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Leica Dad

Suspended
Sep 28, 2017
143
178
My Series 3 has been pretty good on cellular.

I got the Smatree charging cast on Amazon which is great to pop watch into and it charges up quickly as well as protecting watch or popping in bag.
I have the same case too, very good quality for its price!
 

Leica Dad

Suspended
Sep 28, 2017
143
178
I just finished another day of the battery life test between 38mm and 42mm.
If anyone has both size on series 3, can you let me know if you are seeing different reception strength on them? So far I am seeing weaker reception on the 38mm under WiFi environment.
 
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predation

macrumors 65816
Apr 3, 2013
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I just finished another day of the battery life test between 38mm and 42mm.
If anyone has both size on series 3, can you let me know if you are seeing different reception strength on them? So far I am seeing weaker reception on the 38mm under WiFi environment.
Technically, the 42 has a bigger Antennae band. So maybe that has something to do with it?
 

HeadphoneAddict

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2007
1,041
888
42mm S3 with LTE - bought Friday 9/22 but not successfully set up until Wednesday (9/27):

(1) 2 days ago I was off the charger for 16 hours with 6 hours of use and went to 55%
(2) Yesterday was off the charger for 14 hours with 5 hours of use and went to 64%
(3) Earlier today I posted at 11 hours off the charger and 4 hours of use, with a 75 minute workout on bicycle, and I'm at 70%, and I still have 4-5 hours before I hit the bed.
(4) And now, ready for bed at 16 hours unplugged and 5 hours of use, and I'm at 67%

16 hours standby and 4.5 hours of use = 67% battery remaining tonight.
 

Leica Dad

Suspended
Sep 28, 2017
143
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Technically, the 42 has a bigger Antennae band. So maybe that has something to do with it?
I think so too, which is bad for 38mm, it already has a smaller battery and now with the weaker signal strength which could also hurt battery life.
 
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anticipate

macrumors 6502a
Dec 22, 2013
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I don't get great battery (S2 LTE 42mm). I am at 61% after 9 hours, all on BT with iPhone nearby and no LTE use, no phone calls. I do have the longer wake time set up and I do get lots of notifications. But that's it.

On LTE alone, while doing a GPS-enabled workout and listening to music via airpods, I did find the watch went down about 25% an hour. This is about what was expected. When I leave the office, I expect I'll be down to about 50%, and be able to do an hour of non-LTE workouts getting me down maybe to 30%. I could then get to the end of the day (tethered, using just basic notifications and a few apps), or one more hour on LTE without the phone. Not great but not bad.

I find my S2 was better on WatchOS3 battery wise. I didn't use a lot of GPS though.

On other days I was able to be on LTE for an hour here and there (albeit not using it for anything but notifications and texts) and it didn't kill the battery; I got a full day with those 1-2 hours of LTE use only. The real battery killer seems to be GPS and/or LTE phone calls.
 

Orangeman13

macrumors 6502a
Aug 3, 2015
796
694
I turned on my 42mm this morning with LTE on all day from 6:00 to 3:30 and made several short calls and text messages throughout the day. Came home with 72%

I’m pretty happy.
 

predation

macrumors 65816
Apr 3, 2013
1,237
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My usage today. Off charger since 9:30

7pm now.
At 71%

42mm lte
 

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predation

macrumors 65816
Apr 3, 2013
1,237
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Of course, thanks for sharing!

I was able to recreate the WiFi reception on the 38mm earlier in my own home. I walked about 5 steps way from my front door and the 38mm shows 1 less WiFi bar than the 42mm.
I don’t think this is a huge issue, because it still works in most cases, also, in a normal use case I would have let the watch connect to my iPhone.
[doublepost=1507083744][/doublepost]
That’s is a really good result, did you connect to LTE at all? Thanks!
Yeah. I was full lte during lunch (about 1.5 hrs).
 
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Maui19

macrumors 6502
Jul 16, 2007
252
52
I did a full charge at 7:30 this morning. Now at 10:45 pm I'm at 65%. But I have been losing 30% overnight, so I need to figure out what's going on there. FWIW I think my battery life has gotten gradually better.
 

SoCalGadgetGuy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
...I have been losing 30% overnight, so I need to figure out what's going on there.

  • What size watch is it?
  • Are you wearing it while sleeping?
  • What is your "On Tap" setting? (15 sec or 70 sec)
  • Are you using a sleep tracking app?
  • How long do you sleep?
  • Do you have your iPhone nearby and connected via Bluetooth?
  • Is your watch a Series 3? (or a previous series updated to WatchOS 4?)
 

HeadphoneAddict

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2007
1,041
888
42mm S3 with LTE - bought Friday 9/22 but not successfully set up until Wednesday (9/27):

(1) 2 days ago I was off the charger for 16 hours with 6 hours of use and went to 55%
(2) Yesterday was off the charger for 14 hours with 5 hours of use and went to 64%
(3) Earlier today I posted at 11 hours off the charger and 4 hours of use, with a 75 minute workout on bicycle, and I'm at 70%, and I still have 4-5 hours before I hit the bed.
(4) And now, ready for bed at 16 hours unplugged and 5 hours of use, and I'm at 67%

16 hours standby and 4.5 hours of use = 67% battery remaining tonight.

5th day and I'm at 16 hours standby and 4 hours of use = 65% battery left by bedtime. This seems to be pretty consistent, and I should be able to go 35-45 hours on a single charge with my typical use, but at the longer end of the range if I'm sleeping for 8 hours of that time.
 

predation

macrumors 65816
Apr 3, 2013
1,237
867
Amazing battery life. Still haven’t charged since yesterday 9:20am.
 

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HeadphoneAddict

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2007
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Today I had 135 minutes of exercise with the watch off the charger for 12.5 hours (and 6 hours of active use during that time per the watch app measurements) with 57% remaining.

Half way through the same workouts on bicycle, my wife's 18 month old Series 0 38mm went down to 6% after only being off the charger for 9 hours. Her watch kills the battery during workouts twice as fast as my original Series 0 42mm watch, so I might have to take it to the Apple Genius to see why it always dies so fast with workouts.
 
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SoCalGadgetGuy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Tuesday's stats:

This is for my 11th full day of use since receiving the Series 3 (42 mm with cellular/LTE).

After 24 hours, battery down to 57%. Most of my activity is the same as my previous battery stats posting (Post #8 above), which includes Sleep Watch sleep tracker that records all night. Unique to this day was:

  • Turned on the Workout Activity recording for 1 hour, 10 minutes and 41 seconds, while playing softball.
    • Watch recorded everything: calories, time, heart rate (including max & average), heart rate recovery, location, and weather

This equates to an average battery drain of 1.79% per hour.

mDJRKqe.png
 
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TJ82

macrumors 65816
Mar 8, 2012
1,263
926
Are you guys listening to music during your workouts? Can you rven listen to music while using Strava etc on it, not sure about that..
 

SoCalGadgetGuy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Thursday's stats:

This is for my 13th full day of use since receiving the Series 3 (42 mm with cellular/LTE).

After 24 hours, battery down to 63%. Most of my activity is the same as my earlier battery stats posting (Post #8 above), which includes Sleep Watch sleep tracker that records all night. Unique to this day was:

  • Used Siri quite a bit today
    • Asked Siri a lot of questions
    • Had Siri make a few calendar appointments
    • Had Siri set a couple of countdown timers

This equates to an average battery drain of 1.54% per hour (My best rate yet!)

Y05XcvR.png
 
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