Battery Life Quite Poor and Inconsistent

[Acudoc]

I have been experimenting with display settings on the S2 since Friday. Battery life has been very inconsistent. Today, for example, with brightness set to 5, screen always on and using the hand motion to awaken
I was at 22% at 5:30 pm starting at 100% at 8:30 am (it's on the charger right now). This is with fairly
minimal use. It was even off my wrist for an hour. Not too many notifications today.

The S2 froze this afternoon (first time) and had to be re-booted. S Fitness sometimes was taking many seconds to open since last night. So there might be some software related issue with the battery.

Anyway, yesterday with the brightness set higher at 6, and alerts for HR and activity on (turned off this am to try and get even better battery life) I got to bedtime with 33%). Acceptable. The prior day with the display set to 9, the S2 didn't make it thru the day before needing a recharge in the early evening.

Anyone seeing issues like this? Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[Acudoc]

Well, I charged the watch to 50% and have worn it for 1 hour. I've done nothing with it - just worn it. It is now down to 15% so there is a serious issue. I'll take it back to Best Buy tomorrow and get a new one if they have it in stock.

 

[winpeguy]

Dude, you mentioned that you have the "screen always on". Did you not read the warning when you turned this on that says: "Turning on Watch always on will significantly increase battery consumption".

Turn this off and try again. Don't assume you have a bad watch if you don't understand that your settings may be the cause.

 

[forkee]

Unfortunately I agree with you,

The battery life is horrible (at least for me because I never had a smart watch before. My solar Casio pro trek has lasted 10 years without ever changing the battery).

Anyways, the first day I took off charger at 540 in the morning. By 10am it was at 50%. It completely died at 3 pm. This was with the CNN watch face, always on active, brightness at 4, wake up gesture on, and all connections active.

The next day I went with the modern utility watch face, turned off "always-on", kept brightness at 4, turned off wake up gesture, and turned off all connections except wifi. By bedtime at midnight it still had 20% juice left.

Just adjust settings depending on need and it should get you through the day. I just have to get accustomed to charging it every night like my phone.

 

[sag7392]

I don't know what's going on with your S2. My experience is completely different. I do not use the always on feature, with the screen brightness set at 5. I take my watch off the charger at around 6:25a with 100%. I get a healthy number of messages on it and I check it all the time. By the time I'm ready to go to bed at around 10:30p, my S2 is left with around 60% battery. Therefore, I believe I could get an additional day without charging it. I may see if I can this weekend.

 

[haus]

Have any of you installed any apps, possibly including a flashlight app? Those flashlight apps can keep the screen on (either a bug or a feature depending on how you look at it) if you turn it on and then go to the home screen without turning it off, supposedly. There was another post about this as a way to keep the full watch display on all the time, which will definitely drain the battery. Two things that will kill it are screen backlight and wireless gone haywire.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

I don't know what's going on with your S2. My experience is completely different. I do not use the always on feature, with the screen brightness set at 5. I take my watch off the charger at around 6:25a with 100%. I get a healthy number of messages on it and I check it all the time. By the time I'm ready to go to bed at around 10:30p, my S2 is left with around 60% battery. Therefore, I believe I could get an additional day without charging it. I may see if I can this weekend.

Do you have wifi and nfc on?

With both of those on, I had 20% left from 6am to 8pm. I am turning off both today to see if I get better battery life.

 

[FitzAusTex]

Do you have wifi and nfc on?

With both of those on, I had 20% left from 6am to 8pm. I am turning off both today to see if I get better battery life.

yesterday was the first day that I spent out and about running errands with my S2 for about 7 hours. I had wifi on and nfc off. Left my phone in car accidentally for about an hour while I wandered around best buy. Ended the day at 9% after 15 hours. I admit that I'm playing with my s2 more this first week than I normally do with my Gear Live. Live ends most days around 50%. S2 has been ending most days around 30%. Assume that when new toy wears off, I could probably end up at 50%. Both watches have ambient on and tilt to wake off. That being said, not convinced yet that S2 has acceptable enough battery cause that 9% worries me.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

I got much better battery life yesterday.

I went out at 6pm with a full battery and got home at 11pm with 89% left.

 

[FitzAusTex]

Was at home most of yesterday and wore my S2 for 17 hours, and ended the day with 54%. Gear Live that was on the kitchen counter 98% of the day ended at 43%. Still gotta figure out what caused me to be at 9% the day before.

