Pocket Insider Latest Technology Review
Like many new smartwatches that were recently released, they all suffer from the same issue – battery life. Most of them would require frequent charging and users would be lucky to get through a whole day with medium to heavy usage on the wearable device. What some users find even more inconvenient is the fact that all the Android Wear smartwatches require their very own custom charging cradle as opposed to a universal charging port like a microUSB.
At Pocket Insider, we have been testing out different methods to increase the battery life of the Android Wear device and hopefully this would help users to get through the day.
Decrease the brightness level on the device
Like most devices, the brightness of the screen correlates with the battery life of the device. The brighter the screen, the more power it uses, the faster the battery drains. Turning this down a notch will help improve battery life. The Gear Live has 5 brightness level settings and having it set to 2 seems to yield the best battery life without sacrificing too much viewability.
Choose to have ‘Always-on screen’ options turned off
This option is turned on by default. Users will have to manually turn it off. Though Android Wear has an ‘ambient mode’ feature, it still drains battery over time. By turning the screen off, the device will still come to live when users turn their wrist – just like how you would looking at a regular watch.
Put the device on Mute
If real-time notification are not a priority and users are willing to tap the screen or hit the power button to bring the screen to live; ‘muting’ the Android Wear device is another great method to conserve battery life. When un-muted, each notification will bring the screen to life and vibrate to indicate a new notification. For power users, the battery life on the device could potentially take a big hit. Simply swipe down from the main screen of the watch to mute or un-mute the Android Wear device.
Conclusion
Our test was to determine how much battery is left on the watch with moderate usage that include viewing the weather, checking for heartbeat, responding to multiple texts and viewing email notifications. We set off at a 100% battery life at 7AM and by 9PM, our watch still has 62% battery remaining. Not bad in our opinion.
Disclaimer: Battery life will vary depending on the Android Wear device, applications loaded, power management settings, and user’s usage. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.
