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So anyone who was able to get their Moto 360 over the weekend has had a few days to play with it by now. We’re curious — how are things going for you? We’ve heard early reports of poor battery life and performance compared to options like the LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live. We’re still putting the thing to the test ourselves so we’ll certainly be looking to validate or invalidate those claims in due time.
But if you were somehow lucky enough to be able to buy one (it’s sold out pretty much everywhere) how are you liking it thus far? Are you getting the dreaded 12-16 hour battery life (sometimes less) that others have warned against? Is the TI OMAP 3 processor doing Android Wear justice? Are you satisfied with its looks and build quality?
Folks are already in the thick of discussion about battery life over at AndroidForums.com, and they’re also dropping some first impressions in this thread here. Feel free to join them, or spill your thoughts into the comments section below and let everyone know if you feel the Moto 360 was worth the hype, wait and money.
I think I like my Pebble more than my 360… I’ll be selling my 360 shortly
You mind explaining why?
You probably won’t get an explanation of why because he probably doesn’t even own a Moto 360. More likely it’s just a pebble fan / owner astroturfing here. Sad, really.
You’re actually wrong… I don’t own a Pebble or a 360… Troll troll troll ya boat…
you smell like cheese
Feed me… feed the troll, my powers will increase tenfold!
Gently down the stream. If you see your house on fire don’t forget to scream.
Please, share with us how you came to this interesting conclusion before I buy one. And if you just got it, why would you not just get you a refund?
He’s just going to try to make a quick buck while they are out of stock.
Love the 360. Only had it for less than 24 hours but so far it does everything that it advertised and rather stylishly too.
I’m also sad that its become hip to hate on the 360. People conflated the thing with unrealistic expectations and made it more in their heads than it could ever deliver. No wonder Apple is keeping their device close to the chest. Moto should have done the same.
The rumors are flying though. We’ll find out tomorrow. Some of the iPhone people are claiming 3 days of battery life.
Yeah well what’s 3 days of battery life if the OS stinks. That’s 3 days of stink without having to charge it.
Funny there are no leak pics as of now. Wonder if nothing is going to be presented about it. I am no longer interested in IOS ecosystem and won’t be switching just for a 3 day battery watch. I do love my IPad but also love my OnePlus One and Moto360.
Ian B
Expectations is the key word. Everyone wants an unreal device for $250. If moto decided to use better CPU, better screen, better battery tech, and charged $500+, people would be crapping an equal amount of bricks right now for different reasons.
Who has it? Tell me about your battery experience’s.
Day+ easily with the default settings. Not two full days tho.
16 hours since charged this morning and still at 25%. Fully satisfied and changed band to pebble back steel one.
Ian B
So, were you able to change the band easily?
From your comment I can assume you have a Pebble, how is the Moto compared to it?
No pebble here. Liked their black steel band and got it put on the Moto. I like the screen better on Moto than my Gear Live that I sold and had about same battery life.
Ian B
I had the chance to get one through Google Play but I decided to cancel it, the reviews and comments about battery life did concerned me a lot and made me realize I’m not ready to wire my phone and my watch every single day
It’s wireless, so not a big deal there.
Good luck running out of battery in 17 hrs… I’m going to wait for the sony smartwatch 3
Stylewise looks ok, but I wanted my watch to round. The Moto 360 Looks awesome and no issues seen with supposed slowness yet! After the 4.4w1 update I’m at 8 hours with 45% battery left, much better than yesterday.
After months of build up I was deflated when the first two reviews came out because there was an expectation that the battery life was going to be good. It put me off ordering it on Friday. But after I started seeing on Twitter that MKBHD, TK Tech News and others were getting different results I went to Best Buy on Saturday to get it.
I’m at 47% left after 26 hours. Wearing it for 14 hours, sitting on the nightstand for 9 hours, then wearing it again for 3 hours. I have “ambient screen” off so the screen is off most of the time and switches on when I need it (when I look at it or receive a notification)
I think that setting is key to getting good battery life. If the screen is on all the time the battery will drain, just like my phone can last days if the screen is off but will die within hours if it’s on.
So for what I need it for (checking the time and notifications without having to pull out my phone) it works well and I am confident that I can get a full day of use even if I use it more than normal.
Edit: when I say “more than normal” I mean “more than I normally would”.
Hmm, I think I’d want to have the screen on all the time when I’m wearing it. I don’t want a blank watch face on my wrist.
Exactly. I can see tapping around through the watch and actually doing stuff with it draining things faster, but the thing should be able to at least last through a long day with the display on the whole time. It’s not a phone, it’s a watch, displaying stuff so you can see it at a glance without having to do anything is its purpose. Even a light theme should last through the day, ideally, but for first gen I would at least accept a dark theme being able to make it through the day even if a light theme could not.
