Battery LIfe

[Federico Ormesani]

@Kai-Liu
Hi after months I’m back. Today start with alpinism activity and 100% battery plus ariplane on, plus display off, plus don’t disturb on. After 5.45 hours S7 switch in battery save mode (battery minor 5%). It has not finished the activity and it lost the data of my activity.

[Brad_Olwin]

@Federico-Ormesani That is about how long I am getting now 6-8h max. You should not lose your activity, recharge the watch and the activity should sync to SA. I have had this happen several times and not lost the activity up to the point the watch went into power save mode.

[Egika]

Has the question been answered, what to do to get the stated 12h recording?
Cycling mode?

[iTomB]

Hi,
As for battery life, I’m pleased with it.
I’m only cycling, and when I do, I get a consistent 10% per hour (no airplane mode, screen comes on when I turn my wrist, screen not locked).

In daily life, notifications on, screen brightness auto, bluetooth connected, I get about 35 hours ( yesterday with one hour of cycling) of battery life.

Tom

[Egika]

@Tom-Broekaert yeah - cycling is known to consume less than hiking. Apart from hiking measuring cadence I have no idea why this difference is so big…

[Jamie BG]

@Federico-Ormesani I don’t think the plane mode works too well.
I think that wifi and especially bluetooth continue to try and connect.
Next time try switching off wifi and switching off blue tooth - don’t bother with plane mode.

[Jamie BG]

@Egika based on 4 three to four hour paddle board sessions which only consumed 8-10% per hour I do think that their 10-12 hours GPS only tracking battery claim is potentially feasible.

Switch off wifi, switch off blue tooth (I am not sure if it is a Suunto or wear os issue, but don’t think plane mode works well - in fact when I last tried it I think it causes battery drain - i suspect blue tooth continues to search, rather than resting). June 30th update may have fixed it, but based on Brad’s experience possibly not (depends on what version Brad has).

Start activity tracking (I then lock buttons), press menu button to go back to watch screen, and set display off.

Use suunto button when I need to review activity.
The tilt to wake action doesn’t work for my activities as wrist is regularly tilting so keeps watch screen on, hence need to switch off screen (does this even if I switch it off in suunto options - a bug issue that needs to be fixed).

[Egika]

@Jamie-BG yes, I noticed the same with SUP - the display constantly activating will be dealt with the next update.

I highly doubt that airplane mode does not disable BT and WiFi - as this is a regulatory requirement.

Still my question is, why hiking and cycling (with the same settings!) yield such different battery life…

[Egika]

@Egika said in Battery LIfe:

Still my question is, why hiking and cycling (with the same settings!) yield such different battery life…

So one thing is that the S7 GPS is using higher power when in worse satellite reception places and when at slower speed (or stationary). Both is more so the case with hiking instead of cycling.
I hope that some development focus is put on this to enable some predictable GPS run time independent of the selected sports mode

[Jamie BG]

@Egika - when you try this is your screen on or off? Try both keeping your screen off for both activities, and while it is always going to vary slightly (due to terrain features etc), I think you might that the battery usage will be very similar.

I suspect that title to wake activity on wrist movement is causing the difference. When you cycle your wrist is fairly stationary and barely ever tilts - not the case when you are walking/running/hiking.

Hopefully they will soon solve the tilt to wake bug when you turn it off in the app it will actually work, so no need to switch off screen to stop this issue.

I generally operate with screen off mode, and have found battery usage similar across a varitey of different activities.

[Fenr1r]

@Egika said in Battery LIfe:

predictable GPS run time independent of the selected sports mode

Interesting but how would that work?

Can you essentially duplicate GPS settings between sports modes on the S7, making whether you are hiking in a Cycling mode or cycling in a Hiking mode irrelevant to GPS run time? And then …

Doesn’t predictability require knowledge and/or control? And in this case one of the major variables is 3D environment.

=> Wouldn’t you need pre-knowledge of the sky-masking on a to-be-followed-exactly route (adjusted to your personal watch/wear configuration)?

Or would it involve a constantly adjusting display of remaining run time assuming future energy-use at last-fix levels?

As for control: assuming the GPS is pulling as little power as possible (at its settings), isn’t the only control possible pulling more power unnecessarily? (Maybe working on Covid by doing a little FoldingOnWearOS.) I.e., you can shorten to a predictable time but not lengthen … and why would you?

[Jamie BG]

@Fenr1r - I think the suggestion is that potentially the checking with satellite time is different - but can’t see why you would want to do that, and would think that hiking etc would poll less frequently than cycling (as less distance moved).

But too my point I don’t think that is the case as I use 3 very different options very regularly and with my screen off there is little variance in battery usage (any difference I would put to terrain features).

[Egika]

@Jamie-BG yes, both with screen fully off.
You can try it yourself. You will see a noticable difference!

[Federico Ormesani]

@Brad_Olwin I lost data. When the S7 switched on Save battery mode and recharge it to sync the result is in attached.

[Federico Ormesani]

@Federico-Ormesani

[Federico Ormesani]

@Federico-Ormesani
The problem of battery life in generale is objetcive. Register one activity about 6/7 hours it is difficult to fully complete. This is my opinion, and I don’t think that my S7 has a problem. It is a wroste engineering design

[Brad_Olwin]

@Federico-Ormesani It appears that the activity was saved up to the point that the watch went into battery saver mode. I do not know why the altitude was not transferred. I am on iOS and all the data up to the watch going into battery saver mode is transferred.

[danklod]

Hi all,
my impressions that when I’m using the watch with screen off the battery life is more extended but this is usefull for some activities like rowing and swimming. But when I’m in the mountain for hiking, trekking and etc and when I often have to use the map to understand what path I have to follow the battery life is about 6/7 hours like @Federico-Ormesani said. Also if in next update been added the option to we can import gpx tracks and follow the path this will be increasingly annoying. Perhaps if we can use this activities with some simple mode option or cutted function or anything else this will be great.

[luca760101]

Last test on a trail running skyrace, with mountaineering passages but always with visible gps (almost all at 2300 meters above sea level without tree cover): final activity of 7:15 h, my S7 died at 5h29m of activity in mode plane. Do I have to resign myself to not being able to use the S7 when it goes over 5h? Dear Suunto, help us …

[Egika]

@luca760101 depends on the settings.
Right now the GPS is using a lot of power when moving slowly (or almost stationary).
Until the next update is there, you could try cycling as sports mode. This will increase the battery run time to 10-15h (that’s what I get)