A new habit in no time!
Wristly Apple Watch Insider’s Report #20 September 15, 2015
More than 1,200 of you completed this week’s research survey focused on your experience and assessment of performance of the Apple Watch battery in your daily use. The results and insights didn’t disappoint us!
It is a “vital” sign
A small majority of Apple Watch owners are somewhat concerned about the battery usage of their watch as they tend to check it on a regular basis throughout the day. The real question though is this checking of the battery level some type of anxiety or just curiosity?
A new habit in no time!
How many new consumer products can you name, that in a matter of months, alter/change or create a new consumer behavior? Not many, and yet that’s what the Apple Watch seems to have done in the area of battery.
In no time at all, 94% of you have turned a potential huge product liability (who’s gonna want to have to charge yet another electronic device with yet another new charger) to an apparently effortless new behavior — simply charging the Watch while you sleep. This reminds us of the debates on the same topic about the iPhone introduction. Many pundits and competitors doomed the iPhone to be uncompetitive with its shorter battery life. Yes, remember the days when high end phones before the iPhone didn’t need to be charged daily?
We do not know of many other new consumer products that foster such a consistent behavior so rapidly. It is for sure linked to the fact that for the very large majority of the panel, the battery is largely a non issue when the expectations is for it to simply last all day.
Not a problem for most, but some nuances
While in the aggregate only 3 % of our panelists report that their Apple Watch doesn’t last long enough for their “typical” day of using it, the insights are more distinctive when we look at it by the model size of their Watch.
Indeed and as expected the 38mm shows more straining than the larger 42mm version — with 7% of the wearers of the 38mm reporting challenges with their Watch lasting the entire day without recharging.
This difference is confirmed when we assess the overall customer satisfaction level that our panel gave the battery. Of 38mm owners, 12% were somewhat or highly dissatisfied with battery vs only 8% for the owners of the 42mm model.
Workout tracking is the primary perceived culprit
We asked our users to report what they thought were the activities that were most likely to drain their battery, and “Workout tracking” came out way ahead as the probable primary culprit. While 45% of the panelists didn’t know or couldn’t specify a specific battery draining activity, another 45% assessed that the issue was Workout tracking (another way to think about it is that 45% of the 55% who cited a reason — more than 80% of those who specified at least one activity — chose Workout tracking as the cause of an abnormally high battery drain).
Given the popularity of Watch as a fitness device, this is surely an area that deserves further attention. Besides Workout tracking — using maps and directions was the only other activity many thought was responsible for draining their Watch battery.
High Customer Satisfaction Ratings Overall
When looking at the other key elements of the battery/charging experience, specifically how long it takes to charge the Watch and the use of yet another new charger, the majority of the panel is somewhat satisfied or highly satisfied with the experience. The charger scored a minimum satisfaction rating of 76% whereas 89% of respondents were globally satisfied with the length of the time it took to charge the Watch.
In summary, our large panel of Apple Watch owners has confirmed that Apple has done a very good job insofar at setting the right expectations and usage model for the Watch and it’s capacity in terms of battery. Early reports of the upcoming watchOS 2.0 have however cast some shadow on this area so we will be sure to check again in a month or so and make sure that native apps didn’t eat away at the Apple Watch battery.
Thank you for your participation in this research project. Please continue to refer friends and colleagues who also own the watch — this helps continue to make our research platform the most insightful on the market.
