4 ms·

What about my Garmin Vivoactive 7 to 10 days battery life?

by wazoox 10y ago

MBCook 10y ago
As an Apple Watch user: I've found I don't care. That's something a lot of people use as an example, but in practice I don't find it to be a problem at all. I only had to charge my FitBit every week or two, but I don't mind what I do with my watch at all. I plug my phone in every night, and I put my watch on its charger at the same time. That takes care of it, no need to think about it any further. The first generation Apple Watch would usually have 40 to 50% battery left when I put it on its charger at the end of the day. I'm not sure about the newer one, but I know the battery life is supposed to be better. The FitBit could go for 10 days, but I would have to monitor it (usually wait for the app to tell me) and then go find the charger and plug it in. Oddly the fact that I charge my watch every night seems like less of a cognitive burden to me because I don't actually have to think about it. I did occasionally have to think about my FitBit. So in practice, it's never been an issue. Because the battery is so small (due to the size of the device) even if you do run it down it charges up very fast. I know some people use them all day and sleep track with them, and then simply charge them up while taking a shower in the morning. If you want to spend all day doing a triathlon and having GPS tracking then maybe the Apple Watch is battery wouldn't be good enough for a single day. I imagine that some company sells a gadget that would be able to handle that. The Apple Watch is battery is WAY bigger than my needs, and I imagine it sized for a lot of people. Health is turned out to be one of the biggest uses of the Apple Watch. I think this is something like range anxiety and cars. It certainly affect some people, but for your average user and even your average user who likes to stay fit and exercise a fair bit I don't think it's an issue. It's only the most demanding and serious 5 to 10% of the market that may not be able to use an Apple Watch. The only place I ever saw a benefit to the battery life with my FitBit was when traveling: since I don't tend to take very long trips I almost always could get by without bringing the charger. I have to bring my Apple Watch charger. Since I don't travel much, that doesn't matter much to me.
- MBCook 10y ago
  Update: new Series 2, worn all day, exercised for 90 minutes. Got notifications, interacted with it, used Siri a few times. At 10:30 PM my watch was at 75%. No charging since I first put it on. I think with a Series 0 it would've been at 40 to 45% at this point.
- stevekemp 10y ago
  > The FitBit could go for 10 days, but I would have to monitor it (usually wait for the app to tell me) and then go find the charger and plug it in. Oddly the fact that I charge my watch every night seems like less of a cognitive burden to me because I don't actually have to think about it. I can agree that the fitbit is a little more fiddly in that regard, I sometimes get surprised when my charge is low. But one of the things that I love about the fitbit is that I can track my sleep - and I cannot do that if I've taken it off overnight to charge. I guess different people use their watches for different things. For me I like the step-tracking, love the heart-rate monitoring (when rock-climbing, lifting weights, or cycling), and adore the sleep tracking. I only have a single complaint, and that is that the thing isn't waterproof. If I could go swimming with it on I'd be a complete satisfied user.
  - zimpenfish 10y ago
    > the thing isn't waterproof waterfi will waterproof it for $99 - although this seals the altimeter which ruins your floor count. http://waterfi.com/waterproofing-service http://waterfi.com/waterproofing-service
    - stevekemp 10y ago
      Interesting idea, thanks for the link. Sadly it is unavailable to me, as I'm outside America though.
  - MBCook 10y ago
    People do sleep tracking with the Apple Watch, it doesn't take very long to charge at all. I don't, but I know people who just charge it up once or twice a day and wear it all day and night.

What about my Garmin Vivoactive 7 to 10 days battery life?

by wazoox 10y ago

What about my Garmin Vivoactive 7 to 10 days battery life?

As an Apple Watch user: I've found I don't care. That's something a lot of people use as an example, but in practice I don't find it to be a problem at all. I only had to charge my FitBit every week or two, but I don't mind what I do with my watch at all. I plug my phone in every night, and I put my watch on its charger at the same time. That takes care of it, no need to think about it any further. The first generation Apple Watch would usually have 40 to 50% battery left when I put it on its charger at the end of the day. I'm not sure about the newer one, but I know the battery life is supposed to be better. The FitBit could go for 10 days, but I would have to monitor it (usually wait for the app to tell me) and then go find the charger and plug it in. Oddly the fact that I charge my watch every night seems like less of a cognitive burden to me because I don't actually have to think about it. I did occasionally have to think about my FitBit. So in practice, it's never been an issue. Because the battery is so small (due to the size of the device) even if you do run it down it charges up very fast. I know some people use them all day and sleep track with them, and then simply charge them up while taking a shower in the morning. If you want to spend all day doing a triathlon and having GPS tracking then maybe the Apple Watch is battery wouldn't be good enough for a single day. I imagine that some company sells a gadget that would be able to handle that. The Apple Watch is battery is WAY bigger than my needs, and I imagine it sized for a lot of people. Health is turned out to be one of the biggest uses of the Apple Watch. I think this is something like range anxiety and cars. It certainly affect some people, but for your average user and even your average user who likes to stay fit and exercise a fair bit I don't think it's an issue. It's only the most demanding and serious 5 to 10% of the market that may not be able to use an Apple Watch. The only place I ever saw a benefit to the battery life with my FitBit was when traveling: since I don't tend to take very long trips I almost always could get by without bringing the charger. I have to bring my Apple Watch charger. Since I don't travel much, that doesn't matter much to me.

MBCook 10y ago
Update: new Series 2, worn all day, exercised for 90 minutes. Got notifications, interacted with it, used Siri a few times. At 10:30 PM my watch was at 75%. No charging since I first put it on. I think with a Series 0 it would've been at 40 to 45% at this point.
stevekemp 10y ago
> The FitBit could go for 10 days, but I would have to monitor it (usually wait for the app to tell me) and then go find the charger and plug it in. Oddly the fact that I charge my watch every night seems like less of a cognitive burden to me because I don't actually have to think about it. I can agree that the fitbit is a little more fiddly in that regard, I sometimes get surprised when my charge is low. But one of the things that I love about the fitbit is that I can track my sleep - and I cannot do that if I've taken it off overnight to charge. I guess different people use their watches for different things. For me I like the step-tracking, love the heart-rate monitoring (when rock-climbing, lifting weights, or cycling), and adore the sleep tracking. I only have a single complaint, and that is that the thing isn't waterproof. If I could go swimming with it on I'd be a complete satisfied user.
- zimpenfish 10y ago
  > the thing isn't waterproof waterfi will waterproof it for $99 - although this seals the altimeter which ruins your floor count. http://waterfi.com/waterproofing-service http://waterfi.com/waterproofing-service
  - stevekemp 10y ago
    Interesting idea, thanks for the link. Sadly it is unavailable to me, as I'm outside America though.
- MBCook 10y ago
  People do sleep tracking with the Apple Watch, it doesn't take very long to charge at all. I don't, but I know people who just charge it up once or twice a day and wear it all day and night.