To start, I'll say I was moderately impressed with the moto 360 battery life when I got it a couple weeks ago based on all the poor things I had heard about it. My issue however is that it seems like if I use any watch face other than the stock ones that come installed already, the battery struggles to last more than 3 hours. When using something like minimal or classic (pre installed faces) I have no trouble getting 18 hours and having a bit to spare.
Could an element like having a weather display be whats hurting it so bad? I think most of the faces I tried show weather, but only update every hour or two hours. I can not imagine one or two updates eating up 80% of the battery.
Some of depends on what watch face you're using. Some show way more information than your standard stock watch faces so that uses up way more battery doing that. Could also be some are badly made and so therefore use more battery. What faces are you using?
yeah.. i agreed... custom watch face eats more battery.. even using simple custom that not showing weather information.. i can feel the different when using the one came preinstalled.
It shouldn't work like this way. I will buy a Moto 360 because of the feature of changing watch face.
Here are two of the watch faces I've been using and getting very poor battery life with: (both with ambient mode off)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.smartwatchface.watch.face.ranger.military
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stmp.minimalface
I'm currently using The Hundreds face and not sure how it will hold up. This is my first day with it. Trying with Ambient mode on.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=wearable.android.breel.com.thehundreds
In comparison however I have used the next few with very good battery results. I'm thinking the weather has something to do with it, because the ones that last all day do not show weather
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.smartwatchface.speeds.pro.watch.face
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atektura.dotswatchface
It seems like it is the faces that you are using. Rather than buying separate face apps, I use a single app called "Watch Faces for Android Wear" that has a gallery of thousands of free faces that you can download. I have never noticed a significant impact on battery life with any of the faces that I have tried. I usually get a good 18-20 hours with my watch and these faces.
I use many watch faces via Watchmaker app and haven't found any battery differences. My watch seems to consume about 3.5% of battery per hour.
For anyone that cares, I used "The Hundreds" watch face today. set the background to "random" and had ambient mode on all day. Got about 10 hours and it was at 20% when I stuck it back on the charger. This is okay for me on a weekend, but M-F when I work 12-15 hours a day I need it to last ALL day. Will probably use stock faces during the week and custom on the weekend unless I can find one I like that doesn't chew through battery like my dog eats those damn greenies.
you can use watchmaker and set the max fps to 15 , works good and doesn't take much battery
You mentioned that the "Ranger" watch face that you are using uses a lot of battery life. I have had the opposite experience with Ranger. I use it daily and get very good battery life with it. One thing I have noticed though and it applies to most, if not all watch faces is that battery life is dramatically impacted by the use of "ambient mode". Use of ambient mode guarantees me less than 8 hours of battery life with just about any watch face.
Also, if you don't mind having to push the side button on your watch to see the time, you can set it to theater mode and get about two days use.
David
Dave, do you have the weather enabled also on Ranger?
I've used ranger, without ambient and turned off tilt feature, and I get at least a full day of battery life. With the mentioned features on, I have to charge at least twice a day. With the tilt feature on, I noticed just walking around the screen would turn on all the time. Maybe, those having battery issues, should try turning off the tilt feature then report back about any battery issues. Currently, I use Odyssey and occasionally I can get a day and a half before needing a charge.
MrStig91 said:
Dave, do you have the weather enabled also on Ranger?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.
David
I'm currently using a custom watch face on Watchmaker. It shows moon phases, time, date, temperature, what kind of weather it is, and battery life for both watch and phone. My watch has been off the charger since about 6:20 this morning, and i'm at 75%. I've only used 15% of my battery in just under 12 hours. What are you people doing to make your watches die so quickly? Although, I do have wrist turn turned off and ambient mode turned off. I work on a sales floor and a register so wrist turn gets annoying, lol.
matrix0886 said:
I'm currently using a custom watch face on Watchmaker. It shows moon phases, time, date, temperature, what kind of weather it is, and battery life for both watch and phone. My watch has been off the charger since about 6:20 this morning, and i'm at 75%. I've only used 15% of my battery in just under 12 hours. What are you people doing to make your watches die so quickly? Although, I do have wrist turn turned off and ambient mode turned off. I work on a sales floor and a register so wrist turn gets annoying, lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How often are you checking your watch? Messing with notifications from your phone?
Usually check my watch about 3 times every hour (if anything important comes through, my watch will vibrate so there's really no use in constantly turning it on to check for notifications). My girlfriend and I text a lot so i'm constantly getting text notifications. I get weather updates (2 cards, one for home, one for work) as well as traffic updates. Even when I traveled earlier this week and had maps going (2hr round trip), I still had great battery life. Finished off a day with 30% battery (the navigation really took a toll but I made it through about 18ish hours up to that point.). Google fit is also constantly running and I walk an average of 10k-13k steps a day so it's tracking a lot.
