Battery

What uses the most

• Keep screen on and high brightness: a lit screen is the biggest drain.
• Keeping the map on screen for long stretches: drawing it costs more than a data page.
• The watch’s own GPS, without your phone: with your phone nearby, the position often comes from the phone (see Phone GPS and watch GPS).
• Downloading maps to the watch, especially over Wi-Fi: best done with the watch charging.
• A Bluetooth heart rate strap uses little, but some.

Tips

• For long days out: Saver brightness (on watches with a light sensor), “Keep screen on” off, and the map only when you need it. Coming in 0.3
• On long outings, keep the always-on screen on Time and distance (the factory setting): with Data or Dim data the watch uses a little more, and so it does if it updates more often than every 10 s (see Always-on screen and brightness). Coming in 0.3
• If you’re carrying your phone, let the watch use its position (leave “Always use the watch’s GPS” off).
• On long stops, if you don’t need the alert for moving while paused, turn it off: GPS will switch off after 3 minutes.
• The home screen turns GPS off after 3 minutes untouched; download maps with the watch charging.

The numbers depend a lot on the watch, the temperature, the screen and whether you carry your phone, so we don’t give a figure in hours: if you’d like to help us measure it, send us diagnostics from a long outing (see Sending diagnostics).