Apple Watch Ultra 3 | Hacker News Reader

Apple Watch Ultra 3

apple.com

84 pointssurprisetalk183 comments

In a conversation with my parents (who both have an apple watch) we realized they will likely be the first generation to navigate aging with a consistent and extensive history of health data from these devices. I’m curious what benefits and challenges that will bring.

Only if we can get that data exported in a format that can be used by the next 'standard'. I've already got health data on my Android phone, a Fitbit account, my Withings devices, my old iPhone, and probably more elsewhere.

You can export all the data from Apple Health from a button in the app. It exports a zip with data in a usable XML format. The Health data is also available via an iOS API so there are apps available which pull and export the data in other formats (e.g. CSV). I try to connect any health related apps to Apple Health (e.g. Withings, MyFitnessPal) and use that are the central repository.

I would love to try it but I'm guessing it won't work if I just buy a cheap used one and never attach it to an account and never bring it online?

Not sure what you mean by "one" but a watch will work fine without a network connection. It does need to be paired to a phone.

It'd make it less useful as a watch though because the time will drift without an NTP server.

I don't think this is true? All my Apple Watches refuse to provide any functionality at all, including just telling the time, until I pair them with an iPhone. This was an issue when I bought my first Apple Watch because I owned an Android.

On android I'm able to extract some of this data by directly accessing the sqlite files in the databases directory of my rooted device, (with sudo-level permission obviously). I find that much more comfortable than having to use APIs with temporary tokens

Opposite direction, but I was able to export most of my activity like sleep and daily steps from Fitbit to Apple Health (using a 3rd party app unfortunately.)

Our start-up is essentially the anti-thesis of this.

We've had bathroom scales for over a century, yet as a society, we are more obese than ever.

More data isn't the answer, and all this talk about "insights" is just re-packaging of that data.

Next generation wearables go beyond harvesting data and showing pretty graphs. They directly affect our biology, physiology, and neurophysiology in real-time to improve our health. That's why we call them Affectables. Wearables that affect.

We're beginning by focusing on enhancing the restorative function of sleep. Not more sleep, not falling asleep faster, but the directly affecting the neurological processes that define the health benefits of sleep.

If you're curious to find out more, check out https://affectablesleep.com

Correlation != Causation. The obesity issue has many factors (Quality of food; sedentary lifestyle changes overtime etc), the access to weighing scales actually helped with reality checks for most people.

I'm in no way suggesting that scales MADE us overweight. Is that what you're correlation != causation comment is meant to say?

I think you're making the point for me. The "reality checks" haven't helped people to improve their health.

Data != Action.

But you need a counterfactual to that claim, isn't it? If people did not use weighing scales then maybe they would be even more unhealthy.

No. If we needed a counterfactual claim for everything, you could also claim that maybe scales made people fat, because we weren't fat before we had scales....

And I'm sure some will take that argument. I'm not running a debate club.

Where do I find any of the papers associated with these devices? Have you created a page for interested parties to dig into the research behind these devices?

The research is linked directly on our website

https://www.affectablesleep.com/how-it-works

Bottom of the page.

There are about 70 papers listed there, so if there is a specific area of research you're interested in, I can help direct you to the right papers.

Thanks, I'll take a look. I know someone who really struggles with insomnia. Generally speaking they wake up every night for an hour or two of tossing and turning. Based on your website, it sounds like this device aims to improve existing sleep, not deal with insomnia. Is that accurate?

That's right. We're not an insomnia device.

I am a lifelong chronic insomniac myself, and started down this path trying to solve my own problem.

Sadly, insomnia is still an unsolved issue.

"We've had bathroom scales for over a century, yet as a society, we are more obese than ever."

Exactly! Couple decades ago they blamed human stupidity on lack of information. Look at us now with all the data available at our fingertips. We are so well informed that we should be better humans but we aren't.

Coming back to the Apple Watch (and alternatives) perhaps what we need along with all these "insights" are a shock collar (yes, like the one for a dog) that serves as a motivation to get off one's ass and get in to better shape. I'll bet that'll sell like hotcakes /s

Going to have to see some serious citations to take this out of magnetic wrist strap territory. Can you provide a citation that playing a sound during a particular phase of sleep actually does something?

Over 50 published peer-reviewed studies and a decade of research.

https://www.affectablesleep.com/how-it-works

Bottom of the page.

Don't think of it as "sound", this isn't "gentle tones to help you sleep", and it isn't played during a particular "phase" of sleep.

It is specifically targeting individual slow-waves.

