The Coolest Watch You'll Ever Stop Wearing

I keep updating to the latest incarnation of Apple's flagship device in hopes that this will finally be the model that protects from constant fear of running down the battery. And it's not. Business trips mean that checking email, analytics, or news as you travel, torches your great looking but kind of fragile device in 3 to 4 hours.

Even at home or the office, do you use any of the other tools that make up some of your favorite features? Bluetooth speakers? Video? Graphic-intense games? It sucks battery power like a meth addict with a 2-liter Mountain Dew.

Which finally brings me to the Apple Watch. We've seen all the videos on features and the health related tracking abilities. Some articles have indicated that the watch will have an 8-12 hour battery life on a full charge. So consider that you may wake up and put on your fully-charged watch a couple of hours before you get to work. Then 9 hours at work. Dead watch? What about using it after work at the gym? Wanting to use sleep monitoring to try to get to why you aren't feeling refreshed in the morning (because you're losing sleep as you worry about your phone dying)?

Add all the possibilities and you end up with a watch that sits on your nightstand, connected to the charger. You finally get sick of worrying about battery life for a watch. It becomes more of a hassle than a status symbol.

I've had the opportunity over the last couple of weeks to test smartwatches by Meta Watch and iPanda Electronics. One of them lasts about three days on a single charge; the other, about 19 hours. It has some very interesting sleep monitoring software but you can't wear the phone all day and night to use it. So you have to either pick and choose which time of day to wear the watch or you have to keep it plugged in sometime during the day to ensure that it works when you need it. But it's a wristwatch--you aren't supposed to have to keep removing it for two hours so that you can wear it again. I can keep my phone plugged in during the day while I'm working--what's the point of having to do that with a watch? Charging once every three days is a hassle, but it's acceptable. Charging once per day is very annoying--especially when you find yourself checking two devices all day to see if you're about to be dead (battery) in the water.

Now, consider that in addition to the watch dying, you also have the issue of your phone's battery dying that much faster because it's connecting/looking for/reconnecting to the watch all day. One more thing to drain your iPhone's battery surely seems like a non-starter.

I admit that I use my phone as much or more than anyone else I know. But my feelings are that I'm trying to use it as it was made to be used: it's a business and entertainment tool that contains what I need to keep from having to carry other computers/media players. And since 2008's 3G, I've hoped that the battery issue could be addressed. Most of us endure the iPhone's battery because we can find a place to plug the phone in here and there. Will we do the same thing for a wristwatch?

Robby Glasco has worked for the past twenty years in technology, including jobs in software support, design, development, SEO, and product management. He hopes he's wrong about the Apple Watch's battery life and its subsequent effect on the iPhone battery, but he can't afford one anyway.