# Apple Watch's 18 hour battery life is FAIL **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 10, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671 "2015-03-10T03:51:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/1 "2015-03-10T03:51:02Z")
I love Apple’s products. I think they are easy to use, do what they say they will, and are aesthetically pleasing like no other tech manufacturer’s products. But an 18 hour battery life is not enough and relegates, for me, the AW to the scrap heap. I have a Pebble (I supported their Kickstarter campaign) and love seeing caller ID, text messages and my iTunes on my wrist. It’s easy and convenient. I’d love to have more functionality and a hi-def color screen; a touchscreen would totally fucking rock. But not if I have to charge it every night and sometimes during the day. Hell, I don’t wear my Pebble much anymore because charging it every night is a drag. I don’t think AW will be a total dud, but for me the extremely short battery life is a deal breaker. I expect more from Apple, and I expect a hell of a lot more for (minimum) $350. Maybe in a year or two or three this will be a viable purchase for me, but right now, I’ll wait on the sidelines and see what the early-adopters have to say. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/2 "2015-03-10T04:09:40Z")
Maybe throw it down … Aw, fuck it. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/3 "2015-03-10T08:50:23Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I don’t think AW will be a total dud, but for me the extremely short battery life is a deal breaker. What about just getting in the habit of plugging it in every night before going to bed, so the battery charges overnight? After a week or so, I’ll probably feel as natural as setting the alarm every evening. “You sleep; it sleeps.” Makes sense, no? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/4 "2015-03-10T09:14:36Z")
There are also those charging pads for cellphones etc… ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/5 "2015-03-10T09:57:31Z")
From what I’ve read, you aren’t going to find many smart watches from any maker that last much longer than a day/day and half, so it sounds like your problem isn’t with the Apple watch specifically, but more with every smart watch besides the Pebble. So Pebble (with it’s battery-saving non-touch e-paper screen) aside, anything that lasts from when you wake up till you go to sleep should be considered a win, if for no other reason than that’s basically where they all are. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/6 "2015-03-10T10:19:18Z")
Do smartphones not typically have an even shorter battery life? That doesn’t seem to have negatively impacted their popularity much. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/7 "2015-03-10T12:23:37Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Do smartphones not typically have an even shorter battery life? That doesn’t seem to have negatively impacted their popularity much. I get around 48 hrs with my Samsung Galaxy S5 - but I’ve taken active steps to reduce power usage. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/8 "2015-03-10T13:00:11Z")
Y’know what? I’ll stick with my iPhone in my pocket and my regular watch on my wrist. If I want NFC capability I’ll just upgrade to a current model, which I should do anyway by now as I’m approaching 5 years on the same one. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/9 "2015-03-10T13:29:27Z")
I just don’t see the appeal of smart watches… period. Maybe some killer application will come up in the future but so far meh… And yes I’m a die hard Apple user who owns 4 mac’s, an iPhone 6 and an iPad. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/10 "2015-03-10T13:50:09Z")
They keep making the comparison to Dick Tracy’s 2-way wrist radio (later wrist TV), but one of the things Chewster Gould never showed was Tracy having to remember to plug in his _2-Way Wrist Radio_ every night so it’d be charged. Not even during that “Moon Maid” phase of the strip. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/11 "2015-03-10T13:55:03Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I get around 48 hrs with my Samsung Galaxy S5 - but I’ve taken active steps to reduce power usage. WTF are you doing to get 48 hours per charge? No wi-fi, no location services, black and white screen, and power-saving mode on 24/7? Do you have wacky Tasker profiles set up to finely tune everything just-so? Or do you literally only use your phone as a phone, and all it does is sit there and idle in your pocket until you call someone? I probably get somewhere in the ballpark of 30-35 hours of standby time, but actually using the phone eats that fairly fast. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/12 "2015-03-10T13:59:37Z")
The commercial for the watch did a good job- I want one\* bad\*. The only thing is: I have absolutely no need for one, don’t want to spend the money for one, and I have an Android phone. But I still want one. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/13 "2015-03-10T14:03:18Z")
Meh, I charge my iPhone and iPad every night, might as well charge a iWatch too. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/14 "2015-03-10T14:04:47Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > What about just getting in the habit of plugging it in every night before going to bed, so the battery charges overnight? After a week or so, I’ll probably feel as natural as setting the alarm every evening. “You sleep; it sleeps.” Makes sense, no? As I said in the OP, I don’t wear my Pebble much anymore because having to charge it every night is a drag. If I know I’ll want to wear watch for a specific outing, I’ll charge it the night before, but for the most part it just sits in a drawer now. The convenience it offers isn’t worth having an extra charge cable and a place to plug it in every night, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/15 "2015-03-10T14:10:14Z")