My phone battery, though.....wow, lol. Talk about piss poor when the watch is connected. I have to keep it in battery saver mode so it'll last me
I.M.famous XMAN said:
I've used ranger, without ambient and turned off tilt feature, and I get at least a full day of battery life. With the mentioned features on, I have to charge at least twice a day. With the tilt feature on, I noticed just walking around the screen would turn on all the time. Maybe, those having battery issues, should try turning off the tilt feature then report back about any battery issues. Currently, I use Odyssey and occasionally I can get a day and a half before needing a charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As much as I like the Ranger face, I will not use it if the only way for a full days battery life is turning off the tilt feature. With ambient AND tilt off, we are just getting further from a watch, and closer to a gimped phone.
MrStig91 said:
As much as I like the Ranger face, I will not use it if the only way for a full days battery life is turning off the tilt feature. With ambient AND tilt off, we are just getting further from a watch, and closer to a gimped phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Imho, if I don't need to look at it, then there is no need for the screen to be on. I work in the car audio install business so I'm constantly moving, therefore I turn off tilt. And to honestly compare the moto to a phone, that's just ridiculous. It's not even close to a phone. It's just a fully customizable watch that allows you to see most notifications from your phone. In my line of work, I don't have time to constantly reach in my pocket to check my phone. So to each his own. I'm getting a day or more out of the battery. I'm very happy with the way it performs. No complaints. I'm just saying, it's a way to increase battery life if you need it.
I have also noticed better battery life using stock watch faces. I use Facer and paid for the "premium" watch faces, which often have date, weather and battery level on the face (some even have the digital time too). I've been switching back and forth between the Motorola custom watch face and I get much better battery life with it. Today while using the stock custom watch face I was left at 55% battery after nearly 15 hours of use. I keep the display at level 1, turn to wake on, ambient mode off, I get weather updates regularly, all texts and some emails; every notification is set to vibrate as well.
When using a Facer watch face my watch will often die by the time I get home. Sometimes it'll die sooner depending on how much I used it that day, but all in all the differences in battery life is substantial between the different watch faces.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA Free mobile app
I use FaceMaker and have good battery life. Took it off the charger at 9 AM and now at 5:26, it's showing 68% battery\17 hrs left.
Related
This popped up in my head yesterday. I'm loving my M360 with it's latest update that just made the battery life insane for me. 15 to 17 hours with 60%+ Left. Woot
But Now I am wondering...
The M360 has the oldest processor smallest battery...Yet it now out preforms the G Watch and Gear live...? What? Really making the others look like a joke now.
Your thoughts?
Locklear308 said:
Your thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're just witnessing the power of software... if you have the latest processor you don't have to try that hard to get reasonable battery life.
But Motorola had bad PR from reviewers about battery life, so they were forced to optimize their code.
IMO, the fact that the life improved so much is what gets Motorola points for me. They could have made it just "good enough", but it feels like they really went all out hopefully they support this watch for a long time
Not sure where you are seeing they are being outperformed? If all things equal (both using always on set to off) G Watch battery will last much longer. The problem is that nobody compares the battery life of these devices using equal settings on both devices.
17 hours and you're at 60%?!?
I took it off at 8 am, and right now it's 3:20 pm and I am at 40%.
And I was in school the whole day so i only checked my watch for time and notifications
I have ambient off, auto brightness and lvl 1 brightness
are you using stock?
I just got this watch monday, so maybe the battery needs to set in, and I did get the latest update
My record is 50 hours with the simple watchface, ambient was off but I checked it plenty.
First day using the watch(got it yesterday). I finished school and I'm at 38% its around 5 pm and I took it off at 7:30 am. I used it a ton though, even showed off the little games to friends. Once it starts to set in, I'm sure I can get a day+ out of it.
I've gotten a good day and a half with this watch, it drains fast at first but as you use it, it will get better.
Sent from my 831C using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
That's some amazing optimization
I haven't had time to check the various battery life threads, but has anyone (with good battery life experiences), noted whether during the majority of their
daily time with the watch - they are within connection range of their phone and indeed remain connected?
Just wondering what being out of bluetooth range/not connected does to battery life? i.e. is it similar to the situation when a phone is "polling" for
a Wifi connection or polling for a phone network connection but can't find one so the constant polling activity results in higher than average battery drain..
I personally think that the battery life discussion is one of the silliest there is. I have been always burnt by saying how great battery is somewhere. Was it Galaxy S2, HTC M7, M8 or now Sony Z3, they are never THAT good. However on Moto 360 I am really happily surprised. Even from the first day on I have never had problem with the battery. Actually I have yet to see sub 20%levels on the Moto 360. I get it off charger around 7AM and put it back 11Pm or 12AM. I usually have around 30-40% left. I use automatic brightness and ambient off. I do get a lot of notifications.
But the much praised Z3 goes to charger much sooner than this watch. Sure, I couldn't go on for the next day but it doesn't matter if I can make 20 hours easily since I never sleep with my watch on the wrist.
