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tzohar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 26, 2015
19
4
First of all let say I’ve used Apple Watches since the very first one came out and I never had to worry about battery life on any of them… even my series 5, when it got to 79% overall battery capacity after 2 years, would still last me a whole day and I never had to worry or think about it. I’ve also used optimized charging since it was introduced on the watch and it always worked fine, pausing my watch on 80% and then charging to 100% before I took it off the charger. No problem.

How watchOS 10 introduced optimized charge limit, the feature that sometimes decides to stop your watch charging at 80%, and I hate it so much. I tried trusting Apple and just letting it do its thing but when I start my day on 80%, let’s say at like 9 AM, by 9 PM my watch (series 8, only 10 months old) is down to like 30%. And this is on 100% battery health still! Last week was the first time in history I’ve ever seen my watch go into low power mode because it was under 20% by 10:30 PM, and my day wasn’t done yet.

So you say, “what’s the problem, just tap the charge ring and tell it to charge to full”. And I do that in the morning now when the feature kicks in, but the problem is that every time you do that it turns off battery optimization completely in the settings, and not just until tomorrow but ENTIRELY OFF. So then if you still want the normal optimization to still work you have to dig into your settings and turn it on again every day, which is annoying as hell.

On Apple Watch 9 and Ultra they actually give you a separate setting to turn charge limit off while keeping optimization on, but on series 8 and earlier they don’t give you that option— it’s all or nothing. So they basically force you to use this new feature even if you don’t like it, which sucks because like I said, battery optimization worked absolutely fine on my watches before. Why can’t it be optional on series 8 also? Suddenly I have to argue with my watch every day just to charge it to a decent percentage before using it in the morning!

Incidentally, I think this kind of feature makes no sense for Apple Watch anyway. This is a device you’re supposed to be using and wearing all day long and unlike a phone, you can’t easily charge it during the day when you’re out and about or driving. So starting the day on 80% makes no sense. A feature that’s supposed to help preserve your battery life by forcing you to use your device as if the battery on it is already depleted by 20% makes absolutely no sense to me. What’s the point of preserving your battery health by pretending it already sucks??
 

tzohar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 26, 2015
19
4
I hate it too. I am hoping its a bug that it's not a separate toggle
I wish it was, but Apple actually specifies the separate option is only available on series 9 and ultra in their own support article about optimized charging on the watch, so I’m afraid it’s actually designed that way.
 

casperes1996

macrumors 604
Jan 26, 2014
7,599
5,771
Horsens, Denmark
I wish it was, but Apple actually specifies the separate option is only available on series 9 and ultra in their own support article about optimized charging on the watch, so I’m afraid it’s actually designed that way.
That's pretty ridiculous. Prior to now they could charge my Series 8 to 100% overnight; Nothing stopping them now
 
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jdb8167

macrumors 601
Nov 17, 2008
4,867
4,603
First of all let say I’ve used Apple Watches since the very first one came out and I never had to worry about battery life on any of them… even my series 5, when it got to 79% overall battery capacity after 2 years, would still last me a whole day and I never had to worry or think about it. I’ve also used optimized charging since it was introduced on the watch and it always worked fine, pausing my watch on 80% and then charging to 100% before I took it off the charger. No problem.

How watchOS 10 introduced optimized charge limit, the feature that sometimes decides to stop your watch charging at 80%, and I hate it so much. I tried trusting Apple and just letting it do its thing but when I start my day on 80%, let’s say at like 9 AM, by 9 PM my watch (series 8, only 10 months old) is down to like 30%. And this is on 100% battery health still! Last week was the first time in history I’ve ever seen my watch go into low power mode because it was under 20% by 10:30 PM, and my day wasn’t done yet.

So you say, “what’s the problem, just tap the charge ring and tell it to charge to full”. And I do that in the morning now when the feature kicks in, but the problem is that every time you do that it turns off battery optimization completely in the settings, and not just until tomorrow but ENTIRELY OFF. So then if you still want the normal optimization to still work you have to dig into your settings and turn it on again every day, which is annoying as hell.

On Apple Watch 9 and Ultra they actually give you a separate setting to turn charge limit off while keeping optimization on, but on series 8 and earlier they don’t give you that option— it’s all or nothing. So they basically force you to use this new feature even if you don’t like it, which sucks because like I said, battery optimization worked absolutely fine on my watches before. Why can’t it be optional on series 8 also? Suddenly I have to argue with my watch every day just to charge it to a decent percentage before using it in the morning!

Incidentally, I think this kind of feature makes no sense for Apple Watch anyway. This is a device you’re supposed to be using and wearing all day long and unlike a phone, you can’t easily charge it during the day when you’re out and about or driving. So starting the day on 80% makes no sense. A feature that’s supposed to help preserve your battery life by forcing you to use your device as if the battery on it is already depleted by 20% makes absolutely no sense to me. What’s the point of preserving your battery health by pretending it already sucks??
What seems particularly bad is this makes it more likely your battery % goes all the way to 0 which I just noted in a different thread caused my watch to go from 81% to 79% in just 11 days. (Albeit the battery was 3 years old and I wanted to kill it to get AppleCare+ replacement it still looks like going to 0% is very bad).
 
