Battery life going to be better than we think?

[Piggie]

Was just reading buyer/user reviews of the new LG G Watch R and read the following remarks from many different users of this LG SmartWatch:

Each line from a separate persons comments about living with their watch:

Given the comments below, and there are lots more, but these are enough to see what I mean.
Apple will have perfected battery usage with their custom chip and battery tech. LG won't have access to anything Apple does not.

I'm thinking, Apple are being overly cautious here.
Given the types of remarks below, I'm thinking we should be looking at 2 days, even a bit more if you use the watch very lightly.

Perhaps that's why Apple are keeping quiet as they are going to really amaze us with an unexpected battery life at the pre-launch show?


=== Following are LG G Watch R User Comments===

- charge last for 1-2 days (shows 30-40% charge left after a full 24 hours for me)



The battery lasts 2 full days with the screen on not always on and about one and a half days with the screen on.


Best purchase tech wise ever! I can get a 3 day battery life by settling to lowest brightness and having display set to "not always on" works fantastically



I can easily pass 2 days on a single charge, if i take it off when i wake up on day 1 i can get to the end of day 3 fairly easily if i don't happen to use it much.



Love the fully circular screen. Battery life is easily over a day, nearer two.



and the battery life is awesome, it will go two days without being charged if you need it to


Overall I'm very impressed with this watch. The battery comfortably lasts for 2 days, although I tend to charge it every night.


As far as battery life is concerned, it seems good. The watch was taken off charge at 10.30am and it's now past 5.00pm with the watch showing I still have 81% battery remaining


Batterylife really depends on how you use the watch, but should last at least a full day and if you are a light user, easily 2 days.


A lot of watch faces. Battery lasts 3 days as I use it. Anyway much more then my smartphone.


Battery life has settled down and I can get through a day with 65% left at midnight, so I think you could do two days fine.


After thirteen hours off of the cradle today I have 67% battery remaining


The battery life after the latest software update is good for 2 days of light use or a full day of heavy use, BUT it only takes about 45minutes to charge form 10% to 98%.


I could post more but think that's enough

 

[DC Wallaby]

I dunno about surprising us with unexpected battery performance, but ...

If you go back to the 9-to-5 Mac stuff, they said that the watch goes 2-3 hours of heavy use, 4 hours of dedicated exercise use (not Activity tracking, but Exercise tracking), 19 hours of mixed usage, and about 3 days of standby. Correct?

So I think you're right: if you are barely using it, it will last a day and a half to two days. No surprise there, especially once the "ooh, new toy!" factor wears off and people start settling into normal use patterns instead of obsessively using the device. So it wouldn't surprise me if, once everything normalizes, the Apple Watch gets these same types of reviews.

But that's more of a matter of users' behavior patterns than the device's inborn battery performance. So in the short term, I fully expect people to be disappointed.

Of course, my strong hope is that Apple made some 11th-hour breakthrough that'll allow the battery to last significantly longer than expected (as in, 24 hours of mixed use versus 19 hours). But I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I own an LG G Watch R and yes battery life is very good on it. With that said, it's a completely different product so it's hard to draw conclusions using it as an example.

 

[The Doctor11]

Keep them fingers crossed. That's what I'm doing.

 

[magicMac]

I hope you're right. Does the LG watch cram in less tech though?

 

[Piggie]

I'm sure the Apple watch has the ability to do vastly more with the right apps than the LG Watch.

However, I would imagine what eats the battery is the display screen and the chip inside on both models.

Given I'm sure Apple will have selected the very very best battery they could of got their hands on, and the new chip is custom designed by Apple to be amazingly battery efficient, and I'm also sure LG did not do that. I'm guessing LG have used some off the shelf part.

If the LG G Watch R and Apple watch were put side by side, and they did the same thing during a day, screen on for the same amount of time.

I'd think we would all expect the Apple watch to be a considerably better with battery life due to all the custom work Apple have done building hardware from the ground up and running their own custom software written specifically for it, where LG are just using generic Android wear with a few tweaks I guess.

