Your Apple Watch Just Needs a New Battery
Apple Watches are impressive little computers, but they don’t last forever. After enough time, the battery starts to drain, which can make it impossible for you to end daily calls. Plus, the watch starts to slow down to the point where you think you’d better upgrade to the next generation Apple Watch. But instead of buying a brand new watch, you should consider simply replacing the battery.
It might not be obvious due to the inaccessible design, but the Apple Watch is perfectly capable of replacing the battery when the time is right. It’s the same story as with your other rechargeable devices : all lithium-ion batteries wear out over time, resulting in both reduced capacity and reduced performance. As your Apple Watch ages, you’ll have less time with it once it’s charged to 100%, and it won’t perform as well as it used to.
For most people, this combination signals an update time: Apple conveniently updates the watch once a year, always making an improved version of your device available for purchase when needed. When yours can no longer keep up with the times and dies before the end of the day, why not upgrade it to something better?
Because you probably don’t need it. Sometimes replacing an aging battery is all you need to keep your old Apple Watch running. A fresh battery will obviously extend battery life, but it can also support the Apple Watch hardware better, potentially boosting performance throughout the day.
This doesn’t just apply to newer watches: Reddit user Frozenreddit wrote about his positive battery swap experience on his Series 1 watch released by Apple in 2016. Of course, the Series 1 will be slower than the current Apple Watch. and won’t have some of the exclusive features that Apple has introduced in the future, but if you’re using yours for basic smartwatch needs, it’ll still probably do the job after a battery change.
What’s more, a new battery for your Apple Watch (plus the tools needed to replace the old one) costs a fraction of the price of a new watch. iFixit’s 38mm Series 1 replacement kit costs $26.99, which is 1/10th the price of the base Apple Watch SE. If you don’t need the features provided by the new Apple Watch, replacing the battery may be the best solution.
However, this is not an easy feat. Replacing the battery on most Apple hardware and many other companies’ hardware isn’t particularly easy, but Apple is making it even more difficult to access its smartwatches. Looking at iFixit’s Series 1 manual, you need to heat up the watch display, use a sharp blade to separate the display from the case, use picks to continue the separation, cut the pick to fit the shape of the battery, and carefully remove the battery from the watch without breaking anything. .
This procedure looks complicated for a person with experience, let alone a person who has never discovered any technique in his life. If you are not comfortable doing this, I would recommend taking your watch to a repair shop for evaluation. If the extra labor costs don’t bring the overall price closer to a new watch, that might also be a viable option.
If you decide to replace the battery yourself, be sure to carefully read the instructions. Read the text or watch the video a few times to understand each step, and go through the comments to see how other people are doing. For example, iFixit’s instructions for the Apple Watch Series 2 don’t mention that as long as you don’t damage the watch gasket, you don’t need to rip it off as deep as the video does. By looking at the comments, you can save yourself the grief that may have been missed by playing through.