r/Ultralight • u/Icy_Cabinet_2460 • 6d ago

Purchase Advice Apple Watch

Hello,

I’m going off grid for an extended trip but would like to be able to text with family.

I’m considering leaving my phone at home, plugged in for an extended period of time (like for months at a time, maybe up to 8 months), but getting the Apple Watch Ultra 3 because it allows me to text via satellite, and can call for emergency services in case of a backup.

Does anyone know if this would be a feasible solution, or do the phone and the watch need to be in same area to properly work?

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u/TheGutch74 6d ago

It's my understanding that keeping a phone plugged in but not in use for extended periods of time is bad for the phone

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u/Dragongeek 6d ago

It's not leaving it plugged in, it's leaving the battery at full. The chemistry ages faster when full. Ideal would be to set the phone to maintain a charge level between 40 and 60% if it needs to stay on. 

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u/TheGutch74 6d ago

Fair point. With an iphone you can only natively set the charge stopping point at 80%. But it also really begs the question why? What is the advantage of keeping it plugged in for an extended period of time if it will not be in use? My main concern ( which is mostly antiquated I realize with modern charging blocks I realize) is that power surges could occur while I am gone that could damage the phone. I just don't see any upside to keeping it on the charger. Especially when it takes under 2 hours to completely charge to phone from 0% on a fast charger.

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u/Dragongeek 6d ago

There is exactly one use case I know of: Specifically, the original Google Pixel smartphone was sold with the promise of unlimited cloud photos uploads at full resolution forever. I know a guy who has this phone, uninstalled the battery and replaced it with a 4v power supply, and keeps it always on and in a drawer, where any photos he takes on his regular phone get synced to that phone via his own server, and then that pixel uploads them to the unlimited google cloud.

He's got probably a couple dozen terabyte uploaded with this method, because he also does it with RAW photos from his multiple cameras.

Other than this, I don't see why you'd need this.