So, you are saying you get 5hrs of battery life and that's great?
7AM - 12PM. That's only 5hrs. Lol
Sent from my LG-LS995 using Tapatalk
i have noticed that having Facer and the other custom watch ups uninstalled (Facer especially) It helps me out with battery life big time.
Even when facer isn't running?
Uninstalling helps battery? I might try that today for shiggles.
Sent from my LG-LS995 using Tapatalk
I've had the G Watch since it came out, and the 360 for a few weeks now. All things being equal, the G Watch goes an extra 12 hours easy, but it sure isn't as good looking as the 360, so it had been relegated to just morning gym sessions now.
Locklear308 said:
This popped up in my head yesterday. I'm loving my M360 with it's latest update that just made the battery life insane for me. 15 to 17 hours with 60%+ Left. Woot
But Now I am wondering...
The M360 has the oldest processor smallest battery...Yet it now out preforms the G Watch and Gear live...? What? Really making the others look like a joke now.
Your thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My thoughts are that many of us get nowhere near those numbers, and you must be barely using your watch with almost everything disabled to get 2.35% per hour power consumption.
On my watch with latest firmware, reset after the firmware was installed, no apps at all, ambient mode off, step counter on, and default brightness, I cannot get below 3% per hour with almost zero usage, and hover nearer to 4% per hour with real-world (light to moderate) usage. At 17 hours, I would have at best 49% remaining, and more likely 32% remaining.
And that's with ambient mode off. Enable ambient mode and even with light usage and no apps at all, my watch will regularly fail to make it through a single regular, 16-hour day (that's the time between waking and sleeping with an eight-hour sleep cycle, which is the most a typical adult gets).
Also, what review have you seen with the G Watch or Gear Live using their latest-available firmware, so you can make a valid comparison? Because comparing the Moto 360 on its latest firmware against those devices on early firmware is utterly unfair and meaningless.
The Gear Live massively outperforms the 360 in regards to battery stamina. I don't understand how you guys are getting 50 hrs on a charge. I do like ambient mode, but I can still kill a battery in 12 hrs easily.
Hey people!
Just got the Moto 360, first time battery really drained pretty quickly. Searched around forums, reinstalled the watch etc. It runs on 5.1.1 (and I am aware of the confirmed bug in Android). Though I'd like to share my second day of battery. Charged it yesterday to 94% at 23:00, reinstalled the watch. Had 78% left, didn't charge untill then. See the screenshot of the battery usage. Is this kind of normal?
Many thanks for your input! I am still doubting to get a other smartwatch with kind of slightly better battery life. Was hoping for 2 days, but it doesn't cut it. I have ambient off, wrist gestures off, tilt to wake off. I don't mind the watch being off actually. Just a quick tap to see the time is fine for me. I mostly did some google searches today and a short navigation test.
Maybe I'll get the Pebble Time... who knows. This watch is so perfect... but the battery is slightly average. How are you experiences towards the battery? Dealbreaker?
it getts better with time..
Jessestr said:
Hey people!
Just got the Moto 360, first time battery really drained pretty quickly. Searched around forums, reinstalled the watch etc. It runs on 5.1.1 (and I am aware of the confirmed bug in Android). Though I'd like to share my second day of battery. Charged it yesterday to 94% at 23:00, reinstalled the watch. Had 78% left, didn't charge untill then. See the screenshot of the battery usage. Is this kind of normal?
Many thanks for your input! I am still doubting to get a other smartwatch with kind of slightly better battery life. Was hoping for 2 days, but it doesn't cut it. I have ambient off, wrist gestures off, tilt to wake off. I don't mind the watch being off actually. Just a quick tap to see the time is fine for me. I mostly did some google searches today and a short navigation test.
Maybe I'll get the Pebble Time... who knows. This watch is so perfect... but the battery is slightly average. How are you experiences towards the battery? Dealbreaker?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
even I wasn't impressed on the first week... my battery used to run down to 35% (from 100) in 10 hours...
but the backup was better as time went on... also after 5.1.1 update (and a reset after update) the battery life is great....
now I get 60-65% left when I return home....
I use to charge to 100% and switch it off before going to bed and start my day with the 100%.
65% left by evening could do another day but I have never tried!
Jessestr said:
Hey people!
Just got the Moto 360, first time battery really drained pretty quickly. Searched around forums, reinstalled the watch etc. It runs on 5.1.1 (and I am aware of the confirmed bug in Android). Though I'd like to share my second day of battery. Charged it yesterday to 94% at 23:00, reinstalled the watch. Had 78% left, didn't charge untill then. See the screenshot of the battery usage. Is this kind of normal?
Many thanks for your input! I am still doubting to get a other smartwatch with kind of slightly better battery life. Was hoping for 2 days, but it doesn't cut it. I have ambient off, wrist gestures off, tilt to wake off. I don't mind the watch being off actually. Just a quick tap to see the time is fine for me. I mostly did some google searches today and a short navigation test.
