Let’s ignore the iPod nano 6th gen, which managed to fit a 30 pin dock connector and a headphone jack into a watch sized body
Let’s ignore the iPod nano 6th gen, which managed to fit a 30 pin dock connector and a headphone jack into a watch sized body
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
With vastly lower power requirements compared to a smartwatch
Hawke@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not really relevant: power requirements would affect battery size much more than charging port size. And USB-C supports much greater power transport than the old dock connector.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Right, my point is that we want to use that space for battery, not bulky connectors.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Given that an iPod nano only lasted a few hours on a charge and most smartwatches can last multiple days, I’m pretty sure that’s not so. Even if they had apples-to-apples identical functionality I think a modern device would consume less power simply due to current chips being more power efficient via using smaller dies and lithography processes.
Plus, an iPod has to crank its weedy little processor full time as long as it’s playing music. Your smartwatch pretty much only has to do anything when an external stimulus wakes it up, be that pressing a button or tapping its screen or receiving an alert or whatever. I’ve developed software for some of the Garmin models myself and I can tell you that the power consumption and processing time limitations imposed by the system are extremely stringent. The majority of the time even in a second-by-second basis your watch is completely idle, specifically to consume as little power as possible and conserve the battery.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The last gen iPod nano toured a 30-hour battery life. Also, you don’t need to peg the CPU for rendering audio - this can be accomplished with a very low-power DSP. The lack of radios also offers significant savings when compared to a smart watch, which you forgot needs to be able to receive notifications.
I’ve professionally developed the firmware for several embedded systems and consumer electronics devices with very strict power requirements.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The 7th gen iPod Nano which you’re referring to (not the 6th gen the commenter above posted, which had a rated 24 hour battery life) had a 200 mAh battery.
A lowly Garmin Forerunner 230 like the one strapped to my wrist right now has a 150 mAh battery and achieves five weeks of battery life with notifications enabled (which I did not “forget”) and the BLE radio twittering away all day, GPS time and position updates, activity tracking, and the screen displaying content all the time. Not 30 hours. 840 hours.
Just acting as a plain watch with the connectivity turned off Garmin claim it’ll last 12 weeks (2016 hours).
I should not have to point out to anyone that it is physically impossible for an iPod to achieve a significantly shorter runtime on a larger battery without consuming more power in the process.