I am developing an enterprise app for Gear S3 that is used by people for extended amount of time (the entire day). These are LTE watches that work in standalone mode and are not paired to a mobile device. We now have a new requirement to deliver real-time updates to the app. 

Using websockets would be the logical solution for a desktop webapp, but I’m concerned about the implications to battery life of keeping a persistent socket connection to the server. Would such an implementation result in a signifant hit on battery life? 

The alternative solution could be to poll the server at a fixed interval, but this has its downsides as well (more overhead, higher bandwidth). I will have to go this route though, if it would save considerable battery life.

Are there any best practices for watch apps (specifically those that need to rely on LTE for connection) that need realtime updates? 

I know there’s Push notifications as well, but imagine that beyond a certain update frequency that option would become unfeasible as well. 

thanks
Peter