IDK about Coros or Suunto, but the only Garmins with a battery life approaching 30 days cost ~$1,000. This could be competition for AWU, but wouldn't communicate that there is demand for a more basic/long-lasting Apple Watch.
* Venu 3 for $350 has 2 week battery life [1]
* Forerunner 55 for $150 has 2 week battery life [2]
I don't see why you are defining success as 30 days of battery life when the baseline is charging your watch every day.
Up until about 10 years ago, no one would have considered the baseline to be charging your watch every day. Even today, most watches/wrist-worn step counters don't require daily charging.
I wouldn't define 30 days as success, but I do want to start out at 2+ weeks. Battery life gets worse over time, and watches aren't meant to last for just a little while. I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on something that will require charging more than once a week within a year or two.
Appreciate the links, but I'm guessing these are estimates with AOD disabled? That's another benefit of the Pebble (AOD doesn't reduce battery life).
Pebble (and Fitbit, and others) were always in the "week-plus" timeframe for charging. Meeting the "minimum bar" of 14-17 days battery life (of the OG pebbles) is successful. Shooting for "30 days" is definitively best-in-class performance for smart-watches!
In thinking further, I realized that the buttons are actually a pretty good moat against the big tech company competitors. Their UIs are all about touchscreens, so they'll never have as many/useful buttons as Pebbles do.
I can never go back to a 2 day battery life for a watch, even if my 5 year old iPhone technically can’t make it through half a day of use….
They just switched to OLED with the Pace 4, for better or worse. AOD battery life took a hit but it does look a lot nicer than MIP.