Think of it more like applying an electrical stimulation to a muscle while lifting weights, not just pumping heavy music into the gym.

Closed-loop neurostimulation, not neuromodulation.

However, you are 100% correct that overcoming the snake-oil factor is a significant challenge for us.

I read an article in the newspaper recently about how now that we're several decades into the computerization of medical records, it's possible to spot trends that were previously untrackable.

One item was cancers. It's emerging that different generations get different types of cancers more often.

For example, Baby Boomers have a lot of cancer x, while Gen X gets a lot of cancer y, but very little cancer x. And Millennials get cancer z, which is almost never seen in the other two cohorts.

There was one type of cancer that seemed to hit Millennials almost exclusively. Unfortunately, I can't remember which one, as I read the article back toward the beginning of the year.

probably literally nothing, just like google and LLMs also have had basically zero effect on patients experiences for the same reasons. maybe it varies by location but in my experience doctors will virtually put their fingers in their ears and say BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH if you mention apple watch data before kicking you out. i had one doctor confidently tell me that "apple watch blood pressure measurements had been proven to be inaccurate compared to BP monitors" and that she refuses to look at them for that reason after mishearing something i said. apple watches obviously do not even have the ability to measure blood pressure and never have done, but she was very eager to lie in order to disregard whatever concerns i may have had just in case.

Question for the audience: If I'm not a hypochondriac, why would I want an apple watch?

If you’re really into fitness and/or min-maxing your own stats. Honestly, it can create a bit of an obsessive loop once you get deep into it.

Whoop is more accurate though.

Is it? Across what metric?

And most likely still junk

No, the Apple Watch is basically best of breed in terms of sleep and heart rate accuracy.

The Whoop is like 90% accurate compared to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SzUDTBK-i0

It's just trade-offs: if you're using the Whoop, you don't want a screen and you like two weeks battery life.

There’s a study that pitted different devices against each other. The whoop was more accurate. At least a few years ago it was

Not really. Also if I’m going to wear something on my wrist all day I want it to do more than just record some stats.

i wear both.

> min-maxing your own stats

So many people fall in this category, but a lot of them seem to min-max their gear more than anything. I know casual runners with $400 carbon plate performance shoes, I run with them, in my $7 decathlon shoes, unless you're paid to run or aim for a record I really don't see the point, especially since these thing barely last a few month of serious running. Same for hikers with $3k of ultralight gear, they spend more time reading reviews and flexing their 0.1g hacks than actually hiking.

There is a huge overlap between tech nerds and "gear hobbyists", I assume because they have too much money for their own good.

If you're a serious runner/swimmer/cyclist/surfer who likes to track workouts and already invested in the Apple ecosystem for messaging/music/etc and like the idea of leaving your phone at home.

It's not very good for tracking swimming stats. Honestly, I'm still looking for something that will track laps accurately and without a ton of fuss.

Yeah, back when I used to swim a lot I could never find anything that was any good at tracking swim distance either in a pool or open water.

I just got a pair of swim goggles with a tracker. About to test them at the pool. I don't have high hopes for them but at least they were purpose built with swimmers in mind.

It'll track heartrate, duration of workout, and a loose notion of distance at least.

It might be because it is one of the few trackers that can track laps in pools less than 14 meters. Most of the others watches don't allow that, which might be due to a difference in sensors and the way the tracking is done.

I once thought I wouldn't need a mobile phone and that landlines were sufficient.

Data can show a lot about your health. Anecdotally I find the sleep disturbances (apnea) monitoring to work for me. The trends are a pretty nice, will track general changes in health on the data it monitors. They now can capture high BP to some degree of accuracy. It’s not for everyone but for me it’s one of the more useful devices in my life.

Depends where you are at in life but I found as I have gotten older that some of the data points are helpful to track to see how my body is aging and when/what to adjust.

OP said not a hypochondriac

If you have nothing to add why even respond. I am sharing my anecdote of why I think it’s useful. If you don’t have anything to contribute go buzz off weirdo. It’s not that hard.

What about the comment you replied to makes you say "hypochondriac"? Weird thing to say imo

I use it mostly because Apple Pay is so convenient, no need to carry a wallet

But the battery life on my wallet is phenomenal!

My non-e-bike has 7 batteries.

2x in the shifters

2x in the derailleurs

Radar/rear light

Front light

Computer

When I get in there the usually shiite people carry (phone, EarPods etc). What a time to be alive.

I haven't carried one for a decade. No car keys or house keys, all in my phone. Never had an issue. Life is a bliss.

I wish I could use it without having to use iCloud.