Maybe I'll get the Pebble Time... who knows. This watch is so perfect... but the battery is slightly average. How are you experiences towards the battery? Dealbreaker?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know people have had issues with navigation and it not turning off when they are done. What were you doing during the part when the battery drained fast (looks like 1 to 5 pm)? When I go for a run with runkeeper on (using GPS) I see drain that looks like that for the hour to two that I am out. I have found for most normal days that I can make it through a day. Active days with a run will be 20% to 30% at the end of the day. Non-active days without a run will be 30% to 50% at the end. My day is 5:30 am to 10:30 pm.
My watch has been off charger since 7:30 this am. It is now 12:52 and the battery is at 66%. I'm not sure if this is good or bad as I just got the watch a few days ago. I have disconnected the WiFi as I don't need notifications when I don't have my phone on me. Is it possible to turn certain notifications off? I like getting notifications on my phones for like twitter feeds I follow or G+ but I don't want them on my watch. I do want texts and emails to my watch though...
Thanks in advance
dead batteries said:
My watch has been off charger since 7:30 this am. It is now 12:52 and the battery is at 66%. I'm not sure if this is good or bad as I just got the watch a few days ago. I have disconnected the WiFi as I don't need notifications when I don't have my phone on me. Is it possible to turn certain notifications off? I like getting notifications on my phones for like twitter feeds I follow or G+ but I don't want them on my watch. I do want texts and emails to my watch though...
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can block individual app notifications from the settings in android wear app on your phone.
Sent from my SM-G925T using Tapatalk 2
Alex9090 said:
You can block individual app notifications from the settings in android wear app on your phone.
Sent from my SM-G925T using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I've looked into this but I can't find how to do it? I was hoping there was a feature like this. How do I access this?
Oops never mind, just found it...lol
Looking to get an Android Wear smartwatch.
The Moto has the better water resistance, bigger circular screen but the Asus has better battery, P-OLED screen and faster CPU.
Some Moto 360 users are reporting problems like screen burn in, and battery drain, should I be worried about this?
I need the battery to last from 7 AM to 10 PM.
In for feedback also.
I just got the Moto 360 yesterday and so far it is very nice, but honestly think I prefer my Pebble Time more. Would love to hear other users input.
flyingfinn333 said:
Looking to get an Android Wear smartwatch.
The Moto has the better water resistance, bigger circular screen but the Asus has better battery, P-OLED screen and faster CPU.
Some Moto 360 users are reporting problems like screen burn in, and battery drain, should I be worried about this?
I need the battery to last from 7 AM to 10 PM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had my watch since February, no screen burn in at all. I charge it all night so the screen is on all night as well.
I usually take mine off the charger at 5:30 am and don't put it back on until 10:30 pm and I am normally in the 30's at that point. I have a lot of notifications that come through during the day, I would say 5 to 10 an hour on average. On days I run and use runkeeper it will take about 10% off the battery life every 45 min. So my average days I have no issues making it through a full day. I have found that I need to restart the watch about once a week to maintain this, if not I can have a day where the battery life tanks for no reason.
If you plan to use GPS (Maps) a lot or use the watch to play music via bluetooth from the watch those both will kill the battery faster.
I have had my moto360 for about 2 weeks... But here's the catch (now this obviously may vary from person to person)
When the Moto360 first came out, I was sold on it, I wanted one... But I waited. So now that I bought one I had to go through 2 exchanges because, the first one had a severe battery drain problem and the 2nd one, once it died, wouldn't turn on, even after a day of being on the charger. Now that I have a 3rd (which was my final exchange, and would have requested a refund after) it seems to be working great! I love the build. Of course I wish many things about it were better, but because I like it so much I was willing to get one that works. Just like you're phone, if you use it smart you can get great battery life out of it. When I'm home I have it disconnected from my Bluetooth connection because I don't use it. I can get to the end of the night with 20% or so left. Easily lasting from 7am to midnight. At the price it's set at now, I believe it's worth it. At least until v2 comes out.
flyingfinn333 said:
Looking to get an Android Wear smartwatch.
The Moto has the better water resistance, bigger circular screen but the Asus has better battery, P-OLED screen and faster CPU.
Some Moto 360 users are reporting problems like screen burn in, and battery drain, should I be worried about this?
I need the battery to last from 7 AM to 10 PM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think screen burn in is possible on moto 360 since it doesn't have oled.
Mine on full charge lasts day and a half and I'm using it as a pedometer and I've got a watchface which takes my heart rate everytime I turn the screen on.
Big battery savings: Ambient screen (doh), Tilt to wake screen OFF! Just tilt to wake off at least doubles my battery life.
Stank0 said:
I don't think screen burn in is possible on moto 360 since it doesn't have oled.