No way can a generic off the shelf chip, with some Android Wear software, not custom written for the device, have a better battery life than a totally custom designed hardware and software from Apple.

No way.

 

[matrix07]

I don't even wanna hope about it.

 

[Vundu]

Wishful thinking.

 

[viorelgn]

Was just reading buyer/user reviews of the new LG G Watch R and read the following remarks from many different users of this LG SmartWatch:

Each line from a separate persons comments about living with their watch:

Given the comments below, and there are lots more, but these are enough to see what I mean.
Apple will have perfected battery usage with their custom chip and battery tech. LG won't have access to anything Apple does not.

I'm thinking, Apple are being overly cautious here.
Given the types of remarks below, I'm thinking we should be looking at 2 days, even a bit more if you use the watch very lightly.

Perhaps that's why Apple are keeping quiet as they are going to really amaze us with an unexpected battery life at the pre-launch show?


=== Following are LG G Watch R User Comments===

- charge last for 1-2 days (shows 30-40% charge left after a full 24 hours for me)



The battery lasts 2 full days with the screen on not always on and about one and a half days with the screen on.


Best purchase tech wise ever! I can get a 3 day battery life by settling to lowest brightness and having display set to "not always on" works fantastically



I can easily pass 2 days on a single charge, if i take it off when i wake up on day 1 i can get to the end of day 3 fairly easily if i don't happen to use it much.



Love the fully circular screen. Battery life is easily over a day, nearer two.



and the battery life is awesome, it will go two days without being charged if you need it to


Overall I'm very impressed with this watch. The battery comfortably lasts for 2 days, although I tend to charge it every night.


As far as battery life is concerned, it seems good. The watch was taken off charge at 10.30am and it's now past 5.00pm with the watch showing I still have 81% battery remaining


Batterylife really depends on how you use the watch, but should last at least a full day and if you are a light user, easily 2 days.


A lot of watch faces. Battery lasts 3 days as I use it. Anyway much more then my smartphone.


Battery life has settled down and I can get through a day with 65% left at midnight, so I think you could do two days fine.


After thirteen hours off of the cradle today I have 67% battery remaining


The battery life after the latest software update is good for 2 days of light use or a full day of heavy use, BUT it only takes about 45minutes to charge form 10% to 98%.


I could post more but think that's enough

And to specifically answer Mel - the battery is no longer "perfectly good" if it's lost 50% of it's capacity…so yes it needs to be replaced.

 

[Lloydbm41]

Wishful thinking.

This. The OS on the  watch is very different from Android Wear. Battery life on one watch with different hardware and software is no indication of how well or how poorly the  Watch will perform.

As this is Apple's first gen watch, I'm not expecting much. I've set the bar low, so if it does perform well, I will be pleasantly surprised. But I'm more anxious to see Pebble's new hardware set to release shortly.

 

[Piggie]

This. The OS on the  watch is very different from Android Wear. Battery life on one watch with different hardware and software is no indication of how well or how poorly the  Watch will perform.

As this is Apple's first gen watch, I'm not expecting much. I've set the bar low, so if it does perform well, I will be pleasantly surprised. But I'm more anxious to see Pebble's new hardware set to release shortly.

Well, not sure I agree.

I accept the OS is totally different, but having your own custom hardware, and your own customer software, if you are just lighting up a screen to show a notification from time to time, or to show the clock face from time to time, YOUR battery life (Apple) should be AMAZING !

As you have total and complete control over hardware and Software, there is no reason on earth why this should not be the very best out there in it's class.

Of course, if you start doing lots and lots more with it, then of course it will use batter more, but for the basics it should be THE best, unless you are using say a vastly smaller battery than the competition.

 

[Lloydbm41]

Well, not sure I agree.

I accept the OS is totally different, but having your own custom hardware, and your own customer software, if you are just lighting up a screen to show a notification from time to time, or to show the clock face from time to time, YOUR battery life (Apple) should be AMAZING !