 

[supersoulfly]

With most battery draining features on (wake up gesture, always on watch display, S-voice wake up on, etc..) I can get through 24 hours. After a 17 hour day with the watch on I put it back on the charger typically with 35% left on the battery.

If I got conservative with the battery draining features I think I could get to the end of a second day before needing a charge.

 

[Xandroid]

I know I'm a bit late to the game... but.. First day with my gear s2. Not too impressed with battery.. Took it off of charge (100%) at 0535, its 1304 now and its at 24%. I did just play with some of the settings, ( turned off HR, Set brightness to 2, turned off WiFi & NFC..) Will try to go a day with the new settings tomorrow.. Hopefully the battery lasts me longer, otherwise this nice watch is going back to the carrier store.

 

[nickdeck]

With most battery draining features on (wake up gesture, always on watch display, S-voice wake up on, etc..) I can get through 24 hours. After a 17 hour day with the watch on I put it back on the charger typically with 35% left on the battery.

If I got conservative with the battery draining features I think I could get to the end of a second day before needing a charge.

This is pretty much my experience, too. Seems like most of the folks with battery problems are using the 3G model.

Since the recent update, I've got time-out set to five minutes with wake-up gesture on, and I generally have about 50-60% left on the battery when I go to bed.

 

[NoFaQ]

I have the 3g, and through a normal day I lose ~25% battery per day. Obviously, if I forget my phone or go for a run where I am not connected to the phone, and only the cellular connection, the battery drains faster. But, I don't seem to be having any battery issues.

 

[jjhoneck]

I have the 3g, and through a normal day I lose ~25% battery per day. Obviously, if I forget my phone or go for a run where I am not connected to the phone, and only the cellular connection, the battery drains faster. But, I don't seem to be having any battery issues.

You can go four days without charging??

I've got the 3G model, and always make it through the day, but that's about it. How are you getting such stellar battery life?

 

[ehosey2]

^If you don't have to have the watch face come on from the gesture and can live with manual activation of the watch face such as tapping a button or a slight click of the bezel then that seems to increase battery life quite a bit. I have just started doing this and while the face still comes on automatically when receiving notifications from email, texts, other applications, etc. I am thinking I am okay with not having the watch face always coming on automatically. I was at 100 percent at 8:00 am and now just after 1:00 pm my battery is at 91 percent. I do have the AT&T version with Number Sync activated. I have found that with gestures set to on the watch face stays on for 7 seconds, but with gestures off the screen stays on for 14 seconds. And without the watch face always coming on just from normal walking around my battery life has improved.

 

[weiss1173]

Someone want to list the settings they use to get good battery life? I just switched to the 3G and I left it aside for 5 hours untouched, and it was down to 29%. Samsung said to return it to Verizon... I already had 3G set to auto switch.

I turned 3G and NFC off, gesture off, don't know if I can turn HR off. What else can I do? I am ok having to charge it nightly at bedtime. My BT only version would use 25% a day untouched in comparison.

I would appreciate any help.

 

[haus]

Someone want to list the settings they use to get good battery life? I just switched to the 3G and I left it aside for 5 hours untouched, and it was down to 29%. Samsung said to return it to Verizon... I already had 3G set to auto switch.

Mine has done this a couple of times early on (I started a thread about it here back in November). I don't know what caused it but it hasn't happened in a long time. I have gear network (3g) on all the time, bluetooth on, wifi off, location on (I use it running and it stays on when you set it that way, meh...). Brightness maybe 5. Ambient mode OFF (this is key - ambient mode sucks battery like nobody's business). I did notice when Verizon sent me a bad Note 5 with bluetooth radio/antenna issues (range of 5 feet) both my phone and watch battery were dying very quickly during the day as I moved around the house, probably struggling to stay connected. Replacement phone seems to have solved that. I can usually go a whole day, and if I'm concerned about the evening I can put it on the charger for half an hour around 5pm and I'm good to go. I charge every night.

 

[weiss1173]

I appreciate the response. I hope that my issue will resolve itself as yours did. I turned off the wake-up gesture and set brightness at 2 as well to see if that helps.

 

[haus]

I appreciate the response. I hope that my issue will resolve itself as yours did. I turned off the wake-up gesture and set brightness at 2 as well to see if that helps.

That should not be necessary to get through a day. I have wake-up on and brightness at 5 and I'm at 28% right now after a day that started about 16 hours ago. Do you have any apps installed? What watchface?