For my aging eyes, Apple Watch Ultra is the only watch where I can have time and date and read it comfortably. I used to have a cheap casio that would do the same job, but the digits are getting too small for my eyes.

TBH I only use the Apple Watch as a dumb watch. I have disabled all notifications and smart features. Just time and heart-rate when I exercise.

Thank you.

The Series 10 actually has a larger display (1220 sq mm) than the Ultra 2 (1185 sq mm).

The new Ultra 3 raises that to 1245 sq mm. The new Series 11 keeps the same size as the Series 10.

Good tip, thanks!

For me its:

- Apple Pay (I don't have to take out my phone to pay for things). One really cool feature is that the apple watch maintains your credentials as long as you don't take it off your wrist, so you don't need to unlock anything to pay for something.

- Apple Car/Home Key (I don't have to take out my phone to unlock my front door)

- notifications on my wrist when my washer machine is done

- notifications on my wrist when an unhoused neighbor door checks my car in the middle of the night.

- Apple Health: metrics on my daily workout.

- Screen time: grant kid 15 minutes of Roblox without taking my phone out of my pocket

- Edit: I'm embarrassed to admit that I also use the "find my phone" feature a lot when at home.

I don't really need an ultra for any of that, and I don't see a reason to upgrade my 2-3 year old Apple Watch now.

Also Express Transit.

If you live in a city that supports it like NYC or Toronto, just tap your wrist (no unlock) on transit and you’re in.

I live in Seattle. Android gets that, but we don't yet, and they keep putting it off. This is basically Seattle's core dysfunction on display (called the "Seattle Process"), and its why our escalators are always broken, our transit projects are a few decades behind schedule, and why ORCA cards can't be loaded into an Apple Wallet yet.

When I visit Japan though, Apple watch works fine with SUICA. Unfortunately, in China, AliPay is too complicated to be used on a watch and you have to whip out your phone regardless because of the QR code thing. If China ever upgrades to NFC, it will work fine.

I also live in Seattle, and have to dig my Orca card out of my wallet every time. I can't even tap my wallet because there are multiple NFC cards in there.

I tell myself, eh first world problems. But agreed that it's also a Seattle Process problem.

For a city with so many tech companies, the city itself isn't very technological.

Ya. Also Washington state is going to be the last state to get digital driver licenses..even Utah has those already.

Louisiana had them like 7 years ago

If China ever upgrades to NFC, it will work fine.

Sounds like an AliPay problem, not necessarily a "China" problem because in the Apple Wallet app, there is a list of nearly 50 Chinese transit cards that can be added.

Perhaps someone in China can provide more information.

> unhoused neighbor

This is a new phrase for me.

Me too. Having figured out what it means I cannot over-empathise how much I DO NOT WANT NOTIFICATIONS of an unhoused neighbour door checking my car in the middle of the night.

My kid sleeps on the first floor and so I’m interested in any skulking at ground level. Usually they just door check the car (our garage doesn’t have walls on two sides), but sometimes they make it in the backyard.

I really need to just put in a better fence eventually, but for now I just rely on yelling them off.

> first floor

Is this ‘ground floor’ in UK, Australia, New Zealand?

It's an off-by-one issue.

Americans count like people: 1, 2, 3…

Europeans count like machines: 0, 1, 2…

Understandable, thanks for explaining.

You’d rather not know?

I'd rather not know if the car is on the street (which is what I imagined). If the car is in my house that's quite different.

I use the find my phone option regularly, too. In the newest upgrade it now tells you how many feet you are away from the phone and gets green as you get closer. It's very cool!

Soo much better. I wish I could turn off the beeping on the first try though—the direction and distance is usually good enough.

I bought one for my grandma for fall detection. She lives alone.

I ask the same question. I see people around me who own these spiral into obsessive tracking of arbitrary health related metrics without any purpose other than to make themselves worried sick (pun intended) about the reported numbers.

Health is only a small part of my watch usage. Mostly I use it for paying for things and unlocking things, and for dispatching my kid's screen time requests quickly.

In my family, we use them for payments, front door & car keys, and surprisingly often to find phones lost in the house.

Accountability for your fitness.

Did you actually get 7-8 hours? Did you actually get good quality sleep? Did you actually move some target amount every day?

The idea of wearing a screen while you sleep is kinda crazy to me in 2025. Society seems trying to de-screen in last decade, but here's a bracelet you wear 24/7.

That said I sleep with AirPods and iPhone next to me so who am I to judge.

It’s not like you can do any browsing on the watch screen. Basically a nonissue.

