Effects of watch face on battery runtime

[v3ngence]

It seems the face you choose makes a big difference!

I tested the "minimal" analog stock face, "simple" digital with no seconds, an app watchface called "speeds" with a smooth second hand, and a "luxury" face with animated gears in the background.

In order from most power efficient to least:
Simple: 28h 38m to 20%
Minimal: 24h 40m to 23%
Speeds: 21h 30m to 20%
Luxury: 12h to 20%

EDIT: The new update to KGW42R doubles battery life!?
Rotate: 49h 5m to 20%

Excel file updated, if you want to try it for yourself, just copy a whole sheet and just change the graph title and fill in your own date and battery data!

 

[nickf123654]

This is great!

I was wondering how the different watch faces would affect the battery, especially the animated ones. I also think a black background would help; a white or lighter background would use more battery to light up the display.

Thanks for taking the time to put this together! I look forward to your updates.

 

[ChrisNee1988]

This is great!

I was wondering how the different watch faces would affect the battery, especially the animated ones. I also think a black background would help; a white or lighter background would use more battery to light up the display.

Thanks for taking the time to put this together! I look forward to your updates.

Background shouldn't have any affect on battery life since this is an LCD, not oled

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

 

[AndrewAmazed]

Background shouldn't have any affect on battery life since this is an LCD, not oled

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

This should be true. The only thing that should make a difference is perhaps the second-hand on the watchfaces, and perhaps animations, etc.

 

[v3ngence]

This should be true. The only thing that should make a difference is perhaps the second-hand on the watchfaces, and perhaps animations, etc.

I thought the same, but you can see there's a difference even between the stock analog and digital faces, I guess processor power is part of the equation...

 

[koshtaru]

OP, could you possibly post the type of watch faces you were using, especially the "luxury" watch face. That would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

 

[v3ngence]

OP, could you possibly post the type of watch faces you were using, especially the "luxury" watch face. That would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

The minimal and simple are stock motorola, here's the "speeds" one I quite like it:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...ace.watch.face.speedometer.android.wear&hl=en

And here's the "luxury" pack of faces (I tested the white + black one with gears, it costs like a dollar):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goldenbrown.watches

 

[freeza]

Nice. I've switched to simple.

 

[DroidDavi]

have you tested to see if facer uses more power than the preinstalled faces ?

 

[2wyce]

Nice post. When I got my 360, the first thing I did was install a "Rich Watchface" watch face. The next day, I was down to 50% in about 2 hours! I had no idea at that time that different faces affected battery life. I almost believed the bad hype about battery life at that point. I was disappointed. So I decided to reset the device and give it another shot. I used the Minimal stock face this time and didn't install any apps. Battery was at 95% after 2 hours this time. Whew! I was excited about the watch again. I added all my apps back, 1 per day, to try and figure which app was draining like that. By that time, I had researched enough to learn that watchfaces could affect battery life, so that was the last app to install back. As soon as I did, it began to drink the battery dry again. Ambient off and either Auto brightness or 1 brightness at all times during this.

I still love the watch. While I can deal with this now that I know, it is a little disappointing not to be able to use ANY watch face and still get at least 20 hours of battery.

 

[v3ngence]

it is a little disappointing not to be able to use ANY watch face and still get at least 20 hours of battery.

Yeah I think the same, but hopefully it's just because the face devs are still learning and we'll get better battery life in the future for custom faces

 

[dadsterflip]

Man... I was just going to make a thread like this..... Today I noticed that using the stock faces my battery life stays longer. I was impress because by now it would have been less then 10% from 8 to 8 but I had 50 percent left...moderate notification and a few games like the wanna be flippy Bird. Used facer and it drops 10% instantly.

 

[aviatordoc]

I can confirm this as well.
Changed to stock Moto face and with ambient off and auto brightness, the thing breezes through the day with about 50% left at the end of the day. This with and active use of it through the day, including a short GPS guidance as well.
I was happy, rewarded it with a metal band.

 

[qhinton]

DON'T USE watch faces from out of the Play Store. They don't have the APIs, so they are like running full apps on your watch. I made mistake of installing these aftermarket faces and I was getting like 12-15 hours.

Now I'm using the moto ones and I get close to 24hrs. Today I took the moto 360 off the charger at 9am. It's now 8:45 and I have 44%. I'm using the minimal face.

 

[furiousgtz]

Awesome thread and very useful information. Love the Excel sheets! I'm on Classic face from day one and its the best face and good battery life. I'm left with 40-45%% end of the day 9:00PM

 

[djuniah]

Just wanted to chime in here a bit about watchfaces from the play-store. I'm the dev of the Secret Agent Watchface (I realize that I haven't use this username in conjunction with my rmukapps account anywhere to prove that, but what i'm about to say shouldn't be all that surprising). A lot of the custom watchfaces (including mine) do things like show the connected phone's battery life or show the weather. To do that, the face must make a call to the watch to request the info at some kind of interval. The extra battery drain from this is somewhat minimal if done properly, however it definitely will use more power than a watchface that just shows the time. I haven't really done full comparisons like the OP did (really nice graphs btw), but I'll definitely try to keep an eye on ways of improving this. Having come from a G Watch to the 360 (just got it today), i'll be paying a bit more attention to it.

 

[v3ngence]

See first post for insane KGW42R battery runtime!

 

[MRCANNADY]

Wow, that' awesome battery life! I'm going to try the rotate watch face now and see if I can get that type of battery life. One thing that I notice is that my watch drops from 100% to 98% in under 30 minutes, but after that, the watch pretty much last 24 hours before I reach 24% battery left, which is pretty good. I'm wondering if having apps like the browser/etc that are not properly coded, helps in killing the battery even when not in use? Also, what settings do you use to get that amazing battery life? I currently have my brightness at 1.

 

[v3ngence]

Wow, that' awesome battery life! I'm going to try the rotate watch face now and see if I can get that type of battery life. One thing that I notice is that my watch drops from 100% to 98% in under 30 minutes, but after that, the watch pretty much last 24 hours before I reach 24% battery left, which is pretty good. I'm wondering if having apps like the browser/etc that are not properly coded, helps in killing the battery even when not in use? Also, what settings do you use to get that amazing battery life? I currently have my brightness at 1.

I was pretty surprised, I just use auto brightness and ambient off, but I had plenty of notifications and a few calls too!
I have wear launcher, browser, flashlight, minimaps, and others installed, but I reset watch after the update and never installed a watchface app (facer, play store faces, etc.)

I like to charge with the display off, check the % with motorola connect, then give it 30-60min after it hits 100%

I bet the no aftermarket watch faces installed makes a difference though :good:

 

[lanwarrior]

The minimal and simple are stock motorola, here's the "speeds" one I quite like it:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...ace.watch.face.speedometer.android.wear&hl=en

And here's the "luxury" pack of faces (I tested the white + black one with gears, it costs like a dollar):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goldenbrown.watches

That "speed" one have a built in speedometer, which user GPS. Wouldn't this kill you phone battery?

---------- Post added at 11:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:34 PM ----------

Emm, what is this Rotate watch face? I don't see it in stock list.