

I get the 10% low battery notification a few times a week.

You don’t charge in the mornings as well? Charging both before and after sleep is the common pattern I’ve read when using it for sleep tracking.

I use the watch to track sleep as well as daily workouts - popping it on the charger while showering in the morning & for a few minutes at night while I get ready for bed seems to do the trick.

I'm sure you have gone through 1 or 2, but you should get another one and if it performs similarly, return the second, chargeback the first.

My 7 year old Samsung Gear watch gets around 2 days with minimal use (IE workdays). On average hiking/running day, it will still have 25-45 percent after maximum use from like 7 AM to 6 PM. I have also: -ran it over -lost it on trail for 2+ days in rain/sleet -Sanded it tomatte, then back to shiny after....accidents -showered with it for years.

I cannot believe an apple watch does what you're describing without being a dud.

my wife has same issues with her apple watch and she is pretty active. she charges it constantly now

Sounds like a proper workout watch like the Garmin or Suunto would be better suited for your use case?

My Garmin lasts just over a week (less if I record a lot of activities, but even recording an 8 hour hike it still has over 50% left at the end of the day).

I second this. If battery life and fitness features are of the upmost importance, check out a Garmin, Polar, Suunto, or something similar. They can last for many days on a single charge using GPS regularly and the only charging I do is when I'm showering, meaning I can track my sleep. I've had a Garmin 735XT for three years and it's not showing signs of age. It's less of a smartwatch and more of a fitness tracker, since the extent of "smart" features these watches often possess is limited to receiving notifications and possibly playing music, but I don't use these features anyway. I used an Apple Watch in the past, but much prefer a simpler fitness tracker. The only thing I miss is the ability to listen to podcasts using only a watch and Bluetooth earbuds.

> I don't want any other feature except a battery that can make it a full day.

I thought the Series 7 could make it a full day? My wife has a S6 and makes it about 36 hours with her normal usage (which is admittedly quite light).

For me, it's not a watch if it has to be charged every day or two. I need 4+ days of battery life so that I don't have to bring another charger on every overnight/weekend trip.

My series 7 easily makes it a full day, closer to two days. It also charges really quickly. I put it on the charger for about 30 mins to an hour in the morning while reading emails and it’s done.

Really? I may make it thru one day if I am using it moderately (mostly apple fitness).

I have a feeling these things are heavily related to both WiFi (congestion/protocol/support for sleep & awake/distance to AP) and cellular (if enabled), in addition to other usage (like Bluetooth, including distance to host phone). This is also (educated) speculation.

Also device age. My Series 3 originally lasted about a day and a half but is under a full day now with a couple years of cycles on the battery.

Well of course battery age, but the GPs were talking about the latest watch, so I assumed it was more about battery life from the start.

From what I understand, impact of radio on battery life is very real but often invisible / not thought about. Cellular really can chew through battery when the base stations are far away.

IMO battery age is still part of the discussion when talking about the shiny new model. If I buy a Series 7, two years from now it's going to be two years old. That seems obvious but people seem to gloss right over it.

When the AirPods first came out there were a lot of reviews saying "Battery life is about 5 hours, this is just barely acceptable but it's not a problem."

And then two years later the same authors were writing articles complaining that their AirPod battery life has gotten unacceptably short as if they'd never owned anything with a non-removable battery before and had no idea it was going to happen.

This. The battery life on my phone, which I typically just leave laying around my desk, just about doubled after I switched providers. I used to have almost no signal with the previous provider, going up to 2-3 bars with the new one. I'm sure the modem was pushing maximum tx power trying to stay associated (and it would typically alternate between minimum signal and no coverage states).

Maybe I should have bought a signal booster for my office instead. I got one for my car because I would consistently drop calls in one spot; with the booster I had 5 bars the whole commute. Before COVID, anyway.

My 3 year old Series 4 dies before 8pm, if it's fully charged at 7am, and with absolutely no use except standby. Some are still using Series 0s (with light use), but Apple Watches are disposable electronics by any reasonable definition, especially with battery replacements that cost as much as a new one.

Yep, mine is pretty much solely on Wifi and is only about a year old, so that may be why. I really don’t use it for anything other than just health tracking and when I drive with maps and such. So I’m sure usage, age, and connectivity all come into play, but it’s definitely capable or going over a day.

I have not had that experience with the Series 7, but my S6 would not make it thru a full day ever if I used it for less than an hour of Apple Fitness (paired with an iPad or standalone on a run).

My Mi Band 6 from Xiaomi easily lives ~30 days on one charge if used less (eg. no constant heart tracking, no PAI) and ~7 days with all tracking enabled (sleep, oxygen, heart rate, 1-2 workouts a day). With a third party app instead of Xiaomi "Mi Fit", I belive also all the data stays with me.

That makes me wonder - what does Apple Watch do that Mi Band doesn't that makes the time on battery so much different? I guess screen size and GPS during workout (Mi Band uses phone GPS), but other than that? (I'm not sure what other features it has, might be comparing apples to oranges, no pun intended)

Without knowing much about mi band, my guess would be embedded vs general purpose CPU’s energy consumption.

Same way Garmin does it, I'd expect: specs and restrictions that would make your average web or iOS/Android developer cry and declare it's impossible to develop useful software for.

Reading reviews on Amazon, it makes it sound like it's not the best on privacy. Do you experience this?

> If you don’t agree to let them sell your information, then every single time you connect your watch to the phone, it automatically transfers you to settings on your phone because it wants you to alter them so they can sell your information.

No, not really, I can't confirm that. I'm using third party app[0] which has nothing to do with Xiaomi. It only requires login with official app once in order to obtain encryption(?) key. After that all functionalities can be used without any problems or settings opening automatically. I guess the quoted person has misconfigured something.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mc.miband1

The new Watch health features that have been rumored for the coming years (blood pressure, etc) would be genuinely life-changing for a ton of people.

I don't have any particular interest in a smart watch - even if you gave me one for free, I doubt I'd bother wearing it. But if it's also a fully-featured health monitor? Yeah, absolutely.

Currently Garmin, Fitbit and Whoop have much more advanced health features than the Apple watch. I agree, its a big downfall of the Apple watch IMO.

I don't think it'll ever happen, but it would be amazing if the opened up 3rd-party watch faces. For a watch, the watch-face is really the analog of the app, and it's a shame we're just limited to the built-in stuff.

Agreed, and given that I would be fine paying a few books for a watch face that seems like easy money Apple.

Terrible battery life on the Apple watches is the only thing preventing me from getting one (and I'm already fully invested in the Apple ecosystem - iphone, ipad, macbook air, hackintosh desktop).

By comparison my Polar V800, which has been in constant use since 2017, can last over a month on a single charge! It tracks my movement during day and detects sleep through lack of movement.

Under heavy use - GPS, heart rate, pedal cadence and wheel speed sensors all at the same time - it can last 5-6hrs.

Outstanding piece of kit :-)

> I don't want any other feature except a battery that can make it a full day.

I'm waiting for them to add glucose monitoring into it

That would be very useful to many, but as far as I know, the technical hurdles are formidable. I don’t know if anyone has developed a non-invasive technique yet that is sufficiently reliable. And it’s not for the lack of trying.

There's hope

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/07/14/apple-supplier-la...

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/10/25/apple-watch-series-8-bl...

Switched to a Garmin Fenix because of the battery life. Total game changer charging once every couple of weeks.

A camera would be nice.

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