Vodafone working with Google to optimize battery life on smartwatches

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LONDON Reuters -- Vodafone is working with Google to extend the battery life of a smartwatch by reducing the chatter between the device and the network, a bigger drain of energy than screen brightness and other settings targeted by low power modes.

The mobile operator has developed an API application programming interface that allows apps and operating systems, such as Google Android'sAndroid's Wear OS, to reconfigure how they communicate with their network, according to Santiago Tenorio, the director of network architecture at Vodafone.

The companies said on Thursday that battery life is incredibly important for our users with smartwatches and other devices, as well as smartwatches and other devices.

Vodafone and Google's Android team are working together to optimize battery life on the Wear OS by Google watches. Changes such as making the watch intermittently connect to the network instead of constantly and releasing the channel through which it was transmitting more quickly had been tested, Tenorio said.

Because of the small size of the battery in smartwatches, changing these parameters could extend the life of the device very significantly, he said.

He said there was a cost in performance but the API could save users enough power to last until the end of a long run.

The tech stems from Vodafone's participation in a 2017 project with elite runner Kenenisa Bekele to break the two-hour marathon barrier.

Tenorio said the amount of data transmitted by sensors in the attempt drained a smartwatch battery in less than an hour.

Bekele was fast, but he wasn't that fast, he said. We were able to extend the battery life to three and a half hours in a couple of years. He said that many more wearables partners are interested in the API and that the technology could be available in Wear OS in the coming months.