watchOS 9.1 delivers shocking Apple Watch Ultra battery life increase with new feature

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Apple on Monday released watchOS 9.1 which delivers shocking Apple Watch battery life increase with a new Low Power Mode feature for Apple Watch Ultra. Low Power Mode reduces the amount of power that any Apple Watch uses so that you can save battery life. Apple Watch Ultra also gets a secondary lower-power workout mode that reduces the GPS readings to once every 2 minutes, and heart rate readings to once every 1 minute. In that mode, the unit can achieve up to 60 hours of battery life.

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You’ve got basically four levels [on Apple Watch Ultra]:

• Normal usage/mode: 36 hours of smartwatch battery life
• Normal usage with workout mode: 12 hours of GPS battery life
• Low Power Mode (full workout fidelity): Roughly 15 hours of GPS battery life
• Low Power Mode (reduced HR/GPS updates): 60 hours of smartwatch battery life

In my case, I started an hour-long run with 86% battery… and… umm… ended the hour-long run with 86% battery. Obviously, it burned some battery, but I apparently stayed within the rounding errors of that to basically be 1% or under. I noted that Dave from Chase the Summit got 1% burn on one of his one-hour trail runs.

And while all that might sound impressive – let’s keep in mind the watch is basically entirely in a low-power-almost-sleep-mode for pretty much all but 60 seconds of ‘work’ out of the entire hour. In reality, it’s certainly a bit more than that, but practically speaking, the amount Apple has turned off here makes this kinda a non-usable situation.

My point here is that for *sports* usage, the new lower-power mode isn’t super helpful. Instead, the mid-tier lower-power mode that doesn’t sacrifice any data depth is where you want to be (and if you really need to make some battery savings there, connect a HR strap instead).

However, as with most things Apple – the benefit of certain features isn’t always endurance sports. Instead, it’s part marketing, and part more casual scenarios. If you just want better battery life in general, and don’t care about data depth, and aren’t moving all that fast, then for casual walks, the data losses aren’t that big a deal. Especially if you have your phone with you so Apple Maps can do some magic.

With Apple Watch Ultra, in the Watch app on your iPhone under the Workout settings, you’ll see the new “Fewer GPS and Heart Rate Readings” option. Here you can toggle it on or off.

Low Power Mode turns off these features
• Always On display
• Heart rate notifications for irregular rhythm, high heart rate, and low heart rate
• Background heart rate measurements
• Background blood oxygen measurements
• Start workout reminder

Low Power Mode turns off these features when your iPhone isn’t nearby
• Wi-Fi and cellular connections1
• Incoming phone calls and notifications2

Low Power Mode affects these features
• Making a phone call can take longer
• Background app refresh happens less frequently
• Complications update less frequently
• Siri can take longer to process a request
• Some animations and scrolling might appear less smooth

When you use the Workout app in Low Power Mode on any Apple Watch capable of running watchOS 9.1, metrics such as heart rate and pace are still measured. You can have Low Power Mode turn on automatically when you begin a workout: