[npinguy]

Interesting idea. Certainly a large percentage of our smartphone usage is turning on the screen to glance at a notification, then dismiss it. Smartwatches allow you to not have to do that. But the notification still comes to your phone, and still needs to be beamed to your wrist. So you don't save on any network usage battery. It's basically only the screen. Now the screen is expensive, no doubt. But even so, how much additional battery life would you get out of a phone from turning the screen on 50 times less over the course of a day?

[wpietri]

I don't think it's really about getting more life out of the existing battery. I think it's more about better integration with people's lives. E.g., I don't want to have a fit of beepilepsy every time I get a text or a calendar notification. Glancing at the watch is way better.

But as a side effect, I think moving a bunch of watch-friendly things to a watch will let you make the phone bigger. That won't reduce total power usage, but it will increase power availability.

[bane]

well now you have another (smaller) screen that's going to get turned on and off 50 times a day instead.