Mine on full charge lasts day and a half and I'm using it as a pedometer and I've got a watchface which takes my heart rate everytime I turn the screen on.
Big battery savings: Ambient screen (doh), Tilt to wake screen OFF! Just tilt to wake off at least doubles my battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which watchface is that? I'd love to see more frequent HR data.
cliffr39 said:
Which watchface is that? I'd love to see more frequent HR data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An one I made myself. After I downloaded tons of free watchfaces and even wasted money purchasing watchfaces I used for a few hours before realizing they won't work for me. I realized that if I want something tailored EXACTLY for my needs, I'll have to make it myself.
Inspired by Iguana's http://facerepo.com/app/faces/details/military-digital-watchface-14a9a3f7838 I stole his compass ring and heart and steps icon. I hope He won't mind too much since I made it strictly for my own use, no distribution intended.
The battery life on the watch seems to be much better than my Urbane so far. I used it all day yesterday and I still had at least another day of use left. I still charged jt last night but I might try to see how long it will last before it dies.
Here it is with ambient mlde always on, WiFi on, and brightness set at 4.
Post you battery life below:
Pilz said:
The battery life on the watch seems to be much better than my Urbane so far. I used it all day yesterday and I still had at least another day of use left. I still charged jt last night but I might try to see how long it will last before it dies.
Here it is with ambient mlde always on, WiFi on, and brightness set at 4.
Post you battery life below:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW! Better than the urbane? I had the urbane, and was satisfied with batt life. My one concern with the huawei was the smaller batt.
suzook said:
WOW! Better than the urbane? I had the urbane, and was satisfied with batt life. My one concern with the huawei was the smaller batt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The above should speak for itself. My Urbane was good but it was inconsistent some day I would end with 30% others I would have 60% doing this exact same thing. I'm only really on my full second day now but it still seems better overall. I've also noticed its a little faster which it shouldn't be because they are identical hardware wise. I'll report back later this week after I use it at school. I usually really 3-6 miles depending on the day which could kill the battery faster since it's counting my steps. Yesterday I only walked 2 miles which isn't a lot so we will see.
Mine doesn't make it through the day
I've had it 2 1/2 days, maybe it will get better. But it's dead by late evening - maybe 8p, with an 8a start.
Here's today's:
I'm using the same set up as I listed in the OP. Let's see how it does tomorrow now
I used it on the first day full charge. With everything on except google fit and brightness at level 4. I was getting 2.81% decrease/hr. I measured from 7 am to 4 pm; a 9 hr day with at least 30 emails and other notifications from tapatalk and such. 1 phone call and a few texts in that 9hr period. However today in my 2 hr venture to the grocery store, I used up about 5.41%/hr. And I did change up the watchface to a sweeping seconds one. That was the only diff to account for the increased battery. BUT even with that, the battery meter still said it would last another 2 days.
Like many others have said, this is my second full day with it. I assume it will just get stable and get an accurate reading in another day or so.
kpjimmy said:
I used it on the first day full charge. With everything on except google fit and brightness at level 4. I was getting 2.81% decrease/hr. I measured from 7 am to 4 pm; a 9 hr day with at least 30 emails and other notifications from tapatalk and such. 1 phone call and a few texts in that 9hr period. However today in my 2 hr venture to the grocery store, I used up about 5.41%/hr. And I did change up the watchface to a sweeping seconds one. That was the only diff to account for the increased battery. BUT even with that, the battery meter still said it would last another 2 days.
Like many others have said, this is my second full day with it. I assume it will just get stable and get an accurate reading in another day or so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it seems to get good better life from my initial impressions. I would say with heavier usage it would get 1.25-1.5days but that depends on how you use it.
So far mixed review on battery life. Yesterday, it didn't last the whole day. But I think the wifi might have been on when I wasn't near a wifi. Did a 90 minute bike ride today and was connected to my phone vis RunGPS application which should have been using the watch HRM. Went from 95% to 45% in those 90 minutes. Don't know the impact, but when I got back, found the HR was stuck at 125 for half the ride, and 72 for the other half of the ride. Just frozen. I charged it fully at 12:00, now at almost 11PM, it has 73% remaining. I have the display set with "always on" turned off.
