Series 6 Battery Life - How long does your S6 last?

[bluegt]

I considered that. However, with this being MacRumors, settings on doesn’t always mean everything for a lot of people. I wanted to be precise while trying to stay succinct.

I turned on handwashing but didn't turn on the location-based reminder... I was worried the GPS usage would drain the battery (on my AW or iPhone). Something to experiment with...

Seems like most people are getting the 18 hours or much more. For people on the lower side, it would be great if you could share usage details?

- Did you use Cellular? Streaming? 3rd Party Complications? Is it your first cycle? Have you tried discharging to 0% and recharging back to 100%?

 

[gorkt]

I am fairly impressed with the battery life, especially while exercising. I went out for my 3 mile run and it usually drains at least 20% but it only drained about 10.

 

[xxBlack]

I am fairly impressed with the battery life, especially while exercising. I went out for my 3 mile run and it usually drains at least 20% but it only drained about 10.

with phone nearby? With cellular I lose 25% on workout/h

 

[Renho]

I am at 13 hours standby, 3 hours in usage and 48% left. 3 workouts with cellular with A/on display lowest brightness.

 

[RPhoto]

First full charge returned 50 hours with 20% remaining on my S6 44mm SSG.

Sunday morning 100% to Tuesday lunchtime at 21%.

However...

• No cellular
• No AOD
• Only have notifications for text messages and activity reminders
• For those two days I didn’t do any workouts (normally I’d do an hour a day)
• Hand washing and audio levels turned off

• Theatre mode on
• Sleep tracking on using Pillow (and the in built crappy tracking trying to figure out the bedtime alarm)
• Activity Digital face
• Lots of faffing about playing with it as it’s new

I don’t use push notifications for most stuff, never have and never needed to. This setup has also suited me fine for years on my S3. I just use the notifications and features that are useful to me. The upside of that not being many, is I get good battery life!

I’ll be interested to see how exercising impacts the battery though as I’ll be using AOD for that.

 

[bluegt]

First full charge returned 50 hours with 20% remaining on my S6 44mm SSG.

Sunday morning 100% to Tuesday lunchtime at 21%.

However...

• No cellular
• No AOD
• Only have notifications for text messages and activity reminders
• For those two days I didn’t do any workouts (normally I’d do an hour a day)
• Hand washing and audio levels turned off

• Theatre mode on
• Sleep tracking on using Pillow (and the in built crappy tracking trying to figure out the bedtime alarm)
• Activity Digital face
• Lots of faffing about playing with it as it’s new

I don’t use push notifications for most stuff, never have and never needed to. This setup has also suited me fine for years on my S3. I just use the notifications and features that are useful to me. The upside of that not being many, is I get good battery life!

I’ll be interested to see how exercising impacts the battery though as I’ll be using AOD for that.

Wow - 50 hours! That is fantastic.

I just finished by 3rd full cycle, got 40.2 hours - first post updated.

 

[RPhoto]

Wow - 50 hours! That is fantastic.

I just finished by 3rd full cycle, got 40.2 hours - first post updated.

It’s good but I am aware it’s all down to what features I have on/off. Not wanting to be constantly notified and reminded of things does have its advantages I guess 😅

 

[JulianL]

40mm S6 cellular but no data plan so that switched off (I assume).

1st full day 100% charge down to 18% after approx 17.75 hours use.

Usage? My first ever full day with an Apple Watch so virtually constant fiddling with screen, tweaking clock faces on iPhone & pushing them down to my S6. Adding and deleting apps. Re-arranging the app launcher icons. Multiple ECGs, multiple explicit blood ox readings plus set to take automatic blood ox readings. 1 x 1.5 hour outdoor walk. 1 x Breathe session. Brightness default. Various notifications & a couple of Applepay payments. iPhone 11 Pro Max within 1m of Watch the whole time.