I'm not hypochondriac and don't use any of the health monitoring features. What I use it for:

* Notifications (imessages mainly, but anything that sends a push notification to your phone can also notify you on your watch)

* Quickly responding (thumbs up/down) to messages

* Apple Pay

* HomeKey (I can unlock all the doors in my house with my watch)

* Some apps (like AllTrails) have nice watchOS apps which give you the important info by glancing at your wrist.

Apple is not-bad at proactively notifying you about potential health problems it discovered, instead of you spending time and effort looking at the numbers it records.

The watch will tell you if it thinks you have sleep apnea, heart rate irregularities, drops in fitness, out of baseline sleep, dramatic trends in any health statistics, and high blood pressure.

The vast majority of people wearing them are doing so because they think they look cool.

Not even close. It has done so much to gamify working out for me that I’ve been consistently lifting and working out for 5+ years now.

The fact that it remembers my best 5k time and notifies me when I’ve beaten it is very motivating.

The biggest perk of the apple watch for me is to be able to keep my phone in my purse or on my desk and not ever miss calls. Important call from a doc I work with? Easy to see it with haptic and a glance at my wrist and I can step out and take it.

Did you ever watch Dick Tracy growing up?

Does anyone know if wearable BP monitoring can actually be accurate? I have a relative who is unwell and this could be useful for them but, equally, would be very unhelpful with inaccurate data.

Are there better alternatives?

It doesn't actually report blood pressure to the user, so it's not a question of accuracy in a traditional numerical sense.

It doesn't give you a live BP reading. It just does some sort of fuzzy inference using data over time kind of like how the Whoop tries to estimate your BP in the morning based on overnight data.

The Apple Watch just notifies you when it thinks you might have high BP and you have to use a cuff to see if it's correct. So, we're still some ways away from passive BP.

It doesn't give you a blood pressure number -- just alerts if it thinks you have high blood pressure. I wrote a bit about the science of blood pressure on the wrist here: https://www.empirical.health/blog/apple-watch-blood-pressure...

Also some existing watches will support BP features:

As of September 9, 2025, hypertension notifications are currently under FDA review and expected to be cleared this month, with availability on Apple Watch Series 9 and later and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later.

The wrist cuff from Omron Gold is probably the least-worst option out there, but they'll still have to take it at specific times per day, not wear it constantly. However a lot of my patients use it and like it and I find it relable. Same brand we use in the office.

I am planning to buy one of these https://healthcare.aktiia.com

At least based on their own website they seem to be among the most accurate ones.

Huawei Watch D2 has an actual blood pressure monitor with inflatable strap. I have no personal experience with that but think it warrants a closer look. The reviews note instrusive phone software though.

https://consumer.huawei.com/en/wearables/watch-d2/

> Emergency SOS via satellite,…, 42-hour battery life

So if I am in a critical situation in the mountains, with only 8h battery left, I hope rescue teams will find me in that 8h window.

My Garmin will give me a week at least, and in low power mode two to three weeks?

SOS message went out with your GPS coordinates, so best advice is to remain where you are and use its reflective surface as a signal mirror.

So keep the garmin? This also sounds like an edge of an edge case. If the SOS went out it includes coordinates. You would want to stay put.

Basic survival advice is to stay put and wait for rescue unless you're in imminent danger. So maybe if your watch is your only lifeline stop running around the mountains once it dies.

Or use something intended for the purpose like a Garmin inReach. The satellite SOS features on phones and watches are nice to haves that could absolutely save your life but they're no replacement for being prepared. Really no device is a replacement for being properly prepared in the wilderness, even with your location you still need a way for rescue teams to spot you, for example.

I personally wouldn't rely on my phone/watch if I'm headed anywhere remote without cell service & electricity. With Garmin inReach you don't just get better battery life - you also get the Iridium satellite network and a team that's more experienced at search and rescue.

That being said, I do think that these new emergency SOS features will come in handy for people who don't know what they're getting themselves into, or who just run into unexpected bad luck on what was supposed to be a quick day trip.

> So if I am in a critical situation in the mountains, with only 8h battery left,

Please carry a personal locator beacon.

They make external batteries for watches just like they do for phones. Or you can carry a charger and use it with the phone battery.

ON battery life, I would love some kind of dumb phone/ ultra low power mode that we can set when we just want watch mode at certain times and nothing else. I imagine that would give us a week of battery.

On the other hand, I just use my cheap Timex (with years of battery life) unless I need/want the more advanced features of the Apple Watch Ultra. I've been of two minds about the Ultra (and the Apple Watch generally). When I'm really using it like on a hike, I really like it. For more day to day stuff I mostly have notifications turned off and I rarely get legit phone calls when my phone isn't handy.

