Most early impressions about the Apple Watch Series 10 are pretty positive. Not only does it have the largest display ever on any Apple Watch (despite a smaller overall case size than the 49mm Ultra 2), but it also weighs less and is thinner than ever.
The display isn’t just bigger — its brightness is improved when viewed from an angle, and the always-on screen can refresh once a second when you’re at rest, compared to once a minute previously.
In addition to the updated display and some new case options (the new polished titanium and jet black aluminum look pretty great), the Apple Watch is also getting a new health feature: sleep apnea detection.
This isn’t exclusive to the Apple Watch Series 10, as last year’s Series 9 will have it as well, but it was still a highlight of Apple’s presentation and another example of how they want you to wear the Watch all day and all night.
What’s the only problem with this? Battery life is still rated for 18 hours, or 36 hours in battery-saver mode (half of what Apple claims for the Watch Ultra 2). That means if I wake up at 7 a.m. and strap on my watch, it’ll drain overnight. Of course, the reality of this isn’t as extreme as I’m making it out to be.
While Apple has claimed 18 hours of battery since the Apple Watch was first released in 2015, recent models have easily surpassed that, despite changes like the always-on display.
It’s not unreasonable to wear it all day and overnight to track your sleep and then charge it in the morning to get ready for the next day. Apple has focused on quick charging in the last few models to make this more feasible — the Series 10 can be charged to 80 percent in just 30 minutes.
In my experience, this problem tends to come up a year or two into the Apple Watch’s life. I had the Series 7, and in less than a year its battery capacity dropped below 90 percent, and after about 14 months it was down to 85 percent.
This made a noticeable difference; if I wanted to wear my watch overnight to monitor sleep, it would need to be charged in the afternoon. If I used LTE while running and left my phone at home, the situation was even worse, as streaming music and tracking workouts could easily use more than 25 percent of my battery.
The Series 9 I got last December, however, is performing much better, with its battery capacity still at 100 percent. My Series 7 may have been worse, but I think Apple has done some solid charging optimization to keep things fresh.
Getting a day and change from the Apple Watch is in line with the Pixel Watch 3 we just reviewed, though it falls behind Samsung’s Galaxy smartwatch. But the comparison gets even worse when you look at Garmin’s line of fitness-focused watches, all of which can be used for over a week without needing to be charged.
Granted, they’re different from Apple and Google’s wearables that integrate well with all aspects of your phone’s OS, but that’s not the point. If you want to get full use out of your watch, wear it overnight to track your sleep and not think about it the next day, then the Apple Watch isn’t the best option for you.
This brings me back to the Series 10. How happy would we all be if Apple said this thing had three days of battery life? Matching the Apple Watch Ultra’s 36-hour rating would also be a win, since chances are you’ll get closer to two days of battery life in real-world use.
Instead, Apple did what it often does and slimmed down the Series 10. Sure, comfort is important when you’re talking about a wearable device, but I personally would have preferred a bigger, longer-lasting battery in exchange for a 1mm reduction in thickness (about a nine percent change).
Instead, we’ll just have to make do with faster charging, which, don’t get me wrong, makes a difference. It’s all too easy to imagine a world in which you wake up, put your Apple Watch on the charger for 45 minutes while you get ready for the day and then don’t think about it again until the next morning.
But this is another time you have to think about this thing that lives on your wrist. Overnight charging is no longer necessary, but charging every day without fail is still a hassle. I just wish I had an Apple Watch that I could forget about and just put it on the charger to top it up every couple of days. Maybe next year.