diff --git a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/watchdog/sunxi-wdt.txt b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/watchdog/sunxi-wdt.txt
index 62dd5baad70e..49900e72f6b1 100644
--- a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/watchdog/sunxi-wdt.txt
+++ b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/watchdog/sunxi-wdt.txt
@@ -6,9 +6,13 @@ Required properties:
                "allwinner,sun6i-a31-wdt"
 - reg : Specifies base physical address and size of the registers.
 
+Optional properties:
+- timeout-sec : Contains the watchdog timeout in seconds
+
 Example:
 
 wdt: watchdog@1c20c90 {
 	compatible = "allwinner,sun4i-a10-wdt";
 	reg = <0x01c20c90 0x10>;
+	timeout-sec = <10>;
 };
diff --git a/drivers/watchdog/sunxi_wdt.c b/drivers/watchdog/sunxi_wdt.c
index 802e31b1416d..c6c73656997e 100644
--- a/drivers/watchdog/sunxi_wdt.c
+++ b/drivers/watchdog/sunxi_wdt.c
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
 #define DRV_VERSION		"1.0"
 
 static bool nowayout = WATCHDOG_NOWAYOUT;
-static unsigned int timeout = WDT_MAX_TIMEOUT;
+static unsigned int timeout;
 
 /*
  * This structure stores the register offsets for different variants