10 Ways to Extend Apple Watch Battery Life
With Apple Watch, you wear a real computer on your wrist, complete with apps, notifications, workout tracking, and your phone if you choose the cellular version.
But as the Apple Watch ages and new software updates and features are added, the once great two-day battery life of older models may begin to fade. On my Apple Watch Series 6, this started happening after updating to watchOS 10. What could have easily taken me two days now only gave me one day of use.
For you, it could be watchOS, new features, or the simple fact that your tiny Apple Watch battery is getting pretty old. Regardless of what’s draining your battery, there are a few settings you can change that will help significantly improve your Apple Watch’s battery life.
Disable always-on display
This is a serious problem, but by doing so, you’re essentially robbing yourself of the biggest benefit of the new Apple Watch. However, I think it’s worth it. For me, turning off Always On Display was like going back to the days of the Apple Watch Series 0 and Series 3, which I owned and loved.
If you turn off Always On Display, your Apple Watch won’t display the time or problem data when it’s in rest mode. Only by raising your wrist will you see the display light up. This happens quickly enough that after a day or two I stopped caring that my display wasn’t always on. Yes, I miss peeking at the screen time from time to time, but for the most part it’s okay. It’s worth it for the extra battery life. If you do nothing else from this list and just turn off Always On Display, you’ll still notice a difference.
To turn off this feature, go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Always On , then turn off Always On .
While you’re here, try some other settings. You can shorten the display time or lower the brightness to further save battery power.
Disable background app refresh
You don’t actually need background app refresh for Apple Watch apps, even if you use them a lot. Apps running in the background and constantly updating are harmful to your battery.
Try turning it off in Settings > General > Background app updates to see if it affects your battery life.
Turn off your cell phone when you don’t need it
If you have a cellular-enabled Apple Watch, it might be a good idea to turn off cellular service when you don’t need it. Depending on your location, it may search for a signal too often, draining battery power.
You can quickly turn cellular connectivity on or off from the Settings app. Go to Cellular and turn off the Cellular switch. You can quickly return here to enable it whenever you need it.
You can also quickly turn off notifications for any app that currently has a notification on your Apple Watch. Swipe left on a notification, tap the three-dot menu button, and select the Turn off option.
Avoid notification overload
Reducing the number of notifications on your Apple Watch will not only extend the battery life of your Apple Watch, but it will also improve your mental health. Every time you receive a new notification, the Apple Watch screen lights up, the device vibrates, and you hear a loud notification sound (unless you use silent mode regularly as you should). Numerous notifications in one day will certainly affect the battery life of your Apple Watch.
You can set this up from your iPhone. Here, open the Watch app and go to the Notifications section. Now go to each app and turn off the notifications you don’t want to receive on your Apple Watch.
Remove apps you don’t need
It is recommended that you audit the app for your Apple Watch. By default, Apple Watch installs compatible versions of every iPhone app you download. You can turn off this feature by opening the Watch app on your iPhone and going to My Watch > General > Automatically Install App .
Then go to the bottom of My Watch, select the app, and turn off the Show app on Apple Watch option to remove the app from your Apple Watch.
Removing widgets from Smart Stack
I love using widgets on my Apple Watch, so I keep them handy . But you can remove them from Smart Stack to save battery power. Widgets update in the background with new information even when you’re not actively using Apple Watch.
On the watch face, swipe up to see Smart Stack. Swipe left on a widget and press the X button to quickly remove it. Repeat the same with all the widgets you want to get rid of.
Say goodbye to Siri
To be honest, Siri on the Apple Watch isn’t very good. And I tried to get it to work many, many times. That’s reason enough to turn it off, as is the improved battery life. You can turn off the “Hey Siri” phrase that the watch always scans for, and even continue using Siri by pressing and holding the Digital Crown.
Go to Settings > Siri and under Ask Siri, tap the Listen button. Here, click the “Turn Off” button to disable this feature.
As a last resort, use low power mode
Like the iPhone, the Apple Watch has a power saving mode . But here it is very restrictive. I wouldn’t advise you to use it all the time. But let’s say you need to make sure you can handle a long evening or night – turning it on in the afternoon might be a good idea.
Press the Side button to open Control Center and select the Battery button. Then tap the Power Saving Mode button, scroll down the page, and tap the yellow Enable button.
Turn off health features you don’t need
The Apple Watch is great for both fitness and health tracking. But both processes do a lot of things in the background that can eat up your battery life. However, asking you to turn off all health tracking features is difficult. Some of them may be really useful to you. Things like tracking irregular heart rhythms or monitoring noise levels. This is a very personal question, but if you feel like you don’t need the Health feature, you can try turning it off for a while to see if it actually affects your Apple Watch’s battery life.
If you have an Apple Watch that supports blood oxygen tracking, you can go to Settings > Blood Oxygen > Blood Oxygen Measurements to turn this feature off.
To turn off irregular rhythm tracking, go to Settings > Heart > Irregular Rhythm .
To turn off noise tracking, go to Settings > Noise > Ambient Sound Measurements > Measure Sounds .
Finally, go to factory reset
Factory reset doesn’t work for everyone. But if you’ve tried everything else and your Apple Watch is otherwise fine, then it might be worth at least giving it a try. This gives you the opportunity to start fresh by downloading only the apps you need. And if your battery drain is caused by a system issue, such as a new watchOS update, a clean reset can help.
Go to Settings > General > Reset , and then select the Erase all content and settings option. Since you’ll be reconnecting it to your iPhone, you don’t need to turn off Find My or your cellular plan.