I have been a smartwatch users for several years now, and I can say for sure that battery life still remains that one issue that continues to plague this gizmo category. There are a few ways to mitigate that, but unfortunately, many smartwatch makers choose the absolute worst solution: making the smartwatch bigger.
It seems Samsung is likely to be the next victim of this. According to a SamMobile report, the company is working on a “Pro” version of the next-generation Galaxy Watch. The information about this new device is still scanty, except for one thing: this “Pro” model could potentially pack a much larger 572mAh battery.
If true, that would be a meaningful upgrade. Poor battery life is one of the biggest complaints users have complained about with Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 lineup. It’s also common for “Pro” models to act as the premium option with longer battery life, better materials, and, unfortunately, the biggest honking display possible.
I don’t at any point doubt Samsung’s capabilities of figuring out a way to include a bigger battery without increasing the size of the watch. However, recent smartwatch trends hint otherwise. For example, the Apple Watch. The Series 7 bumped up the size of the watches from 40mm to 41mm, and from 44mm to 45mm. A teardown by iFixit revealed that the Series 7’s batteries were 1.6 percent larger for the 41mm and 6.8 percent larger for the 45mm. It’s likely that the larger always-on displays needed beefier batteries to maintain that same 18-hour battery life.
Samsung is not innocent of this. When the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 was launched, it came in 41mm and 45mm variants. The Galaxy Watch 4 Classic comes in 42mm and 46mm. What would a proposed “Pro” version be? 43mm and 47mm? You might think a 1mm increase in size isn’t much to complain about, but it adds up over time.
At a certain point, this becomes unsustainable. There’s a limit to how big we can make these devices before the battery gains are offset by discomfort. It’s bad business to exclude potential customers who happen to reside in smaller bodies. Some of this is just the current limitations of wearable tech. Also, nothing is set in stone yet. Samsung could just scrap the whole idea of a “Pro” watch. But even so, I would hope that these companies are using their resources to create new solutions to that problem instead of always opting for the easy way out.
