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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

What is the value of having 18 days of battery on a device like this? To me there are diminishing returns pretty quickly when it comes to battery life. I agree, there is a lot of value if you are able to hit 72-96 hours and you can go away for a weekend without worrying about charging, but 18 days seems like a waste. Are people really regularly away from their chargers for that long? At that point, I would much rather have a lighter device or one with more features.

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I recently returned from week long road trip, and while my wife would plug in and charge her Apple Watch every single night, I kept wearing my Pebble without a thought at all -- didn't even pack a charger.

Granted, it does have fewer features, but how good are all those whiz-bangs if the battery is dead?

7-10 days is the ideal time, which is what the original Pebble Steel was capable of. I used to charge it once a week on Monday in the office and it would easily last till the next Monday. Sadly mine died from the screen glitch issue, and right around the time that Pebble collapsed. I think the Time 2 Steel would have been an incredible watch.

I've been using a Skagen Jorn Hybrid smartwatch for the last few years. No digital display, but the time/date are set via bluetooth, and it has phone call notification, which is mostly what I want. I don't need to read emails or SMSs on my wrist. 6 months of battery life from a replaceable coin cell.

Honestly though, this is the first apple watch to appeal to me. Proper waterproofing, ruggedness, long enough battery life to go away for a weekend without a charger, always on screen. It's almost getting back to where Pebble was - they just need to stretch that battery a bit more with an ultra-low power mode. The cost is fairly high considering the functions I want though, so I'll need to use it in person before I put any money down. I do occasionally scuba dive too, so the dive functionality is actually fairly appealing as I don't own a dive computer any more.

If Apple would just not go full Apple on somethings, like allowing interop Qi standard and reverse wireless charging, you could just top it off from your iPhone (or Android or wireless charger).

The value is you can leave it on your wrist without having to take it off all the time to charge it. Like a normal watch. It's one less thing to have to have go flat on you because you forgot to charge it the night before. One less thing to be a slave to charging.

> It's one less thing to have to have go flat on you because you forgot to charge it the night before.

But you don't need 18 days for that. Like I said, I understand wanting a few days. Why do you need a few weeks? It seems like at that point it becomes even more likely that you would forget to charge because it never becomes a routine.

the importance for me isn't actually the idle battery life itself (even for phones or laptops that isnt the case). The high battery life allows me to use GPS for 8-12 hours on my Coros, which is usually >20 days of idle use with infrequent HR, elevation, etc.

I’d love to not have to charge my watch on a 10 day backpacking trip. I’m old enough that most of my formative camping trips were before cell phones, and taking a charger and battery on a hike seems crazy to me. :)

I don't need 18 days. I'd like to be able to go on a trip without worrying about bringing yet another charger though. So for me, getting to 6 or 7 days is the sweet spot. I'm guessing the AWU will hit 4-5 in low power mode for people who don't use it intensively. But of course the battery will only get worse over time, and if you're running in low power mode that takes much of the value out of having an AW in the first place.

I wear my Fenix 24/7 and I want to not think about charging it more than 2 times a month.

When your solar panel is only putting out 8W due to rain for multiple days when you got off-grid for 3 weeks.

(which just happened to me)

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