Mobile phones two decades ago lasted for weeks. I don't remember how many, but long enough, that we constantly lost our (expensive) charging cables. I believe battery time went down as fast as screens got bigger (and colorful).

That exists, always has since second gen. It’s called low power mode. It’s a toggle.

They used to have this with "Power Reserve Mode" (PRM) which turned off everything except showing the time briefly when you pressed the side button.

If you got below 10% it would ask if you wanted to switch to this mode. You could also turn it on in the battery settings.

I've read that in this mode you could get a week or two on a full battery.

Sometime around watchOS 9 they replaced this with "Low Power Mode" (LPM). LPM reduced things like notifications, background processing, and update frequency enough to get about 50% more life out of a non-Ultra and 100% more on an Ultra 2.

LPM is gone from watchOS now but the underlying functionality still works and there is still a way to access it. You have to turn the watch off. While it is off if you press the crown it will briefly display the time.

If you wanted to frequently switch between normal operation and this low power time-only mode it would be somewhat of a pain since you'd have to turn the watch off and on to switch modes, and watchOS boots really really slow.

If you don't have to quickly switch between modes though it might be reasonable.

Is it gone? Still there as far as I know.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/108320

That's Low Power Mode, not Power Reserve Mode.

> while keeping the messages end-to-end encrypted

I just want you all to think back just 10 years ago, when your average consumer neither knew what that meant, nor cared about it. How far we've com.

push notifications are not encrypted tho.

Why can't Apple, of all manufacturers, produce a watch that can last longer on a charge than one or two days?

Garmins easily last a week.

> Garmins easily last a week.

I'm getting basically exactly what Garmin claims on my 45mm Venu 3-- 14 days. Wild that nobody else is even close.

The new Pebbles are also claiming two weeks (they're only just now shipping, so we'll see how that pans out): https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-2-duo-is-in-mass-production

In any case I agree that it's crazy - particularly for Apple which tends to have pretty good power efficiency in its other devices.

And even crazier about the Garmin is that functionally they seem the same as say a Galaxy watch. Good screen quality, continuous monitoring, same or better refresh rate & overall features.

Pebble seems to use e-paper, larger design/battery to get there.

The new whoop lasts that long, and delivers. 14 days.

It has no screen.

What's impressive about Garmin is its essentially competitor to Apple Watch / Galaxy Watch feature wise but with a 5x+ battery life. No compromise.

I still get a little over 24-hours on my first generation Ultra. For a device that I barely "use" I do expect a lot more battery life out of it.

Very much every one I know bought a smart watch, worn it for a couple of weeks, then forgot to charge yet again and then forgot where it is. None wear smart watches today.

People still revert to "dumb" analogue watches or Casio stuff.

For me personally smart watch is pointless. For everything it does I have a phone. Other than that, it's just another thing that I have to babysit - want to measure sleep? Oh no I forgot to charge it before bed. There goes my measurement etc.

It's a cool gadget, but very much useless still.

If the Vision Pro ever takes off I'd be interested in seeing if all of these sensors on my hands could be used for more accurate gestures. But imagine by that point the sensors and models running on device will be good enough it won't matter.

> It's a cool gadget, but very much useless still.

For you.

The health stuff is compelling and the marketing videos about lives saved are nice and all, but actual doctors are recommending Apple Watches for health monitoring.

It is sold as a watch, not health watcher though. If you want to measure health, maybe dedicated device for health measurement would be better. Some doctors love kickbacks, if you know what I mean.

They aren’t paid by Apple, and if cost is no object, they recommend an Apple Watch.

Unfortunately I now know this.

The standalone devices are interesting, but aren’t as good. Continual monitoring is a powerful tool.

It's like doctors recommending wine, where what is actually needed is walk, meditation and a handful of nuts and berries.

> It's like doctors recommending wine, where what is actually needed is walk, meditation and a handful of nuts and berries.

You begin with wine and ended there too.

If you want to check if someone is in sinus rhythm, what’s the best device to do it?

I use my watch for Google Pay because it doesn't work on my rooted phone.

Why can't Apple produce a watch that you don't have to use with an iPhone?

There's not a shot in hell I'm ever switching from Android to iOS. People rarely do this.

Theoretically, I might buy an Apple Watch or Air Pods or Apple TV if they didn't go out of their way to make them either impossible to use without an iPhone or a living nightmare.

Why would you want an Apple Watch without an iPhone?