The battery in my watch never runs out of power… because it doesn’t have one! ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/16 "2015-03-10T14:41:50Z")
I’m not really an Apple person but I have an iPhone and a Pebble and I love both. The key to the Pebble IMO **is** its non-color (and even more) non-touchscreen design, because this is what gives it good battery life (mine still lasts for days between chargings). Pebble’s new watch, the Pebble Time, uses color but still no touchscreen. To me this is a no-brainer, a touchscreen on a fucking tiny watch face is the stupidest idea ever! But even more than because of short battery life, I think the Apple Watch is going to fail miserably because _ **it costs $350 freakin’ dollars!!** _ Are they insane?! Have they actually forgotten that absolutely no one pays the retail price for an iPhone? That the only reason they’ve sold hundreds of millions of them is because the high initial cost is subsidized & amortized by the cellphone carrier’s contracts?! The iWatch is nothing more than a geek accessory for an iPhone (or iPad I guess). I read a low-ball pundit’s estimate put its sales at 8 million the first year(!?) Pebble took two years to reach one million (at less than half, then less than a third that price!) I don’t think the Apple Watch will sell more than a couple hundred thousand _ **total** _ before it joins the Newton, Lisa, and Pippin in Apple’s hall of shame. Famous last words anyway… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/17 "2015-03-10T14:51:30Z")
18 hours isn’t even enough for “plug it in every night”. If you do a couple of days in a row with 6 hours of sleep (which is how some people operate all the time), you’re already right up against the ragged edge. And the battery life will inevitably degrade as the device ages: What’s it going to be after, say, a year? Probably not _much_ shorter… but when it’s as low as it is to start with, even a little bit less could be a big deal. Plus, everyone has days occasionally when you either can’t recharge your devices overnight, or just forget to: If my power goes out, or I’m out camping, or I’m on a business trip and forgot to toss the charger in my bag, or if I just got home from a really long day and just want to collapse into bed immediately, I don’t want my watch to be dead. I’d say a minimum for viability for a device like a watch would be 40 hours: That’d let you miss a night occasionally, and give you some margin for when the battery weakens. If we can’t yet get that from a battery, then the technology is not yet ripe for a smart watch. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/18 "2015-03-10T15:49:31Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > They keep making the comparison to Dick Tracy’s 2-way wrist radio (later wrist TV), but one of the things Chewster Gould never showed was Tracy having to remember to plug in his _2-Way Wrist Radio_ every night so it’d be charged. Not even during that “Moon Maid” phase of the strip. I just figured he wound it up every morning like everybody else, and that was it. ---
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/19 "2015-03-10T15:53:51Z")
Oh boy, a smart phone that straps to your body, with 25% of the features of a normal smart phone, has a 1.5" screen, and an 18 hour battery life. Where does the line form!?!? ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671/20 "2015-03-10T15:54:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 18 hours isn’t even enough for “plug it in every night”. If you do a couple of days in a row with 6 hours of sleep (which is how some people operate all the time), you’re already right up against the ragged edge. And the battery life will inevitably degrade as the device ages: What’s it going to be after, say, a year? Probably not _much_ shorter… but when it’s as low as it is to start with, even a little bit less could be a big deal. Plus, everyone has days occasionally when you either can’t recharge your devices overnight, or just forget to: If my power goes out, or I’m out camping, or I’m on a business trip and forgot to toss the charger in my bag, or if I just got home from a really long day and just want to collapse into bed immediately, I don’t want my watch to be dead. > > I’d say a minimum for viability for a device like a watch would be 40 hours: That’d let you miss a night occasionally, and give you some margin for when the battery weakens. If we can’t yet get that from a battery, then the technology is not yet ripe for a smart watch. This! Most of the time, my phone can get me thru the day & gets charged when I go to bed. Sometimes this doesn’t happen for whatever reason. I have a charger at work, one in my car, & one at home, the three places I spend most of my time. Now I’m going to need a power strip in my car? I sometimes do days longer than 18 hrs. What’s the point of wearing a ‘watch’ if I have to take it off to recharge it to get thru the day? I don’t have power by my nightstand, which is where my watch(es), wallet, & other various things I use when I get up & dressed are stored. You’re tired & running late is the perfect storm to forget to grab something else from a different location. I foresee that the second time that one of these happens to someone, they pull their phone out of their pocket when they want to use it & go back to a regular watch; you know, the kind where you change the battery every year or two. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-watchs-18-hour-battery-life-is-fail/714671.md?page=2)