When Apple announces new hardware, battery capacity is not often disclosed.

However, according to MacRumors, information on the upcoming Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 was hidden from view in a Chinese regulatory database.

According to the site, the capacity of the Apple Watch Series 9 remains unchanged, with the 41mm model at 282mAh and the 45mm model at 308mAh. Despite this, the watch is still rated for 18 hours of use. Perhaps this is because the 25% efficiency reduction promised by the new S9 chipset has been absorbed by the brighter screen, which now reaches 2,000 nits.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2, on the other hand, is slightly larger. According to the site, the battery has a capacity of 564 mAh, up from 542 mAh (about 4%) for the Apple Watch Ultra 1.

Again, according to Apple, the Ultra 2 is rated for 36 hours of normal use (the screen is rated at an even more scorching 3,000 nits thanks to the efficiency of the S9 chipset). The company also claims that the Watch Ultra 2 can be used for up to 72 hours in low power mode.

This sounds like the S9 chip offers a clever trick to gain a little more power in battery-saving mode, but that may not be the case; as MacRumors also discovered, each fine print indicates that the numbers were arrived at by different methodologies

60 hours.

The 60-hour figure was calculated with 15 hours of hiking, "over 600" time checks, 35 minutes of app use, 3 minutes of calls, and 15 hours of sleep tracking. The 72-hour figure, on the other hand, is based on 360 time checks, 180 minutes of app use, and two one-hour workouts while listening to music via Bluetooth. In other words, we are comparing apples and oranges here.

Hopefully, the increased battery capacity means that users can get a few more hours out of this watch, especially by tweaking a few settings. whether you should upgrade when the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is released on September 22 will know, we plan to review this in detail.