As you have total and complete control over hardware and Software, there is no reason on earth why this should not be the very best out there in it's class.

Of course, if you start doing lots and lots more with it, then of course it will use batter more, but for the basics it should be THE best, unless you are using say a vastly smaller battery than the competition.

You do realize the screen on the  watch will be coming on a lot more than those with Android Wear, et al.?
Example: I bend over to put on shoes or tie them and then bring my arm upwards when finished. The watch turns on. I put a jacket or long sleeve shirt on, the watch turns on. I raise my hand, the watch turns on. I turn a light switch on, the watch turns on. I grab something off my dresser, the watch turns on.
Basically, any time the arm raises, the watch turns on. If this can't be manually turned off, expect low battery life.

 

[iTechnology]

I don't want to be disappointed so I'm not going to set any exceptions.

 

[Piggie]

You do realize the screen on the  watch will be coming on a lot more than those with Android Wear, et al.?
Example: I bend over to put on shoes or tie them and then bring my arm upwards when finished. The watch turns on. I put a jacket or long sleeve shirt on, the watch turns on. I raise my hand, the watch turns on. I turn a light switch on, the watch turns on. I grab something off my dresser, the watch turns on.
Basically, any time the arm raises, the watch turns on. If this can't be manually turned off, expect low battery life.

Well, I said this auto on would never work as it would not know if you wanted to look at the watch or were just raising your arm to reach something on a shelf, or driving or doing something else as you suggest.

When I suggested this would not work I was told I was being negative and stupid and Apple would of made sure this would work very very well.

 

[arubinst]

You do realize the screen on the  watch will be coming on a lot more than those with Android Wear, et al.?
Example: I bend over to put on shoes or tie them and then bring my arm upwards when finished. The watch turns on. I put a jacket or long sleeve shirt on, the watch turns on. I raise my hand, the watch turns on. I turn a light switch on, the watch turns on. I grab something off my dresser, the watch turns on.
Basically, any time the arm raises, the watch turns on. If this can't be manually turned off, expect low battery life.

The university where I work has a department that specialises in human gestures identification through cameras and sensors. Some projects include automatic logging of all human activities throughout the day (waking up, preparing breakfast, taking a medicine, reading a book, taking a shower, watching tv, etc.)

I admit this is a very complex subject but some of those activities that you describe (putting on shoes, putting on a jacket, turning on a light, simply rising the arm) are very different from the series of gestures involved in looking at your watch. You would be rising your arm at a certain medium height, bending your elbow, positioning your forearm and turning your wrist so that the watch screen faces your eyes, all of that probably happening at a certain measured average speed. Accelerometers can actually register all of those different movements.

We don't how yet good this will work in practice, and it probably won't be perfect... but I think (hope???) we can expect the watch te be much smarter than just turning on the screen every time you rise or move your arm.

 

[Vundu]

Well, not sure I agree.

I accept the OS is totally different, but having your own custom hardware, and your own customer software, if you are just lighting up a screen to show a notification from time to time, or to show the clock face from time to time, YOUR battery life (Apple) should be AMAZING !

As you have total and complete control over hardware and Software, there is no reason on earth why this should not be the very best out there in it's class.

Of course, if you start doing lots and lots more with it, then of course it will use batter more, but for the basics it should be THE best, unless you are using say a vastly smaller battery than the competition.

Maybe but you cannot compare battery life on totally different hardware and software. Even lighting up the screens will use very different amounts of energy.

 

[Lloydbm41]

The university where I work has a department that specialises in human gestures identification through cameras and sensors. Some projects include automatic logging of all human activities throughout the day (waking up, preparing breakfast, taking a medicine, reading a book, taking a shower, watching tv, etc.)