Most of the benefits are because the ecosystem is tightly integrated. I expect that there isn't a large enough market and it so happens to lock people into their other products. I haven't tried using my Air Pods on an Android phone, but they work perfectly fine on my Steam Deck (Linux).

> Why would you want an Apple Watch without an iPhone?

Same reason I have a MacBook without an iPhone.

Here is how I’d convert you: Open your phone copy some text, open your MacBook, paste that text.

I don’t don’t do it a lot, but it’s the best.

That works between Android and Windows too. You just need to be signed using the same Microsoft account in both devices, and enable clipboard sync.

And yeah, it's kinda useful sometimes.

I discovered that feature by accident while doing some testing with an iOS device, and found it concerning. IIRC it wasn't too difficult to disable, but it really should be opt-in.

>Why can't Apple produce a watch that you don't have to use with an iPhone?

>There's not a shot in hell I'm ever switching from Android to iOS. People rarely do this.

Because the reverse situation helps Apple. A lot of iOS users can't switch to Android because the Apple Watch keeps them tied to the iPhone. It's one of their most effective lock-ins in addition to things like iMessage.

Keeping existing Apple customers may be more lucrative than trying to attract potential Android customers like you.

See point one.

People very rarely switch phone operating systems.

There is virtually nobody with an iPhone AND an Apple Watch that's switching from iOS and Android any time soon.

The idea that Apple needs to defend that population is absurd.

That's their BIGGEST evangelists.

Why doesn't Apple not let you have a MacBook unless you have an iPhone?

Tons of people have MacBooks that have Android phones.

>People very rarely switch phone operating systems.

This is true and I'm not claiming that switching is a common occurrence.

That said, the more likely os migration is from iOS-to-Android rather than Android-to-iOS. I know more than a dozen people that have switched from iPhone to Android. I know nobody that switched from Android to iPhone.

Of the people that want to leave iOS for Android but haven't pulled the trigger... what's holding them back is the Apple Watch and the iPad. The Android ecosystem (Samsung) doesn't have competitive hardware in those areas.

My friend really wants to switch to Android for the superior Google AI Assistant but can't because her Apple Watch tracks her medical stats better than Samsung/Garmin watches. She already uses Google-everything-else with Google Sheets/Docs/Calendar/Keep/Gmail/Voice. If Tim Cook made Apple Watch work perfectly with Android phones, he'd lose her as a customer.

>Why doesn't Apple not let you have a MacBook unless you have an iPhone?

PowerBook and MacBook were around as standalone before iPhone existed. The Apple Watch was always created & marketed as an accessory for the iPhone. The AirPods is a hybrid situation where they partially work with Android but it is crippled with missing features. You have to use AirPods with Apple's ecosystem for full functionality.

> There's not a shot in hell I'm ever switching from Android to iOS.

You’ve chosen your ecosystem. Plenty of watches that work with Android. (Is Android watch even a thing? I think it is).

Given your staunch preference for Android, it’s fair to say the Apple Watch is not a product made for you.

Solving for a longer charge may get them some sales from holdouts who went out and bought a Garmin instead. Cramming more features that make existing Apple Watch users feel like their watches are obsolete will get them a lot more.

Isn't longer battery life a feature that makes "existing Apple Watch users feel like their watches are obsolete"?

Yeah, Apple watches are a non-starter for me. Zero chance I'm charging my watch daily.

Put it on the charger while you’re showering and it’ll be charged enough to run until your next shower. And doing this consistently helps in forming a routine.

> Garmins easily last a week.

Oh, really?

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-EECCAC99-90D6-4...

Looks like they last dramatically less than that if you buy an Garmin with comparable display and actually use the advertised features.

But that huge reduction in battery life is when you use GPS activity tracking. GPS usage on any watch will impact battery life, including the Apple Watch Ultra.

Comparing both watches in activity tracking mode + AOD off, the Garmin (44h) still has 2x the battery life compared to the Apple Watch Ultra (20h).

You’re cherry picking again…

You also get a huge reduction when you turn on SpO2 (off by default on Garmin, on by default on iWatch). Same for music, always on display, etc etc etc.

My understanding is that no smartwatch takes SpO2 readings during activity/workout tracking as the sensor is not accurate when you are in motion.

The 20h number I mentioned is from the OP: "For continuous outdoor workout tracking, Apple Watch Ultra 3 now gets 20 hours of battery life in Low Power Mode with full GPS and heart rate readings." Low Power mode disables AOD and SpO2 (which is already disabled anyways during workout tracking).

I doubt SpO2 is very battery intensive either, certainly it can't be worse than the heart rate sensor. Both sensors work in the same way fundamentally.

