There are countless online guides offering to help you stretch the life of Apple Watch battery, generally by deactivating all the most flashy features. But I wanted to be more scientific on this subject.
I wanted to know which characteristics the most of the watch battery and the additional amount of life that you will earn by turning out each of them. In this way, we can decide on ourselves if it is worth the sacrifice to deactivate the display always activated, for example, or the various watch features of the watch.
Let's test!
How we tested
For this experience, I wore two identical watches (the Apple Watch 46 mm series without cellular) for two weeks. We did our best to make sure they were largely in the same state. One had 120 accusations to his credit, the other – expressed to a colleague – Had 162. The number of training recorded on the two devices should also be comparable: my colleague cycles, while I dance. Not together, of course.
I wore the two Apple watches at the same time (one at each wrist) on four test races. In two analyzes, the display function still on has been activated on one watch and not on the other. All other parameters were the same.
In the third execution, the updates of the background applications, the notifications of irregular heart rate and the general notifications of the application were disabled on a watch and left alone on the other. And in the fourth and last race, all the parameters were identical on the two watches to verify that they were at an equivalent battery level. This last race gives scientific validity to the rest of our results.
Results
As you can see on the graph above, the Apple Watch mode which always works on an excellent battery life of more than 30 hours. (It should be noted that I have received very few applications of applications on my Apple Watch during the tests, which may have helped.) But the watch without always hard 10 to 12 hours more. This is a significant increase in battery life by deactivating a unique (although useful and popular) functionality.
In the following execution (purple and green lines in the graph above), always activated on the two watches, but I disabled the refreshment of the background application, the notifications of irregular heart rate and all the notifications of the application (green). Although this is the best performance of the graphic, the differences are far from being as dramatic as when I always deactivated. Disable these features has earned us a supplement five.
It was not until the fourth round that I noticed a quirk. When synchronizing screenshots, I disconnected the watch on the left wrist of the iPhone and associated the one on the right. In the previous series, the left watch had shown better operating times, whatever the parameters. When the other watch was actively twinned, the image changed and, ultimately, the watch with a right wrist lasted longer than the left.
Conclusions
All the features that turn on the screen, whether it is always excessive notifications, will drain the battery. It's obvious. But the extent to which these characteristics affect the life of the battery varies.
If you use notifications sparingly, this will have a positive effect on the battery life. But management without always produced much more important gains, offering an Apple watch with unprecedented battery performance. You can also be strategic in your use of always: choose a face always on who displays the moment when it is locked, rather than a lot of additional information. It gives you the best of both worlds.
We have read online advice to deactivate the backdrop and heart rate notifications, but these seem to be nothing more than snake oil. Disabling these functions barely affects battery life, and irregular heart rate notifications can be one of the most useful functions of the Apple Watch. My advice is to keep them on.
Finally, we found that being disconnected from your iPhone companion for several hours has a negative effect on the life of the Apple Watch battery. This even applies to cell without cellular. So if you jog, it's best to take your iPhone with you.
This article originally appeared in our Sister Macwelt publication and was translated and located in German.