I admit this is a very complex subject but some of those activities that you describe (putting on shoes, putting on a jacket, turning on a light, simply rising the arm) are very different from the series of gestures involved in looking at your watch. You would be rising your arm at a certain medium height, bending your elbow, positioning your forearm and turning your wrist so that the watch screen faces your eyes, all of that probably happening at a certain measured average speed. Accelerometers can actually register all of those different movements.

We don't how yet good this will work in practice, and it probably won't be perfect... but I think (hope???) we can expect the watch te be much smarter than just turning on the screen every time you rise or move your arm.

It is a Z axis movement with a certain amount of positive distance up the axis (likely around 6-8 vertical inches) that triggers the screen on. Telling the watch that it must meet multiple criteria along the X, Y and Z axis would likely mean never turning on, because that requires to user to remember specific moements just to turn their watch on. That isn't feasible.

 

[arubinst]

It is a Z axis movement with a certain amount of positive distance up the axis (likely around 6-8 vertical inches) that triggers the screen on. Telling the watch that it must meet multiple criteria along the X, Y and Z axis would likely mean never turning on, because that requires to user to remember specific moements just to turn their watch on. That isn't feasible.

Don't be so sure about that!

In our university, we can fly a drone with simple gestures by wearing a bracelet that holds an accelerometer. Neural networks are trained by repeating those gestures over and over again, using different test subjects until each gesture can be uniquely identified from the others and false positives can be reasonably ruled out.

The idea is to train the neural network so that the user doesn't need to perfectly mimic a gesture every time. It is one of the perks of the "approximate" nature of neural networks.

This things don't work with a simple "if" . As I said, this is a complex subject and a complicated task.

Of course, I cannot know how Apple is implementing this. They might be doing it the way you describe it. All I'm saying is that it is certainly feasible.

 

[Piggie]

I don't understand why people are being negative towards Apple when it comes to Battery life, when compared to a different brand. LG in the case of this thread I started.

You have 2 companies, LG and Apple.

Apple will have VASTLY more money, time, resources and skills to put into place on their watch.

No way LG will have put the same about of time and effort into their product. And, whilst I don't know what chips the LG watch uses, I'm presuming it's not some brand new custom chip design like Apple has.
Also LG have not written their own software from scratch to match their own custom hardware.

I know they are different products. However.

If you had the Apple watch and the LG watch side by side, over a day, or two, had them set up as near identical as possible.

You turned them both on and off, screen wise the same about of times for the same duration, Got them to perhaps monitor the same body info.

The Apple watch must have better battery life when asked to do the same thing.

How would it be possible for Apple to custom design a chip and software, and be worse than some mostly off the shelf collection of hardware with some non custom software?

Apple watch MUST have a better battery life. If not Apple has done something REALLY bad, by making something custom designed that worse than others non optimised hardware/software.

 

[arubinst]

I don't understand why people are being negative towards Apple when it comes to Battery life, when compared to a different brand. LG in the case of this thread I started.

You have 2 companies, LG and Apple.

Apple will have VASTLY more money, time, resources and skills to put into place on their watch.

No way LG will have put the same about of time and effort into their product. And, whilst I don't know what chips the LG watch uses, I'm presuming it's not some brand new custom chip design like Apple has.
Also LG have not written their own software from scratch to match their own custom hardware.

I know they are different products. However.

If you had the Apple watch and the LG watch side by side, over a day, or two, had them set up as near identical as possible.

You turned them both on and off, screen wise the same about of times for the same duration, Got them to perhaps monitor the same body info.

The Apple watch must have better battery life when asked to do the same thing.

How would it be possible for Apple to custom design a chip and software, and be worse than some mostly off the shelf collection of hardware with some non custom software?

Apple watch MUST have a better battery life. If not Apple has done something REALLY bad, by making something custom designed that worse than others non optimised hardware/software.

The problem with your reasoning is that the Watch is not just the LG watch with Apple designed electronics and software.

They are probably very different devices in terms of size, form, weight, battery capacity, screen tech, sensor tech and even functionality.

So you're not comparing the same thing, one designed and built by LG and the other by Apple.