Doesn’t the display come on when move your wrist to look at though?
Yes
I see what you mean about how it should be a watch first so it should always show the time. But I think in this case, a small sacrifice can be made. A simple turn of the wrist lights up the display instantly so it actually is very easy to see the time as soon as you turn the watch towards your eyes.
By turning this ambient setting off, in return, you get a beautiful smartwatch with amazing battery life. According to reports from TK Tech News, this ambient setting is literally the difference between 10 hours and 30+ hours. That’s the difference between getting annoyed if it dies 3/4 through the day and being extremely confident it will make it through the day easily.
this is the same for my LG G Watch, if I tell it to not have the screen on all the time vs it dimming to a watch face I get 2 days out of it. Of course all of this can change depending on how many notifications you receive throughout the day.
Exactly, the solution to this horrible battery stigma that the Moto 360 is starting to get is Ambient Display OFF Setting… Enormous difference. It sucks for Motorola that they are getting so much bad press just for this little detail… I am a huge Motorola fan and root for it to do well, especially with Samsung dominating the android landscape so hard. They have such a winner on their hands here but it’s getting tarnished because of all these bad reviews. I wonder how many people were interested in the 360 but then read the WSJ’s review and then decided to hold off. But to be honest, it is not the reviewers fault for not knowing… The Ambient Display ON setting is the default setting. Such a big oversight on Motorola’s part. Hopefully, the general public learns what the issue is before they cross out the idea off their minds completely.
EDIT: Welp… Looks like I was completely wrong about this. Ambient is set to OFF by default… That just makes me even more confused by these negative reviews then. Did reviewers really change the stock settings and then complain about battery immediately screwing it up themselves? When you change the setting, it even warns you that it will negatively affect battery life…
Ambient was set to ON when I removed mine new from the box direct shipped from Motorola
No offense but your numbers are confusing and misleading. Why don’t you charge it to 100% then wear it, without charging, and give us a number like “I am at 15% after 12 hours.” ?
Saying you are at 47% after 25 hours but with 9 hours of charging in the middle, doesn’t really say much.
Sorry for the confusion. It was sat next to the bed overnight but not charging. It’s been off the charger since 7:30 AM yesterday, it’s now 6:45 PM (35 hours) and I have 28% left.
Yes, this is light usage, but I think it’s good to share the other side to the story because the reviews almost stopped me from buying it.
I’m happy that if it can last this long I can get through any day no problem.
Waiting for more battery reviews before deciding if it’s worth pulling the trigger or not.
It’s important that it has these features – at leat a full 24hrs of battery, excellent sunlight visibility, waterproof and very light. If not, then I’ll not be paying for this with my hard earned cash.
Hopefully some OEM gets it right soon.
Minimum 12 hour battery life, but more like 16 – 24 hours of battery life.
Out of the Box, the charge was around 20%. Which is standard at the factory, since they only have to confirm it turns on and fulfills basic functionality.
Bought it on Saturday (9/6), used it (fully charged) on Sunday and got almost 16 hours (with over 100 emails, around 20 texts, 15 minutes of driving, & 2 sms texts responded via the ‘watch, & 20 minutes of customizing the watch face). Day 2 (aka, Monday) I am so far at 50% after 12 hours (starting at 7AM). All told, I SHOULD be on track to have a 0% charge by 7AM tomorrow.
Settings (note, Auto Brightness is not the same as Ambient Screen (aka, Always On, but dims when idle).
Day 1: Adjust Brightness = 1.
Day 2: Adjust Brightness = Auto
I think there is something there is advantage of using Auto Brightness versus a fixed brightness. This is my personal opinion and not based on any fact or experience testing mobile devices (let alone a smartwatch).
Also note the size of the battery being used compared to your phone.
Good Luck
I wish there was a way to see what a newer processor would have as an effect on the device. It’s possible the old TI processer doesn’t perform too bad in comparison, but if Motorola tested and decided it wasn’t worth the cost, it would be nice to see what they found so we can understand the choice.
Or, maybe that’s just what Gen 2 will do. Moto X 1st Gen was older hardware and they seemingly upgraded to a more realistic hardware set. Still not bleeding edge in areas but not so bad to make you feel like you’re buying a last Gen piece of hardware.
Today i wore it for the first time, off charge at 7:30AM, Dead at 3PM, So not even 8 hours, I have it default screen “on”, but it really sucked with it force shut down 2 hours before I left work. I love the watch, but if I can’t get 8 hour worth of battery out of it, not quite sure I can live with it. I didn’t even get many alerts.
Doing much better today, 3PM and at 45% battery! I got the 4.4W.1 update last night and has made a huge difference so far!