swngdncr said:
So far mixed review on battery life. Yesterday, it didn't last the whole day. But I think the wifi might have been on when I wasn't near a wifi. Did a 90 minute bike ride today and was connected to my phone vis RunGPS application which should have been using the watch HRM. Went from 95% to 45% in those 90 minutes. Don't know the impact, but when I got back, found the HR was stuck at 125 for half the ride, and 72 for the other half of the ride. Just frozen. I charged it fully at 12:00, now at almost 11PM, it has 73% remaining. I have the display set with "always on" turned off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never use the HRM because I know it kills the battery based on experience with AW and my old Samsung Gear Fit. I'm not surprised that it died that fast because its not made to primarily be a fitness watch despite having a HRM and fitness apps. I know that sounds dumb but a fitbit would do a better job because that's is sole purpose. I don't expect the HRM to be accurate on any smart watch; I tested mine yesterday at the gym while on the treadmill. The treadmill say my HR was 165 while the watch said it was 100 so there's a big difference and I trust the treadmill over the watch in this case. I have my display always on still and get good battery life. I don't expect the watch to last forever if I'm cranking the brightness and using the HRM. I'm not defending the watch by any means but rather stating that no AW/smart watch would handke this kind of thing well yet. I enjoy the look of Huawei and convenience it provides with alerts, notes etc... but I'm glad it lasts a day for my type of usage. I wonder if Marshmallow will improve the battery life at all.
Here's today's battery life. I knocked the watch of my night stand last night so I had to finish charging it when I got campus in case anyone was wondering about the activity tracking and watch on time difference from today. Nevertheless here's today's battery stats. Overall the battery life wasn't impacted that much by walking ~12k steps and over 5 miles which is surprising. I use the standard blue watch face it comes with because it's my favorite one so far and ambient mlde is always on as mentioned above.
I forgot to attach there picture :/
Good battery backup for a smartwatch
Had it fully charged when I went to bed last night, it was down to 30% when I got up this morning. I have no idea why it went down so fast. I put it in theater mode when I go to bed. I slept through the alarms, I'm wondering if maybe they were going off repeatedly and wore the battery down. -cjr-
Pilz said:
Here's today's battery life. I knocked the watch of my night stand last night so I had to finish charging it when I got campus in case anyone was wondering about the activity tracking and watch on time difference from today. Nevertheless here's today's battery stats. Overall the battery life wasn't impacted that much by walking ~12k steps and over 5 miles which is surprising. I use the standard blue watch face it comes with because it's my favorite one so far and ambient mlde is always on as mentioned above.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
swngdncr said:
Had it fully charged when I went to bed last night, it was down to 30% when I got up this morning. I have no idea why it went down so fast. I put it in theater mode when I go to bed. I slept through the alarms, I'm wondering if maybe they were going off repeatedly and wore the battery down. -cjr-
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I'd imagine if your anything like me and ignore your alarm for an hour because I'm a heavy sleeper then the vibration motor would certainly bring it down fast. I think that's really odd to drain that much but if it's consistently doing that I would be concerned.
Yeah, I tried using Sports Gear Tracker today to track my workout... didn't work eiter. I thought it was tracking and I checked a few times. The HR appeared frozen again, but the timer was running. But, when I got home, it has no record of the workout. Don't know what happened. Google fit does have the workout. But the Heart rate record is just flat. I'm going to try a hard reset and see if that fixes the Heart rate problem. Would sure like to know if anyone else is having any success with HRM, I'm thinking at this point to send it back as defective and try a different one. Seems odd that it would perform that badly. -cjr-
I'm still not getting through the day - 12 hours tops before it dies. Am wondering about settings - I have everything set as it came out of the box: haven't touched WiFi, so assume it's on; have ambient display always on.; default brightness setting of 4.
I'm not using the HRM at all, and not even really checking the watch constantly.
Any suggestions? (thanks in advance)
I have wifi off. I had it on and I think it really drained the battery.. try turning it off..
Urbane definitely had better batt life. While the huawei is acceptable, its definitely not as good, which I did expect with the battery being 25% smaller.
Thanks, will give that a try.
suzook said:
Urbane definitely had better batt life. While the huawei is acceptable, its definitely not as good, which I did expect with the battery being 25% smaller.
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I'm having the opposite experience here. My Urbane was very inconsistent with battery life but when it had a good day it was around what the Huawei is. Its dependent on your usage but for me its great.
I saw some other threads out there (mainly on samsung's site) complaining about battery drain issues. I found them because I was having battery drain issues. So why am I starting a new thread? because I'm not complaining here. I am as scientifically as I have the patients for documenting what my battery life is while playing with various settings. I am starting by trying to get the most extreme positive battery life as possible. Then I will work my way back with features I would like to use to determine what is worth it and what is not. Feel free to join in the conversation with your own tests and results as well as requests for me of additional information on my settings or tests you would like to see. The more conversation here I see the longer I'm likely to continue running tests.
Hardware
46mm Bluetooth Galaxy Watch
Note: I also have access to a 42mm Bluetooth Rose Gold Galaxy watch and 2 Gear Classic watches.
Background
I started doing this because I upgraded to the 46mm Galaxy watch because I was only getting ~2.5 days out of my wonderful Gear S2 Classic. The advertized 4 to 5 day battery life with rumors of 7 days was just too good to pass up on. Plus I found an open box for a very reasonable price. By day 3 I was noticing that my battery life was terrible. At best it was the same as my Classic.