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PegasusTenma

macrumors 6502
Sep 24, 2014
394
352
First of all let say I’ve used Apple Watches since the very first one came out and I never had to worry about battery life on any of them… even my series 5, when it got to 79% overall battery capacity after 2 years, would still last me a whole day and I never had to worry or think about it. I’ve also used optimized charging since it was introduced on the watch and it always worked fine, pausing my watch on 80% and then charging to 100% before I took it off the charger. No problem.

How watchOS 10 introduced optimized charge limit, the feature that sometimes decides to stop your watch charging at 80%, and I hate it so much. I tried trusting Apple and just letting it do its thing but when I start my day on 80%, let’s say at like 9 AM, by 9 PM my watch (series 8, only 10 months old) is down to like 30%. And this is on 100% battery health still! Last week was the first time in history I’ve ever seen my watch go into low power mode because it was under 20% by 10:30 PM, and my day wasn’t done yet.

So you say, “what’s the problem, just tap the charge ring and tell it to charge to full”. And I do that in the morning now when the feature kicks in, but the problem is that every time you do that it turns off battery optimization completely in the settings, and not just until tomorrow but ENTIRELY OFF. So then if you still want the normal optimization to still work you have to dig into your settings and turn it on again every day, which is annoying as hell.

On Apple Watch 9 and Ultra they actually give you a separate setting to turn charge limit off while keeping optimization on, but on series 8 and earlier they don’t give you that option— it’s all or nothing. So they basically force you to use this new feature even if you don’t like it, which sucks because like I said, battery optimization worked absolutely fine on my watches before. Why can’t it be optional on series 8 also? Suddenly I have to argue with my watch every day just to charge it to a decent percentage before using it in the morning!

Incidentally, I think this kind of feature makes no sense for Apple Watch anyway. This is a device you’re supposed to be using and wearing all day long and unlike a phone, you can’t easily charge it during the day when you’re out and about or driving. So starting the day on 80% makes no sense. A feature that’s supposed to help preserve your battery life by forcing you to use your device as if the battery on it is already depleted by 20% makes absolutely no sense to me. What’s the point of preserving your battery health by pretending it already sucks??
I have an Ultra 2 but I don’t have two different toggles. The only one I have is for Optimised Charge Limit.
 
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tzohar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 26, 2015
19
4
I have an Ultra 2 but I don’t have two different toggles. The only one I have is for Optimised Charge Limit.
On the Ultra, you don’t have an option of turning off optimized charging, but you CAN turn off Charge Limit, which is what stops it charging at 80%. From my experience optimized charging works fine because you do at least get to start the day with 100%, so I don’t mind keeping that on. I just wish I could turn off charge limit.
 
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bobcomer

macrumors 601
May 18, 2015
4,949
3,699
On Apple Watch 9 and Ultra they actually give you a separate setting to turn charge limit off while keeping optimization on, but on series 8 and earlier they don’t give you that option— it’s all or nothing. So they basically force you to use this new feature even if you don’t like it, which sucks because like I said, battery optimization worked absolutely fine on my watches before. Why can’t it be optional on series 8 also? Suddenly I have to argue with my watch every day just to charge it to a decent percentage before using it in the morning!
You sure about that? My AWU2 only has a single toggle for charge limit and optimization too. I had to turn it off because it was only charging to 76% for some reason. If there's another toggle for just optimization, I can't find it.
 

tzohar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 26, 2015
19
4
You sure about that? My AWU2 only has a single toggle for charge limit and optimization too. I had to turn it off because it was only charging to 76% for some reason. If there's another toggle for just optimization, I can't find it.
On the Ultra you get a single toggle for charge limit, but not optimization because that’s always on. In other words, the ultra lets you turn off the feature that stops charging at 80% entirely, but doesn’t let you turn off the regular optimization that only pauses at 80% but then automatically charges to 100% overnight.

Charge limit is the feature I wish I could turn off, not optimization.
 

bobcomer

macrumors 601
May 18, 2015
4,949
3,699
On the Ultra you get a single toggle for charge limit, but not optimization because that’s always on. In other words, the ultra lets you turn off the feature that stops charging at 80% entirely, but doesn’t let you turn off the regular optimization that only pauses at 80% but then automatically charges to 100% overnight.

Charge limit is the feature I wish I could turn off, not optimization.
Thanks, I didn't know that's what way it did! I can understand why you don't like it the way it is on your watch, but given my choice, I would turn it all off. I had to turn it off on my 14P because it wasn't smart enough to always have it charged to 100% when I leave for work. (it would wait too long to start the full charge)
 

Jackbequickly

macrumors 68040
Aug 6, 2022
3,192
3,282
My Ultra did the 80% for a while and then it is always 100%. Go to bed and get up the same time every day. WTF!
 
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