I'd honestly say that with all my fiddling I was probably physically interacting with the watch for a solid 4 hours split over the whole day if not more so I'm pretty happy with the battery life. I suspect that when I learn to ignore my new toy and use it as intended I'll probably be at something like 50% battery remaining by the end of the day but that's not goingto be today because I'm still having all sorts of new ideas about how I want to set up the clock faces, complications dock and main app launcher. I love this thing!

 

[dogegg]

40mm S6 cellular but no data plan so that switched off (I assume).

1st full day 100% charge down to 18% after approx 17.75 hours use.

Usage? My first ever full day with an Apple Watch so virtually constant fiddling with screen, tweaking clock faces on iPhone & pushing them down to my S6. Adding and deleting apps. Re-arranging the app launcher icons. Multiple ECGs, multiple explicit blood ox readings plus set to take automatic blood ox readings. 1 x 1.5 hour outdoor walk. 1 x Breathe session. Brightness default. Various notifications & a couple of Applepay payments. iPhone 11 Pro Max within 1m of Watch the whole time.

I'd honestly say that with all my fiddling I was probably physically interacting with the watch for a solid 4 hours split over the whole day if not more so I'm pretty happy with the battery life. I suspect that when I learn to ignore my new toy and use it as intended I'll probably be at something like 50% battery remaining by the end of the day but that's not goingto be today because I'm still having all sorts of new ideas about how I want to set up the clock faces, complications dock and main app launcher. I love this thing!

On the cellular point, I don't have a data plan either so wonder if I should switch it off in the settings or would not having a data plan mean that it wouldn't being using any battery life by default?

 

[xxBlack]

Unplugged it around 8:45 pm yesterday. Now after 19 hours I still have 52% left, which means 2.5%/h and I did a 1h stairmaster workout (with iPhone nearby)! Now I can use my watch as sleep tracking and still use it all day like my S4 but with AoD!
But to be honest with a 1h workout with cellular and AirPods, I don’t think that would be possible... but yesterday I did a 20 min charge while I showered and it lasted all day. I like that!

 

[bluegt]

I'm on my fourth full cycle (started at 6:10p)... battery is being a bit strange, it was stuck at 99% for a while... went down to 91% gradually and back up to 93% ... maybe I got an "automatic" AW that charges from motion....

Anyway, I'll still run it down to 0% and that should give an accurate read and confirm if 40 hours is the best I can get out of this (keeping settings as is).

 

[xxBlack]

Now 24 hours are over and I still have 40% battery! Even with my 1h cellular workout which cost 30% I could survive the day.

used it for sleep tracking, then 1h stairmaster workout paired with iPhone and after that notifications all day long. What a battery

 

[jdb8167]

I’m jealous. I’m struggling to get 24 hours with more that 10% left. I might have to do the un-pair re-pair thing to see if it makes a difference. This is the 5th full day and my battery is not getting better. I used to get36+ hours on my Series 5.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Thanks for the thread! Love it! I just turned mine on - came 80% out of the box. Noticed it charging to 100% a LOT faster than my S5 did. Day 1 starting now .

 

[bluegt]

I’m jealous. I’m struggling to get 24 hours with more that 10% left. I might have to do the un-pair re-pair thing to see if it makes a difference. This is the 5th full day and my battery is not getting better. I used to get36+ hours on my Series 5.

Try to isolate what is causing the issues - we all have pretty much the same hardware so you should be able to get much more. Some guesses based on what I have read... are any of these the case?
1. 3rd Party Complications
2. Poor Cellular Network Connection
3. Heavy Usage "Away from iPhone" i.e., GPS, Cellular, Bluetooth

If its not those, it could be:
4. Bad Battery Calibration (but after 5 days it should have resolved)
5. Software Issue (unpair/re-pair might help)

 

[bluegt]

On the cellular point, I don't have a data plan either so wonder if I should switch it off in the settings or would not having a data plan mean that it wouldn't being using any battery life by default?

