Even a standard watch requires some kind of power source to keep its small gears and needles moving. As digital devices, smartwatches also need power to run electronic components. So, battery life is an essential factor when choosing a smartwatch model. Our smartwatch would be quite useless if needs to be charged more than once each day. It doesn’t make sense to charge our smartwatch during the lunch, because it has very short battery life. However, current smartwatches have increasingly more powerful processor, more complex operating system, more demanding apps and bigger storage. Many apps require complex calculations that are performed near continuously and this could use up more power. Again, we need to deal with a trade-off, whether we use a smartwatch with simpler operating system, but longer battery life; or fully-featured operating system, but mediocre or even poor battery life.
In this case, we should be aware that not everyone will need full features in their smartwatches. However, it would better if we could find a convenient middle ground between functionality and battery life. As an example, e-ink display won’t be able to show colorful interface, but the battery life could be extended until up to one week with a single charge. In addition, a simpler operating system will require much lower power and ensure longer battery life. Apps should be well optimized and they shouldn’t run in the background when not needed. When installing a new app, we should consider whether it will have an effect on the overall battery life. It means that, we should install one app at a time and evaluate its effect on battery life, at least for one day. This will make sure that we won’t install poorly optimized apps.
Developers should focus on optimizing their apps, while keeping them fully functional. As an example, many apps are integrated with popular social network websites and it must be easy for people to easily share their valuable experience. Smartwatch users should be aware of the existence of an app that’s essentially a power black hole. After installed, it will continuously suck battery life dry, making the smartwatch usable for only a few hours. It is more crucial for smartwatch users to read review about an app, because bad effects can be multiplied on smaller devices. There are many good quality free apps and we should make sure that they are fully optimized for our purposes. It is preferable to choose smartwatch with standard USB charging port, although this could mean that the device will not be as waterproofed.
It means that we may need to choose smartwatch with wireless charging. The absence of holes on our smartwatch will make it more durable and less vulnerable to water exposure. We won’t have to worry about losing our USB or worse, proprietary charging cable during a trip. Lastly, the smartwatch should include battery-saving capability, to ensure that it will run longer. It means that when the battery level is low enough, non-essential features will be disabled and users may obtain at least a few hours of extra battery life before they arrive home.