So I ran a little test. I wiped the phone Saturday morning. Charged to 100% and waited for the show. By 15 hours I was at 85%. That would total out to 4.16 days of battery life. Well not exciting but it does meet the advertized performance. So I turned on goodnight mode and went to sleep. 5 hours later I woke up and I was at 65% battery. By 29 hours I was at 50% (granted I left goodnight mode on for a lot of that).
After finding out that samsung customer support knows NOTHING about their own products (told me that my S2 didn't have sleep tracking, that the 42mm and 46mm had the same battery capacity, and asked me what color my 46mm BT watch was) I returned it to the store and got a new one. Since then I've been running various tests.
If you have questions about a given test please include the Test # in your post.
Test 1:
Always On Display - Off
Brightness - 3
Screen Timeout - 10 Sec
Good Night Mode - On From 11pm to 7am
Bezel Wake-up - On
Wake Up Gesture - Off
Bluetooth - On
NFC - Off
Notifications - On
Turn On Screen (Notifications) - Off
Samsung Health (Heart Rate) - Manual Only
Samsung Health (Step Tracking) - Off
Samusng Health (Sleep Tracking) - On
Samusng Health (Automatic Excersize Detection) - Off
Screen Capture - Off
Watch Face - Basic (3 Different)
OS Version - 4.0.0.1
Test Length - 2 Days
Battery Drained - 1% every 1:45 to 2 hours. Estimated at 8 days.
So this is the extreme test. Low brightness. No novelty features. No workouts.
I have 4 gmail accounts and 2 email accounts so there is a lot going on there. I've disabled instant messaging notifications and facebook becuase I just find them annoying. If I got a message I looked at it. Check the time whenever I felt like it. I would consider it normal usage. Everytime I would change a little setting I would charge back to 100% so I could get a solid measurement.
What a great number on this. Add in how fast this thing charges and it's a dream. I don't like to shower with watches on so I'll just throw it on the charger for 15-20 minutes and I feel like I might be recovering an entire day's usage. What have I learned? I'm keeping this watch and I'm turning some features back on.
Test 2:
Same settings as test 1 except I'll be putting the brightness up to 5. This is my preferred setting. This will be a short test. Probably let it drop 2% during the busy time of work. Then I'll be moving on to test 3. This will be done today.
Results
This went really well. still about 7.5 days of use estimated. And it was a very busy time for me message wise. This was a small test so I'm moving on.
Test 3:
Also a short test to be completed today. I'm going to put a fancier watch face on. The ones I've been testing with so far were very basic and mostly black. Tomcat has some bonus features but the other two were very very basic.
Edit - Changing this test. Found a watch face I really liked but instead of needing more color it needs more brightness. Brightness of 7 on this one so you can see the detail as it's a really dark face with grey on black text. Watch face is Stealth by ZWF ($1). I'll probably let this one run the rest of the day.
Results
Had great results on this. so these settings were left for my 3 day trip.
Test 4:
This test will be for the rest of the week. Almost a performance test the other direction. I'm going on a trip to the north woods MN with no internet. Just lots of hiking. For this I'll be turning back on heart rate and step tracking. Also When hiking I'll use exercise detection with GPS. But still no automatic exercise detection. I suspect that that feature drains a fair amount of battery given how effective it is.
Results
Well I'm back from the trip in 3 days of heavy use. Flash light app. 15k steps a day. 10+ flights of stairs registered a day. I still had just over 50% battery. After charging up and letting it run for the last 2 days of more normal use I'm seeing about 10% battery used a day. Here is my opinion on some of the settings as I've seen them.
Always On Display - Can be a huge impact on the battery life. Based on my small experiments with it I think it would last a couple of days but not much more. For me it's not worth it.
Brightness - With my other chosen settings this isn't a major impact since the screen isn't on much. I've been running at 7 and still getting 10% per day.
Screen Timeout - 10 Sec is good enough for me. As long as you are interacting with the watch it says on. No point in unnecessary screen time.
Good Night Mode - Slightly improves battery life at night. I'm seeing about 1% every 3 hours. Turns on automatically so there is no real need to turn it on manually.
Bezel Wake-up - This was a big one for me. I can't express how often I bumped the bezel turning on the screen. I'm happy to use the button to turn it on.
Wake Up Gesture - Same as above. Leave it off if you want the best battery life.
Bluetooth - Required on for use of the watch. Ignore people who tell you to turn it off unless you have LTE. Even then Bluetooth is more efficient than LTE.
NFC - I've had this on for most of my testing. No impact to battery. I'm leaving it on.
Notifications - What's the point of the watch without notifications. I do leave it off for facebook because I find the frequency irritating.
Turn On Screen (Notifications) - Leave this off. Unless you are planning on looking at every message that comes in then this is wasted screen time. It's a definite off for me.
Samsung Health (Heart Rate) - I'm leaving this one off for now. I'll run a test with it on once I have good solid data on my current preferred settings but I suspect (based on the time that I had it on) that it's taking a few percentage per day.
