Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

The best Apple Watch Ultra 2 feature is its outstanding battery life

Published Oct 11th, 2023 10:11AM EDT
Apple Watch Ultra on a wrist showing the homescreen
Image: Jonathan S. Geller

I was a proud Apple Watch Series 6 owner for a few years. After upgrading to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, it almost felt like I fell in love all over again with Apple’s smartwatches. Despite the brighter, larger display, I think the best feature of this smartwatch is something else entirely: Its outstanding battery life.

I’ve been using the Apple Watch since the Series 3 release. At that time, I didn’t exercise, but I remember how long the battery would last. Things started deteriorating around Series 5 when Apple combined the Always-On display with a 4G connection. Although Series 6 improved battery and AOD waste, I spent so much time with this watch that I needed to charge it almost twice a day to ensure I could sleep and exercise with it.

After a week of using the Apple Watch Ultra 2, I’m really impressed with how much I can push this watch to the limit, and I’ll still have battery remaining – which is the opposite feeling I have with the iPhone 15 Pro.

One day, I completely charged the Apple Watch Ultra 2 after lunch (1:30 PM), did a 45-minute Apple Fitness+ treadmill workout, tracked my sleep at night, and the other day, I went for an outdoor walk/run for about two hours without the iPhone and streaming podcast episodes on Cellular.

After doing all of that, I only reached 22% of the battery remaining at 10 PM – around 40 hours later. Interestingly, Apple promises 30 hours of battery life with this watch. If I focus on Apple Fitness+ workouts that require the iPhone/Apple TV nearby, I can surpass the 48 hours of battery life with no problem. This is just ridiculous.

The generous battery life makes me look forward to ever needing to turn on low-power mode, as I think I could go beyond the 72 advertised hours – a 12-hour increase compared to the previous generation.

If you’re on the verge of buying a new Apple Watch, I definitely recommend you take a look at the Apple Watch Ultra 2, especially for its battery life. It’s not very often that Cupertino has a product with such an outstanding battery life, and it truly makes a difference not having to charge your device all the time.

José Adorno Tech News Reporter

José is a Tech News Reporter at BGR. He has previously covered Apple and iPhone news for 9to5Mac, and was a producer and web editor for Latin America broadcaster TV Globo. He is based out of Brazil.