HACKER Q&A
📣 gnicholas

Why do Apple and Google watches have such bad battery life?


Every time Apple or Google introduces a new smartwatch, I'm always hopeful that it will have 5+ days of battery life. Since they never do, I assumed that it's basically just not possible (without sacrificing size, a la Garmin).

But when I looked into replacements for my aging Pebble, I found out that various Chinese companies offer smartwatches that have great screens, svelte profiles, and much better battery life. Huawei, Xiaomi, and Amazfit all have watches that seem to have far superior battery life than Apple/Google. Why is this?

For example, I'm currently trying the Amazfit GTR 4, which is providing 8-9 days of battery life in real-world usage. The watch isn't bulky and the screen seems as good as any Apple/Google watch I've seen.

I know Apple and Google watches offer more functionality, but this doesn't explain why the devices would chew through 2x-3x as much battery as an Amazfit when in standby mode.

  👤 dirtyid Accepted Answer ✓
Chinese smart watches with great battery life are glorified fitness bands with limited set of features i.e. no onbard assistance support. Which is enough personally, loved my mibands, upgraded to a huawei gt2 for the occasional voice call and physical button that can be mapped to activate music controls on a big screen that's easy to tap with gloves on during winter. Plus occasional use of remote camera shutter feature. Which covers about 95% of my use cases. The other 5% which would be nice includes navigation, but there's apps that basically forward Googlemaps turn by turn notifications to watch relatively seemlessly. And implement basic voice Google assistance like in bluetooth headsets as well as mobile wallet, but they seem to be prioritizing mainland market. Regardless, easily worth the trade off of charging every couple weeks for me. Wish Google would replicate with model since they won fitbit, don't even need to strip out features from wearos, just include an extreme power consumption mode that disables most features that would allow multi week use between charges.
👤 nullish_signal
At some point in time Apple, inspired by Android, added "Wi-Fi" and "Bluetooth" On/Off to Quick Settings. It turned these radios On and Off. I loved it.

Then at some point Apple, in their quest to Find My Airpods, gimped this handy-dandy "Wi-Fi/BT off" action into "Turn Wi-Fi off (Limited Time Edition)", a new Grey + White color for the button. You can aaalways turn the radios "On"... :) Same for BT, and I believe both Radios stay connected to existing devices. Which is very useful!!! I love being in Bluetooth "Connected" state without "Advertising New Connections"!

More Radios = More Energy Usage. I only recently discovered how to make a "Radios On"/ "Radios Off" button on my Home Screen (With the included Shortcut App), that turn WiFi/Bluetooth ON/OFF (Cell Data Off), since Apple disabled the Quick-Settings "Off" functionalities. Amusingly, the intermediate "Connected" state is not available in Shortcuts - Only "On" or "Off" (Yes, "OFF", PHEW.)

Finally, I'm glad that "Off" is "OFF" for Cell Data. I know in my heart that some brave sonsabitches over at Apple are, thankfully, staring down the barrel of the "Botnet" gun and standing ground for Sanity and Reason.

👤 tmpburning
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