[Samsung Galaxy Watch 6] bikereep:
Summary

Something strange has occurred and for some reason I’m getting very long battery life (theoretically in the region of 4 days) out of my Samsung Watch 6 and I have no idea why.

In each 24hr period, this is a combination of ~13hrs with the watch on and working normally and ~11hrs with the watch on, measuring heart rate but in airplane mode and bedtime mode. Note, power saving option is always switched OFF. I say theoretically 4 days as I do not wish to drain my watch battery % too low as it can damage it’s long term health, so its mostly been measured between 90-95% down to ~50% with the exception of the data just below this text. I’ve measured it over several weeks and still get the same results. I will paste more data below this but to understand my routine, I charge watch around 6:30 pm, then put into airplane mode / bedtime mode from around 7pm. From 6am the next day, airplane / bedtime mode are switched off and the cycle repeats relatively reliably without much variation. This is my last lot of data where (for the sake of getting more data) I fully charged the watch to 100% and then used for ~ 72hrs without charging at anytime.

Charged to 100% by 7:30pm Sun evening

95% @ 6:30am Monday, airplane & bedtime mode off

77% @ 7pm Monday, airplane & bedtime mode on

70% @ 6am Tuesday, airplane & bedtime mode off

52% @ 7pm Tuesday, airplane & bedtime mode on

44% @ 6am Wednesday, airplane & bedtime mode off

21% @ 7pm Wednesday (was at 27% at 5pm but I had quite a few calls and messages which seemed to drain it more rapidly)

Is anyone else getting similar battery life?

Background

I previously have been disabling / uninstalling apps as per original post by @Seanie280672 (https://xdaforums.com/t/galaxy-watch-6-adb-debloat-connecting.4613093/) and I was originally getting some improvements to battery life. However a watch update in March led to battery life being appalling, I was losing 27-30% overnight and another 20% in the two hours after I had taken the watch off airplane & bedtime mode. I factory reset the watch and let it settle until ‘Device and battery care’ on Wear app, no longer showed it was learning usage patterns. It was still losing the same amount of battery %. Disabling / uninstalling the apps I previously removed using ADB made it worse. Re-enabling the apps afterwards didn’t help. So I factory reset the watch again and this time I was losing around 20% overnight and it was behaving better. I disabled playstore (through Wear app), as that was the only app registering battery loss in ‘Device and battery care’ and suddenly battery life reduced again. Re-enabling playstore, wiping cache etc still wouldn’t get me back to 20% overnight battery loss again. So I reset again. As soon as I reset and before I had a chance to do anything with the watch, it received another update. Since that update, battery life has been amazing and I have no idea why.

I’m in the UK, but I bought the watch as a parallel (grey) import. From the initial startup of the watch, Google Translate said the language was Mandarin so I assume the watch was imported from China – I’m not sure if that is relevant or not, whether it has different updates or not. I’ve listed all the watch and settings info below, just in case there is something that would give it this long a life. Understandably I have turned off all watch updates as I don’t want to risk losing what I have and going back to lower battery life. I have since updated apps on the watch, cleared cache several times and battery life is still great. This was the order of events:

Watch factory reset

Connected to phone and uploaded the previous saved settings from the Wear App

Update came through, so updated and restarted

After about 30 mins, I restarted and cleared cache

Through Wear, uninstalled Outlook, buds controller, Samsung global goals and a couple of other ones (can’t remember names). Did NOT use ADB at all.

Installed Google Wallet, Welltory, Simple Pixel watch face

Google playstore set to NOT automatically update apps

Watch model: Samsung Watch 6 PV4X model SM-R940 (not classic) 47mm

Settings:

Always On Display – Off

Power saving – Off

Raise to wake – Off

Watch face – Simple Pixel Watch face

Display timeout 15 seconds, Autobrightness – On

Bluetooth – on

Wifi – off

NFC – on

Touch bezel – on

Disconnection alerts – off

Remote connection – on

Samsung Health Settings:

Heart rate measurement – Every 10 mins while still

Stress – measure continuously

Sleep measurements: Blood oxygen- off, snore detection – off, skin temperature - off

Activities to detect – off

Inactive time – off

Previous weeks data:

Whilst learning usage patterns

92% at 7pm (weekdays)

86% at 6am - 11hrs, 6% drop, 0.55 %/hr

68% at 7pm - 13hrs, 18% drop, 1.38 %/hr

58% at 6am - 11hrs, 10% drop, 0.91 %/hr

42% at 7pm - 13hrs, 16% drop, 1.23 %/hr

Overall 50% drop in 48hrs = 1.04 %/hr

Whilst learning usage patterns

95% at 7pm (weekdays)

91% at 6am - 11 hrs, 4% drop, 0.37 %/hr

70% at 7pm - 13 hrs, 21% drop, 1.61 %/hr

60% at 6am - 11 hrs, 10% drop, 0.91 %/hr

44% at 7pm - 13 hrs, 16% drop, 1.23 %/hr

Overall 51% drop in 48hrs = 1.06 %/hr

Not learning patterns

92% 10pm (Fri night - Sun night)

88% at 8am - 10hrs, 4% drop, 0.40 %/hr

73% at 9pm - 11hrs, 15% drop, 1.36 %/hr

63% at 9am - 12hrs, 10% drop, 0.83 %/hr

47% at 7pm - 10hrs, 16% drop, 1.60 %/hr

Overall 45% drop in 45hrs = 1.00 %/hr

92% 7:30pm (weekdays)

89% at 6am - 10.5hrs, 3% drop, 0.29 %/hr

73% at 7pm - 13hrs, 16% drop, 1.23 %/hr

64% at 6am - 11hrs, 9% drop, 0.82 %/hr

45% at 7pm - 13hrs, 19% drop, 1.46 %/hr

Overall 47% drop in 48hrs = 0.98 %/hr

Weekdays

96% 19:30

92% at 6am -10.5hrs, 4% drop, 0.38 %/hr

74% at 8pm - 14hrs, 18% drop, 1.29 %/hr WiFi left on from 7am-8pm), play store updated 5 apps

65% at 6:30am - 10.5hrs, 9% drop, 0.86 %/hr

49% at 6:30pm