If Apple made a watch with a smaller display and fewer features but 10-30 days of battery, I’d buy it.

I always have lots of Apple devices, but won’t deal with multiple that need daily charging.

Two different consumer groups? I look at a garmin and have no care about a week long battery.

I'm surprised Apple hasn't used the strap to extend the battery life. Is that a thing with an aftermarket strap or for phones from other providers?

This was a huge concern of mine before I got an Apple Watch but it really doesn't make a big difference to me. If anything charging every night makes it easier to remember to charge it than there being random off-days where I have to remember.

In normal cases I mostly agree - you can just charge it while taking a shower or something that you do every day. That said, Garmin's battery life shines when you are using it on a non-normal day.

Overnight camping, and sleeping in a tent for a few nights is a good example. I'm not "taking a shower" and hence don't really have a great time to charge it. With my garmin I just leave it on, and it keeps working for the entire trip.

Same thing with other "adventure" travel, flying overnight, etc.

> charging every night

Funny as I bought it as they advertised sleep measurement features. I quickly realized I need to actively think about charging time and at some point I just stopped using it.

I put it on the charger every evening when watching TV or playing games, i.e. some activities that don’t need any tracking anyways. I go to bed with the watch at 100% and it’s usually at around 30-40% when I put it on the charger again the next evening.

You could always buy two and swap them out.

I'm shocked so many people find it this difficult. Particularly to the point you abandon a $500 device. You take off the watch before showering, stick it on the charger. By the time you're dressed it's fully charged. A bit like how you wouldn't jump in the shower every morning with a mechanical watch.

I've got a Series 10. I've got "always on display" turned off because I do not find it useful. I've got optimized charging set to try to limit it to charging to 80%.

I generally put it on the charger every evening around 7 pm or so when I sit on the couch to do the NYT crossword and Sudoku (which come out at 7 pm in my time zone) and watch some TV or read for a while.

It then goes back on my wrist but in theater mode and with notifications silenced until morning.

It generally uses maybe 5-10% while I sleep. In the morning I turn theater mode off and un-silence notifications, and then use it to track 30-35 minutes of exercise.

It is typically still above 30% when it is time to do the next crossword.

Same, I regularly forget to put it back on.

You have to micromanage the thing. It does not just work. You have to constantly adapt strategies depending on usage pattern and lifestyle change.

I do not use smartwatch features (basically useless or worse an intrusion/interruption in your life for little benefits).

People seem to think Apple Watches are good. As an owner for 6 years or different generations, I beg to disagree.

The only thing it's good for is the quality of the data but competitors have caught up and it's not that important (consistency of measurement is more relevant). What's more when you can't use it because of battery issues it becomes moot; a bit worse data is still better than no data at all in the end.

In my opinion the Apple Watch is the perfect representation of Apple lack of focus and inability to make relevant compromise to create actually great products.

They could make a killer sport watch with low refresh rate on the display, minimum power consumption with a chip that would only run the data collection and forgo all the app bullshit to get something that could potentially last up to a week.

But they would rather sell lifestyle fashion accessories.

Knowing very little about the Apple Watch and Garmin, I would assume the goal of being a generic application platform means the watch needs to guarantee a higher level of cpu/gpu/sensor resources than a watch for fitness enthusiasts who only use it for tracking?

Or does Garmin have all the same apps as the Apple Watch or just a much better battery?

You are correct. The Garmin does less. They are different products.

There was this discussion recently where owners of an Amazfit watch (including me) said it has great battery life https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44843888 I could not stand having to charge my watch every day.

Its because Apple can't NOT have a beautiful screen and smooth FPS.

Garmin uses AMOLED (ForeRunner 965) and focuses on the tradeoffs of battery life.

I only ever charge my Ultra 2 while i’m in the shower and getting ready for bed. It never runs out during the day for me, and run at least an hour a day often more.

Doesn’t seem like all that big a problem tbh.

I’m content to charge every day, but I need the thing to be guaranteed to last the length of a slow mountain 50 miler. Remember the intro of the original Ultra, with Scott Jurek? You know Jurek, won Western States 100 (et al.) a few times? Yeah, well, us mortals sometimes need 12 hours to finish a 50 mile race with lots of elevation or desert heat (or both), and my experience says that I’m not guaranteed to get 12 hours of GPS activity tracking out of the thing without turning down GPS/HR frequency.

I love my Ultra, but for big running I had to go back to Garmin. I can leave the house with it half charged and still get a good 12 hours of running out of it before it dies.