Samsung Health (Step Tracking) - Turning this back on had no impact on my battery life. I'm not sure it ever actually turned off in the first place. Which is good news since I like this feature.
Samusng Health (Sleep Tracking) - Leave it on. No real impact on battery life from what I can see. Again. I'm not sure turning it off is really possible.
Samusng Health (Automatic Excersize Detection) - I have this on for Running and Cycling on and everything else off.
Screen Capture - Why? never tried it since I don't care. Off
Watch Face - I tried a few here. Nothing too colorful since I don't like the style but with the screen off most of the time then it doesn't seem to matter much.
If you are seeing poor battery life then try these settings out. Your usage can change the results however if you are down in the 3 day or less range without AOD then I would return your watch and get a new one like I did.
I'm done with my testing for now. I'm happy with my settings. If anyone has questions let me know but in summary the battery life on this thing is amazing. I can charge the battery to 100% while I'm in the shower after a day's use.
Getting 6 days of battery life
Ranop11 said:
Getting 6 days of battery life
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With HRM on that seems consistent with me. I went 3 days without any charging of normal use (including a couple of phone calls) and ended with 53% battery life. I'm going to get it charged up and see how things go with AOD. I'm guessing based on my short tests it's going to drop down to around 3 days.
I have the 46mm. I'm happy getting 2+ days while having Always On enabled and brightness at 7. Previously with my S2 Classic, I could barely limp to the end of the day with those settings, and sometimes it didn't quite make it, depending on use. I generally recharge it every day anyway, but it's nice that it only needs a brief charge at this rate, and I can disable Always On any time I need it to last longer. I guess I'm just old school and feel like the watch doesn't "feel like a watch" if I can't look at it any time and see the time.
The only power-eating feature I don't use is gesture wake... because it will annoyingly not activate sometimes when you want it to, and of course it activates dozens of times or more every day when you don't intend for it to. I looked forward to trying this again with the Galaxy Watch and the battery life that would make this feasible to use, but in the end I disabled it.
Apart from intensive fitness tracking, step counter is pretty hungry battery eater. I observed that during work hours ( 9a.m. - 3 p.m. ) when I do not move much battery consumption is in average 4-5%. total As I get home and move more ( 4p.m. - 11 p.m. ) it is 15-20%.
I left switched it on as I like it
sancmat said:
Good Night Mode - On From 11pm to 7am
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How do you set Good Night Mode to a schedule or automatic? I can't find any schedule or automatic detection settings for it anywhere on the phone or watch.
sancmat said:
Samsung Health (Step Tracking) - Off
Samsung Health (Automatic Exercise Detection) - Off
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Same question as above for all the Samsung Health stuff. I found a setting for manual heart rate but can't find how to turn actually off the things quoted above. All I can find is an option to disable notifications, nothing else. I can't find any settings for them anywhere on the phone or watch.
Thank you for the help!
Maniac78 said:
How do you set Good Night Mode to a schedule or automatic? I can't find any schedule or automatic detection settings for it anywhere on the phone or watch.
Same question as above for all the Samsung Health stuff. I found a setting for manual heart rate but can't find how to turn actually off the things quoted above. All I can find is an option to disable notifications, nothing else. I can't find any settings for them anywhere on the phone or watch.
Thank you for the help!
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You have to go into the Samsung health app on the watch itself. Scroll all the way down and you'll see settings.
davtse said:
You have to go into the Samsung health app on the watch itself. Scroll all the way down and you'll see settings.
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That's odd, I have very little under the Samsung Health App settings. All I see is:
Profile, Units, Workout Detection (Healthy Pace, Cycling, Elliptical, Rowing, Dynamic), Inactive Alerts (off/on), Help
And I can't find any of those options under any of those settings menus.
Samsung Gear app on my phone says all apps and the watch OS are up to date. So not sure why I wouldn't have those options but it's not a big deal anyway, I was just curious.
Maniac78 said:
That's odd, I have very little under the Samsung Health App settings. All I see is:
Profile, Units, Workout Detection (Healthy Pace, Cycling, Elliptical, Rowing, Dynamic), Inactive Alerts (off/on), Help
And I can't find any of those options under any of those settings menus.
Samsung Gear app on my phone says all apps and the watch OS are up to date. So not sure why I wouldn't have those options but it's not a big deal anyway, I was just curious.
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On app on the watch itself? Weird mine has those settings.
The watch it's self. However I don't see any relevant settings in the phone app either.
Something I have noticed since the recent uodate is Samsung Health being #1 in battery usage. During my time with the S3 and the month or so with the Galaxy, watch faces has always been the main user. After the recent uodate, Health is always first now. I don't notice a decrease in battery drain so maybe it's how they calculate usage now.
I have a 42mm galaxy watch , in your opinion what would be the best settings to get maximum battery life.