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Comment by jononor | Hacker News Reader

It might be just-about acceptable for a smartwatch. But anything the micro takes out of the power budget means less screen and radio time, which does add constraints.

PineTime, based on NRF52, will get you 4-7 days of practical usage.

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There are ESP32 watches. One I have[1] comes with quite thick 940mAh battery but my understanding is the battery life still isn't that amazing (just got it, haven't really tested the battery) - something like less than a day of constant runtime or few days if you turn it off constantly

[1] https://lilygo.cc/products/t-watch-s3-plus

Yeah I got one of those as well. An the older non-S3 version. Fun for developing, very powerful. I use it for developing ML applications for watches etc (emlearn project). Great device for that, but battery life is not its strong point.

I have a similar one with a microphone, I dread to think how the GPS module and LoRa of that variant affects battery life!

Can confirm, I regularly get about 9 days of charge on my PineTime, running the latest PineTimeOS release. Its gotten better and better over the years, and the functionality keeps coming ..

I used to use the PineTime with PineTimeOS, but mine eventually broke (corroded inside), but not having WiFi made it annoying to develop for. With WiFi suddenly you don't need to communicate regularly with a phone and the possibilities really open up.

I get that kind of experience with the Watchy… but the problem is, its quite a bulky device and gets a bit tiring to wear after a while.

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