OTOH, I’ve also had a Garmin 945TLE, with a cell radio in it. Fire up that cell radio, and goodbye battery life. I’ll be curious to see how that new Fenix does in the real world with its LTE radio blazing away.

I'm surprised they can't do a "fitness" band style watch with 2-3 week battery life... like the itouch nano tier.

My OG Ultra lasts 3 days if I turn off the always on display, which I do because it doesn't serve much of a purpose, I can just tap the watch to wake it. It charges from 0 to full in 1.5 hours, pretty linearly, so dropping it on the charger for half an hour or an hour while I'm on a work call every other day or so keeps it plenty charged.

This one will have even more battery life, and gets 12 hours of use in 15 minutes, which I suspect will mean for me without the always on display I may well be able to charge it only while I'm actively in the shower (when I'd take it off anyway as I hate wet bands) and be good for the day.

I'd throw my Garmin in the bin if it lasted a week. I get 18 days from a charge, and that's if I'm not getting much sun. Garmin Instinct 2X Solar.

I wish they'd put an actual flashlight in it, easily the thing I use most on my Garmin.

They have a flashlight app, which turns the screen on bright. You can activate it with the action button. It works really well.

The way Apple is iterating slower and slower on all product lines is kinda sad. It's not like there's a shortage of things to do - it just feels like they got in the habit of small increments to cut costs everywhere (keep the design exactly the same to reuse the same machines, minor software tweaks, etc). The updates are so minor, they don't even bother to put on a show (like this one - a major product, launched as a release note).

I guess even that saves some money too...

There's a stream right now, you just aren't watching it.

I'm watching it out of a mix of boredom and FOMO-like curiosity. It's such a load of enormous, the best ever bullshit Apple had presented I'm thrilled to frown at it 75% more. And 7-ish years ago I felt genuinely excited about their products.

The BP monitoring on the watch seems pretty awesome. Translation on the iPods seems nice if it works well. Are they really slowing down?

The products are in a lot of cases at the limits that can be delivered with existing battery and chip technologies. Pretty hard to keep delivering “wow” when this is the case. If they were really becoming ineffective wed see others leapfrogging them but we dont

Except it's not a BP monitoring, it's some ML gimmick that detects signs of high BP. If it's like their sleep monitoring (which e.g. thinks I was in a "core sleep" while I was unable to fall asleep so I was sitting and playing a game), it's just a "maybe it'll work, but don't rely on this and don't expect any accuracy" type of thing.

Yes that’s correct but if it’s directionally correct it can be useful. My anecdote is that the sleep apnea tracking is directionally correct for me. It might not be for everyone but as long as it’s directionally correct it can be quite useful.

This. BP machine is like $50, 5x cheaper than a watch. And it's not like hypertension is suddenly onset.

>> It's not like there's a shortage of things to do

I'm curious what your list of things is. We're way past the point of 'flashy' but quick to implement changes in my opinion. The things people want take much longer to develop and with their annual release cadence each release is going to feel less dramatic. You just need to look back at some of the Apple keynotes from 10-15 years ago. An iPod with a COLOR screen! Bigger screens! Camera that does VIDEO! Camera that isn't a potato! The bar is much higher now.

Purely subjective, but way too big. They look ridiculous on anyone smaller than 6’5 275.

Case in point from the article: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2025/09/introducing-ap...

Yup, I would be in the market for an Ultra if it wasn't so large lol.

It's strange that Apple keeps pushing large watches, given how sensitive they are to design trends. Among traditional non-smart watches, things have started to reverse in the last couple years, with 36mm-39mm watches enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

My guess is that they can't make it battery efficient (non-Ultra watches barely survive a day just showing a watchface and whirring at notifications, with widgets severely lagging in updates due to extremely tight budgets: e.g. weather forecast is nearly always out of date for me, I use the widget to open the app and force it to refresh to get anything accurate), so they're pushing towards bulkier packaging under the guise of ruggedness.

Agreed, a 46mm x 40mm watch face is absolutely massive, you’d need 8”+ wrists to have it look right. It would look like a hockey puck if I tried it on right after removing my 36mm automatic, but I have 6.25” wrists.

It’s approaching the size of the (in)famous Diesel ‘Mr Daddy’ watches lol: https://shop.diesel.com/en/man/watches/mr-daddy/

Very cool. My only issue is spending so much on a watch that doesn't have a replaceable battery making it useless after a few years.

You can have the battery replaced

I'll buy "smart" watch once it lasts a year on a single charge.

with plutonium ?

By the time they invent it, we will probably be bartering. But I think gold will be the currency, not radioactive materials.

You can buy a sundial watch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com