Another point that raises concern is the fact that even though your same reasoning applies to phones (i.e. Apple designes custom chips and writes all the software for the iPhone), we have seen far from stellar battery performance from many iPhone models.

In those cases, the reason for having bad battery life seems to be connected to some decisions made to favor aesthetics over performance. By creating very thin devices, battery size has been sacrificed (not the case with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus because of the larger size of the case). But people tend to be forgiving with the iPhone battery because they know the product and they have come to accept these things as limitations worth living with, in order to make use of the whole ecosystem and the general good quality of the device.

On the other hand, of course, there's no way to know how Apple will treat the watch, since this is an incursion in a new segment. We already know that the watch is rather "fat" and we might think that Apple knows it needs to make a very good "first impression".

People might be less forgiving with this product that will not be cheap, will come out with limited support for stand alone applications (coming later this year) and is seen by many as just an accessory.

So, using part of your logic, I do agree with the fact that it would be unwise to come out with a less performing product compared to the competition. Especially because of all the expectation they have created around it.

We'll have to wait a little longer I guess...

 

[Piggie]

I know I'm comparing Apple's to Oranges, Or Apple's to LG's

However, I do think if you took The Apple watch, the LG Watch.

Asked them to do nothing else all day, but to sit there on dead/standby and once every hour turn on the display and show the time/display for 30 seconds and go off again.

If that's all you asked on them

I'd be dam well shocked if Apple's watch WITH custom hardware and custom software dedicated specifically for this 1 custom piece of hardware, did not last a LOT better than a more generic assortment of hard/software in the LG Watch.

Unless the LG watch was using some stunning amazing better battery, or some amazingly low power drain screen than Apple did not have access to.

 

[DreamGuardian]

I think Apple may surprise us again! I really hope the battery life will be great. Battery life is maybe the #1 spec on a smartwatch.

 

[bbeagle]

Another point that raises concern is the fact that even though your same reasoning applies to phones (i.e. Apple designes custom chips and writes all the software for the iPhone), we have seen far from stellar battery performance from many iPhone models.

Not at all.

We all know that iPhones, on average, are used much more than other competing products. Article after article has proven this. This is the main reason an iPhone is seen as having less battery.

I've got the opposite issue - my iPhone lasts DAYS on a battery, while some of my Android friend's phones don't last a whole day. Why? They're glued to their phones every waking moment, while I don't use it that often.

It's all about how you use something. Use it the same, I would bet Apple's battery life is better.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I don't understand why people are being negative towards Apple when it comes to Battery life, when compared to a different brand. LG in the case of this thread I started.

You have 2 companies, LG and Apple.

Apple will have VASTLY more money, time, resources and skills to put into place on their watch.

No way LG will have put the same about of time and effort into their product. And, whilst I don't know what chips the LG watch uses, I'm presuming it's not some brand new custom chip design like Apple has.
Also LG have not written their own software from scratch to match their own custom hardware.

I know they are different products. However.

If you had the Apple watch and the LG watch side by side, over a day, or two, had them set up as near identical as possible.

You turned them both on and off, screen wise the same about of times for the same duration, Got them to perhaps monitor the same body info.

The Apple watch must have better battery life when asked to do the same thing.

How would it be possible for Apple to custom design a chip and software, and be worse than some mostly off the shelf collection of hardware with some non custom software?

Apple watch MUST have a better battery life. If not Apple has done something REALLY bad, by making something custom designed that worse than others non optimised hardware/software.

How do you know all of this? Have you spent time inside the LG or Apple engineering departments? This post is filled with all sorts of assumptions. How do you know how many hours were put into the design of these watches? No one knows that but Apple or LG themselves. All I can say is that I enjoy my LG G Watch R. It's nicely designed, functional, reliable, and has very good battery life. If LG was able to throw that all together with a week or two of engineering then they must be an amazing company.

 

[sp392845]

I know I'm comparing Apple's to Oranges, Or Apple's to LG's

Lol