At this point, it’s pretty clear Apple targets a specific battery life (18 hours) and builds the techs around that. As a result, I don’t think we will get an improvement in that area anytime soon.
However, it does look like they improved the charging story—something like 80% in 30 minutes? Not bad.
I've thought about this. How much more battery life would they have to build in for it to be noticeably better?
When I charge my watch at the end of the day, I usually have plenty to spare, but not always enough to make it through to the morning (especially if I tracked an exercise). Even if a new watch got 24hrs of battery life, I would still have to charge it at night so I wouldn't really matter. I'd guess that 18hrs it a balance that keeps people content and gives Apple's engineers enough room to fit in all the features they want.
Of course, I would love to be able to track a long exercise or a 10-hour hike...but there's a different price tier for that.
Three days would be solid, that would get me mid day Friday to mid day Monday. Sleep data is a high priority for me and it's go time pretty much from when I open my eyes (little kids) so I wear the watch pretty much 24h/day. On desk work days I charge there (not much activity to miss) but over the weekend or if I'm traveling that gets disrupted.
For me I need a routine. Charging daily works well for me, else I would want 7 days. I think Apple targeting super quick charging really alleviates the issue for me all together. I’m on an old series 4, and instantly preordered this one. I’m sure it is gonna feel like a whole new level of luxury compared to what I was already pretty happy with.
I want to put that thing on in the morning on a Friday, get a text message from a friend about some crazy party of weekend event and be able to attend that to make it home Sunday night to get ready for work on Monday.
Yep they do this for all their platforms, set a battery target based on ~90%tile daily usage of particular form factor (e.g. 18hr watch/iphone, 10-12hr macbook/ipad) and then let ID & chip teams do whatever they want to hit that. The value add of every additional minute/hour of battery life drops off from there because daily loops for charging are realistically what everyone will do, and there's more value add in other places like making things thinner, faster, or do something new.
However, it does look like they improved the charging story—something like 80% in 30 minutes? Not bad.