For all the neat Wear OS tricks and comprehensive fitness features offered by the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, battery life is somewhat of a disappointment. Even with an average day of use that includes continuous heart rate monitoring and GPS tracking for outdoor exercise, you’ll find yourself looking for a battery to recharge at the end of the day.
Samsung supplies a wireless charging pack in a retail package. But this one needs about two hours to fully utilize the 46mm variant of the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. That’s a little too slow, given the fact that smartwatches that cost half the asking price — like the divisive OnePlus Watch — only take about an hour to charge to 100%.
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I mean, you might want to buy an extra charger for your office desk, just to make sure it doesn’t run out of power in the middle of the workday. Fortunately, the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic can be topped up with a phone without any hassles with wires. Just place it on the back of your phone and watch your smartwatch charge. But as convenient as that sounds, there are many caveats.
Losses and gains
Let’s start with the charging speed first. Samsung offers a feature called Reverse Power Sharing on its phones that support wireless charging. Just enable it in the quick settings panel, place your smartwatch or headphone case on the phone’s back panel and watch the power transfer in real time.
But the power transfer rate is quite slow. I ran three test runs of the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic (46mm) which revived from 0% power to a full charge, and the Galaxy S22 Ultra took an average of almost three and a half hours to do the job.
Here’s the latest analysis of the charging process, conducted in a 75 degree Fahrenheit room with both devices lying still.
| Time on the clock | Battery level on Galaxy Watch 4 Classic | Battery level on the Galaxy S22 Ultra | Temp. phone (in Fahrenheit) |
| 10:30 in the morning | 0% | 100% | 96.8 degrees |
| 10:50 in the morning | 7% | 95% | 102.2 degrees |
| 11:30 in the morning | 20% | 88% | 102.2 degrees |
| 11:42 am | 25% | 86% | 104 degrees |
| 12:28 p.m | 50% | 76% | 104 degrees |
| 12:51 p.m | 67% | 71% | 104 degrees |
| 1:15 p.m | 80% | 63% | 105.8 degrees |
| 2:10 p.m | 100% | 56% | 105.8 degrees |
From the table, it might seem that charging the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic’s tiny battery consumes almost all the energy from the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s 5000 mAh battery. But a good portion of that battery drain is due to tasks running in the background and idle battery consumption. Expect that number to be much higher for a phone with a smaller unit like the Galaxy S22.
During the charging process, the temperature of the back of the phone initially increased by about 4 degrees, but then stabilized. But there are extreme scenarios. While working in the garden with an outside temperature of a scorching 93 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of the backplate rose about 9 degrees, all the way to 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
However, this temperature increase is temporary and remains so as long as the phone’s wireless charging coil is transmitting power. Within 5 to 10 minutes things are back to normal. In short, heating was not a problem during the test phase.
Convenience laden with caveats
The key takeaway here is that reverse power sharing is nothing more than a lifesaver for a Galaxy smartwatch that’s running out of power. If you have the patience to keep your phone and smartwatch untouched for an hour, you’ll get about 20% to 25% of the power transferred to a compatible Samsung smartwatch.
The Galaxy Watch 4 Classic refuses to draw power from a Qi-enabled phone like the Xiaomi 12 Pro. Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
That’s enough for the whole day, with some sacrifices. Disabling the always-on display, lowering the screen brightness, and pausing continuous heart rate monitoring are among the moves you need to make to get through the day on just a quarter of a tank. Or, you can simply enable power saving mode, which can give you two hours on just 5% battery.
Switching to watch-only mode, which only shows the digital clock and kills all other interface and sensor functions, will last you about 23 hours on that amount of power. But you’ll need the discipline to leave your phone and watch still and untouched to get any significant amount of reverse wireless charging at all.
If you’re at a desk, that won’t be a problem. But if you’re on the go, finding a stable surface that will keep two devices locked in place — especially with their smooth contact surfaces always trying to slide off — is pretty tough. As I pointed out earlier, this is a convenience with some caveats.
Highlighting, but in the wrong way
Unfortunately, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of bad news. While slow charging can be forgiven, compatibility issues give a whole other meaning to the very convenience at hand. I’ll put it in plain words – if you’re looking to charge your Samsung smartwatch via your phone, must he has a Samsung phone.
It’s strange that a Xiaomi phone can charge Samsung’s headphones, but not its smartwatch. Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
This is because the Galaxy Watch 4 is not compatible with the Qi wireless charging standard. Instead, Samsung’s latest smartwatches rely on a WPC-based wireless charging protocol. To put it simply, your fancy Android flagship device with reverse wireless charging support can’t charge your Galaxy Watch unless it’s from Samsung.
I tried the Xiaomi 12 Pro — which supports reverse power sharing — but it couldn’t charge the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. The OnePlus 10 Pro was no different. To rub salt in the wound, I could easily charge the Galaxy S22 Ultra by placing it on the back panel of the Xiaomi 12 Pro and OnePlus 10 Pro.
For better or worse, this weird standard charging situation for the Galaxy Watch 4 and its predecessors is a morbidly disappointing example of ecosystem lock-in. If you have a Samsung flagship, starting with the Galaxy S10 series, the Galaxy Note 10 family, or any of Samsung’s foldable phones, you’re safe.
Even for wireless charging accessories, Samsung mostly limits support to its own equipment, such as this power bank. Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
But it’s not just phones where the standard charging fiasco has proven to be an obstacle. It’s quite likely that a third-party Qi wireless charger sitting in your drawer won’t do the job unless it has a Samsung logo on it. Yes, there are third-party options, like this nifty USB-C magnetic puck from Elebase, but they don’t come for free.
I wasn’t ready for this reality check
I started this whole test about reverse charging the Galaxy Watch using a smartphone out of pure curiosity. However, I ended up finding more problems with Samsung’s ecosystem than I was ready to digest. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 is the top choice for Wear OS-based smartwatches, and its successors could retain that crown.
But it is simply unacceptable to lock such a key convenience as reverse energy sharing behind an outdated charging standard. Even more so when much of the smartwatch ecosystem has embraced the Qi wireless charging standard, as have Android smartphone manufacturers.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic and its wireless charging package. Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
Pushing the Galaxy Watch behind an ecosystem wall makes no sense. It’s simply a step backwards for Samsung, a gut punch for the ecosystem and a frustrating situation for users. I enjoy the convenience of reverse power sharing, but that’s only because I have an expensive Samsung phone in my hands.
For everyone else looking for the benefits of reverse wireless charging for a smartwatch, Mobvoi and Fossil are happy to serve you a capable device. These smartwatches will work perfectly with any Android smartphone that supports reverse wireless charging, including Samsung’s own.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn