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There's a ton of cleverness involved in keeping an extremely compact device with radios and sensors running for tens of hours on a tiny battery while making it

There's a ton of cleverness involved in keeping an extremely compact device with radios and sensors running for tens of hours on a tiny battery while making it seem like it's always awake and ready to go when you need it to be. But the reality is that everything that needs any kind of power is being aggressively idled down and time sliced and being made sample-based as can be gotten away with. You can easily get a sense of this with heart rate monitoring, if you dig into Apple Health and observe the pattern of samples it takes. Almost certainly, running the sensor at such a high frequency that you could call it "constant" would drain the battery long before you woke up.

015a 2y ago
To be frank: I think what you're saying is true only of the Apple Watch, and Apple is wrong to believe that their priorities are the ones which would resonate most with their customers. Bands from Garmin, Whoop, and others have 24/7/365 sensor collection, with battery life measured in days and weeks. Apple instead prioritizes 3000 nit displays, laptop-class processors, and 60fps touch interactions. These are all characteristics which make for great keynote slideshows, and maybe even close a lot of "first time smartwatch" sales, but I simply don't encounter anyone who wouldn't trade much of that for an Apple-made device that lasts 3+ days and has higher resolution sensor collection. The sleep apnea detection alone is, while interesting, something of a farce when it was followed up with a "18 Hour Battery Life" slide; yes you can make it work, but its an active decision by Apple to ask you to, and it doesn't have to be this way.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  > 18 Hour Battery Life Didn't see the slide by my apple watch definitely lasts way longer than 18 hours. But, I also have the screen default to off instead of always on (lets be real, who spends all day staring at their watch; motion activated turning on seems like not even a compromise).
  - 015a 2y ago
    The Series 10 is confirmed for 18 hours, like the Series 9 before it. The Ultra will definitely last longer. The Series 9 can as well, if you turn off features which Apple advertised the Apple Watch as having, and if you do not record a single exercise throughout the day. If you use the watch how it was advertised, it will last ~18 hours, which means if you charge it overnight, wake up at 7am, are awake for 16 hours, it will not survive the night. Its not helpful, productive, or useful to state that you turn off headline features people paid to have in order to get greater battery life than even Apple advertises the device as having. Please adjust your discourse and do not repeat your behavior.

015a 2y ago

To be frank: I think what you're saying is true only of the Apple Watch, and Apple is wrong to believe that their priorities are the ones which would resonate most with their customers. Bands from Garmin, Whoop, and others have 24/7/365 sensor collection, with battery life measured in days and weeks. Apple instead prioritizes 3000 nit displays, laptop-class processors, and 60fps touch interactions. These are all characteristics which make for great keynote slideshows, and maybe even close a lot of "first time smartwatch" sales, but I simply don't encounter anyone who wouldn't trade much of that for an Apple-made device that lasts 3+ days and has higher resolution sensor collection. The sleep apnea detection alone is, while interesting, something of a farce when it was followed up with a "18 Hour Battery Life" slide; yes you can make it work, but its an active decision by Apple to ask you to, and it doesn't have to be this way.

lesuorac 2y ago
> 18 Hour Battery Life Didn't see the slide by my apple watch definitely lasts way longer than 18 hours. But, I also have the screen default to off instead of always on (lets be real, who spends all day staring at their watch; motion activated turning on seems like not even a compromise).
- 015a 2y ago
  The Series 10 is confirmed for 18 hours, like the Series 9 before it. The Ultra will definitely last longer. The Series 9 can as well, if you turn off features which Apple advertised the Apple Watch as having, and if you do not record a single exercise throughout the day. If you use the watch how it was advertised, it will last ~18 hours, which means if you charge it overnight, wake up at 7am, are awake for 16 hours, it will not survive the night. Its not helpful, productive, or useful to state that you turn off headline features people paid to have in order to get greater battery life than even Apple advertises the device as having. Please adjust your discourse and do not repeat your behavior.