When other smartwatches decided to go square and stocky, Moto 360 opted for a different route, sticking to a round display usually seen in traditional watches. The effect was beautiful, but a smartwatch has to offer more than aesthetics to be effective.
Motorola rolled out a firmware update last week for its smartwatch, addressing the troubles that Moto 360 users are complaining about. One of the most noticeable improvements after the update was that the smartwatch's battery life was drastically boosted.
Some users took to Reddit to share their experience with the Moto 360 firmware update. One said their smartwatch still had 70 percent juice left after 14 hours of use whereas previously the same time period would have seen the Moto 360's battery drop to 45 to 50 percent. Another shared that after 30 hours of being disconnected from the charger; their Moto 360 was still running with 53 percent left in the battery.
Another was more specific, detailing how exactly their day went and how the Moto 360 fared through all that. "I took it off the charger at 10am today. Used it all day, 2 hours running navigation plus music controls in the car, checking emails and texts a few times an hour, responding to 15 or more texts from the watch, used QR codes on the watch to get into a party. It's now almost 3am the next day and I'm at 41% battery! Couldn't ask for more. Don't need more," said Redditor RockItGuyDC.
Smartwatches in the market today typically just last a day at the most, so Moto 360 isn't suffering from a problem unique to it. Just the same, it is nice on Motorola's part to actually do something about the problem.
The ambient light feature on the Moto 360 is apparently the reason why the smartwatch was running dry so fast. In the past, the only way to extend battery life was to turn off the feature. With the firmware update, there's no need to turn off ambient light in order to avoid straining battery. Keep the feature on and the Moto 360 will keep chugging along, longer than it has ever done before. Of course, turning the feature off completely will still save more juice.
Motorola didn't officially announce that battery life improvements would be included in the firmware update so seeing their smartwatches last longer was a welcome surprise for Moto 360 users.
Aside from improving battery life, the firmware update for the Moto 360 also offered Bluetooth tweaks to address disconnection issues, new charging notifications, and an array of bug fixes.
