Watch 7 LTE Ultra - battery drain and feedback

[Richard-Tx]

First, I have had/used every Galaxy Watch (i.e. S3 Gear thru Watch 6 Classic).  Very familiar with using the features and removing unwanted apps and disabling unused features.  My only purpose for these watches are the health apps, LTE (enabled via TMobile), step counter.  Do a lot of running in hot/cold weather.

Last year, I had to return the Watch6 LTE classic due to logistical and technical issues and went back to my Watch 5 Pro LTE (W5P).  Have had the W5P since day 1 and the battery is rock solid, even after almost 2 years.  I look at two major areas of a watch.  Battery life and how it handles very hot weather.  Watch 5 Pro was perfect in both areas - Never a complaint from me.  However, I decided to get the new Watch 7 Ultra (W7U).  Even though I was not very impressed by the specs, I figured it was time to upgrade and that I got a great trade-in value for the W5P.  In addition, it had a 590maH battery - same as the W5P.  My display is never on unless I tap screen.  (i disabled "Always On").

So, getting to the point on my W7U experience after using it so far:

-  Ordered on Day1, received on July 19.  (faster than what was originally stated - good).

- Watch is a bit thicker and seems heavier.  Marine band is a bit wider.

- These are newer style quick-release bands.  Can't use previous bands (pin style).  These are not D-Buckle bands.  I really liked the original D-Buckle bands because I could get an exact fit/adjustment on my wrist.  In addition, with the D-Buckle, very quick to put on/take off the watch.  W7U bands take extra time now to put on / take off.  😞

- Speaker/Sound more powerful than W5P. - Great improvement over W5P.

- Titanium casing, just like the W5P.  This is good for better heat dissipation.  I have not had a change yet to try the W7U in >100 degree weather, whereas we have not seen the high tempt this year (yet).  The W5P easily handled 100+ weather.  Just don't make LTE phone calls in 100+ degree or else the watch will overheat.

- Quick button has very limited usage.  Why Samsung????  Anyways, I set it for the water lock feature.

- You can't place the W7U flat on a charging pad because the band prevents the watch from sitting flat on the pad.  However, once you place the W7U flat on the pad, you can put something on top of the watch to keep it flat.  Then it will make electrical/magnetic contact with the pad and start charging.

- Touch screen very responsive.  No delay in scrolling thru each menu.

- Screen very bright.

- The home and back buttons are directly on the side, which is different from the W5P which had the button on the side as well, but at a slight angle.  The W5P made it easier to press those two buttons.  When the buttons are directly on the side, you have to torque your finger/hand slightly to make contact with those buttons.  (of course everyone will have a different opinion on this button placement.

- Samsung still has NOT fixed the infamous problem where when you swing your arm, the display screen turns off.  WHY SAMSUNG??  Why do you turn off the screen when you swing your arms?  Didn't you learn/listen at all from all the complaints us runners informed you since the W5P.   Leave the display on and rely on the screen timeout to turn off the display when not in use.

Anyways I could go on-on, however, there is one item that I take the most concern with now is the battery life on the W7U.  As previously stated, my W5P battery life has been perfect from day 1 and still is solid after more then 1.5 years.  My W5P and W7U settings are manually set by me to be identical. 

However, I have noticed that the W7U seems to drain the battery by 35-40% faster than my W5P.  Yes, you read correctly.  I have watched my battery usage like a hawk on the W5P and it has aways been consistent and sturdy.  Never had a concern even as I speak now.  But, on the W7U, the battery drain is excessive.  As an example, while sleeping,  the battery went from 66% to 44% over a 7-hour period, as compared to my W5P that would go from 88 - 82% over that same period.  It's not clear to me why the excessive drain on the W7U, but even with power management turned on, the drain is still excessive. 

The only two items that could cause this are maybe the LTE signal or the health sensors.  Will soon experiment by turning these off to see if this makes a difference.

Overall, the W7U does not really offer any more "exciting" as compared to my W5P, but I really need to see what is happening to this battery.  Not happy about this battery drainage.   Curious if other W7U (LTE) users have the same battery issue.

[MMass]

I'm having the same battery problems. AOD is off. Getting worst battery than Watch 5 Pro.

[Home_in_BKK]

[derausgewanderte]

wow, that's more than a 10day battery. Nice

[mooresuperman44]

What's more then 10 days

[derausgewanderte]

sorry, misread the data. thought you had 1 day 11h on watch and only used 2% 🙂

[mooresuperman44]

Samsung is sending me out a shipping box to repair the watch

[sunny28]

I'm having similar issues but my brightness is all the way down, snore features turned off,battery saver on, touch bezel off, no vibrate on, automatic health on but had this same set up on my 5 pro and got 4 days battery and my battery gets maybe a day and a half with the ultra, not happy either and my 5 pro I had the mobile data on auto too this one I have it turned off to see if it helped but nope.

[derausgewanderte]

Okay, I tried another day without luck. I found one culprit was Google Assistant that drained the battery, but it didn't get much better after removing it.
I reset the watch and started fresh as new watch without recovery from backup. Once I turned the mobile networks to off, I started to get good rates. I have 80% of battery left after 22 hours. BT, WiFi are on, NFC and Mobile Networks are off. Power savings, AOD are off. Raise wrist to wake is on, screen time out 15s. I am using the Ultra Info Board watch face with a dark blue background. 

I regained my faith in Samsung's watch for now and crossing my fingers that it stays this way. 

[Ricardo66]

Great for you, that's exactly how I setup all my samsung watches. Everyone of them have improved life. I found don't miss those additional features

[derausgewanderte]

Update after almost a week with the watch. 

Disclaimers: 1) This is a single data point and I know this does not work or apply to everybody. 2) I am not trying to brag about my battery results - It has only been a week. 3) This might help a few folks with bad battery experience.

I received my watch on the 19th. I set up the watch with a recovery from a backup of my previous GW6 44mm. I charged the watch to 100%. My initial settings: BT, NFC and Wi-Fi are on, Mobile Networks auto. Power savings, AOD are off. Raise wrist to wake is on, screen time out 15s. I am using the Ultra Info Board watch face with a dark blue background. Default health settings. I installed Google assistant and didn't pay attention to its settings. It drained to 0 within 24 hours. I tried another day thinking it would settle. It did not. I realized that Google assistant used up most of the battery (I also realized that it inherited the listen to "hey Google" from prior backup).

I reset the watch and started with "new watch", no restore from backup. I used the same settings, except: NFC off, and LTE off. I believe that aside from Google assistant, the LTE on auto caused most of my battery drain. I thought that since I am not using it, auto will turn it off - obviously, it doesn't work that way. Maybe there were other software and UI settings that didn't carry over well to cause additional drain.

Again, this is a single data point, but it restored my hope that this will get better and might even help a few.
After 3 days, I have 10% left on the watch (if you do the math, 2d 18h plus 7h, I should get 3d and 1h). All the features that are essential to me are on. I used it for two 30min indoor bike exercises (no GPS, with Garmin cadence sensor) during the 3 days. I will also try this with Power saving on. It should possibly get me another day.
My first two suggestions are, do not use a backup and turn off LTE and try. If I ever needed LTE, I will be upset again. YMMV as with any suggestions. Good luck.

Screen captures taken within the same minute