[burningChrome]

I finally got rid of one of my fitness watches that had dreadful battery life and I couldn't figure out why. After a few months of this, I finally realized the same thing, you can't turn off the bluetooth on it. The app on your phone and the watch are constantly searching for each other to always sync and the alternative is to unpair the watch, use it, re-pair, sync and go which became a total headache, but did in fact give me better battery life.

The weird thing is I complained to the company's CSR people online and they had no idea why the battery was so bad and just told me to try and factory hard reset the phone as there must be something I changed in the settings.

I switched over to Polar and now the watch I have lasts 5 days on a single charge - quit the change from about a day or less.

[II2II]

> I switched over to Polar and now the watch I have lasts 5 days on a single charge - quit the change from about a day or less.

I uncovered a cheap digital watch in the cupboard the other day. It hasn't been in use since it's strap broke at least four years ago. It is still keeping time. Poorly, granted. It is off by half an hour, Then again, it is the type of watch that needs updating twice or thrice a year to account for DST and leap years.

I realize that modern watches are much more than timepieces, but the difference is battery life is astounding.

[inglor_cz]

My Garmin stays connected to my Samsung smartphone via Bluetooth constantly and will last about 6-8 days on a single charge. I can't imagine charging my watch every night.

[LeifCarrotson]

I've been using Garmin GPS watches for more than a decade, they get two weeks on a single charge (double or triple that if you don't use 24/7 heart rate, or GPS, or Bluetooth/Wifi, but even on long trips I don't need months without a charge). And they have Bluetooth that syncs with my phone for weather data and optionally shows notifications, but it doesn't need a phone connection to be a great watch.

Sure, my top-end Fenix 6 Pro cost $750 new in 2019, and very little of that is hardware BOM (there's a lot of price segmentation), but it's still just as good as it was then. It's honestly extremely refreshing to deal with a company and an app that tries to build and sell good hardware rather than tricking you into a subscription.

[throwway120385]

I've gotten 5-7 days out of a charge with my entry-level Vivoactive 3 even 4 years later. They're very good.