The watch has the emergency calling feature... meaning it would always need to be connected a cellular network regardless of whether you have a plan or not. In other words, the cellular modem is always on and maintaining a connection.

I would guess the battery impact would normally be minimal, unless you are in an area of poor coverage. Poor coverage will drain the battery on any cellular device (watch...iPhone, etc.) because the modem needs to work harder to search/maintain a signal.

 

[jdb8167]

Try to isolate what is causing the issues - we all have pretty much the same hardware so you should be able to get much more. Some guesses based on what I have read... are any of these the case?
1. 3rd Party Complications
2. Poor Cellular Network Connection
3. Heavy Usage "Away from iPhone" i.e., GPS, Cellular, Bluetooth

If its not those, it could be:
4. Bad Battery Calibration (but after 5 days it should have resolved)
5. Software Issue (unpair/re-pair might help)

1. I do have a lot of complications. It would be easy enough to remove them for a few days.

2 Nope. I have a tower less than 500 yards away. Always at full strength when I’m home and right now I’m almost always home.

3. See #2.

4&5. Yup.

 

[bluegt]

1. I do have a lot of complications. It would be easy enough to remove them for a few days.

2 Nope. I have a tower less than 500 yards away. Always at full strength when I’m home and right now I’m almost always home.

3. See #2.

4&5. Yup.

Maybe try changing the complications or switching to a simple face for a few days. I am using the Infograph full of complications but all of mine are Apple complications so likely optimised for WatchOS 7 / S7. There is always a chance that a 3rd party complication is not optimised for WatchOS 7 and could somehow be draining battery.

 

[Shadowbech]

First day I got it, did a full charge, at night it was down to 55% when I took it off. I put it in charger overnight.
Second day (9/23/2020). Took it off this morning at 8 am. and currently right now (13 hours later, with 2 hour usage) it's down to 70%.Not bad for my SB TI 44 mm.

 

[DontGetTheCheese]

No AoD and no hand handwashing.

First day was the worst, don't remember the numbers but it chewed it up.

Today, one very short walk, some travel in the car, about 12 hours of light use and the battery was at 80ish percent.

Yesterday, an hour of running, with overcast and air pods, somewhere in the 50's.

Charging is definitely faster.

Overall, despite being one of the bigger battery gripers, I'm pretty OK with what I'm seeing. Don't get me wrong, doubling the battery life should be their single biggest goal, but this is closer to the 4 than the 5 with a faster charge.

 

[Toratek]

sadly my S6 doesn't last long enough. really hoped for over 24yr between charges (36 would have been great)
After 6 generations, watch still isn't there sadly

I think a 24 year-between-charges battery would probably involve plutonium...

 

[George Dawes]

Interesting stuff

Wish my ipad and iphone had such good battery life !

 

[bluegt]

I've updated the first post - in summary, after stabilization and with normal usage the 44mm S6 GPS can last 40 hours. I wouldn't expect the cellular model to be very different with the same usage pattern.

Heavy Cellular & GPS Usage, along with 3rd Party Complications will probably decrease this (but of course, using these gets you more benefit from the watch so its a worthwhile tradeoff for most).

In use, if you wear your watch all day and all night, you would only need to charge it ~35 minutes/day to maintain battery life (60% battery usage in 24 hours = 60% charge in 35 minutes). This is a bit longer than I spend in the shower but not bad!

A note on charging: I am using a 2A USB charger but even a 1A should be fine as the output to the watch is only ~0.45A. If you do the math on 50% in 30min (150mA of a 300mA battery), that means the effective charge rate of the battery is 0.30A. In theory, the watch could charge to 100% in 1 hour but I think Apple has limited it after 80% because of heat/battery wear and tear. If your watch isn't charging as fast it either means your charger output isn't high enough, or the watch is eating up too much battery as it charges, thus slowing down the effective rate.

 

[xxBlack]

With workout.

 

[Apple_Robert]

With workout.

What app is that you are using?