13 Ways to Increase Battery Life on Your Apple Watch
Lithium-ion batteries degrade over time, and the battery used in the Apple Watch is no different. After the first year of ownership, you will notice that the battery drains much faster than before. If this is a concern for you, here’s a quick list of things you can do to extend your Apple Watch’s battery life.
Check your Apple Watch battery status
Before you try anything else, check to see if your Apple Watch’s battery level is low. If so, this indicates a hardware problem.
On your Apple Watch, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health and check if it’s below 80%. If so, you should consider getting your battery serviced by Apple. On the same page, be sure to check if Optimized Battery Charging is enabled. It’s enabled by default, so there’s nothing to worry about here for most people. If it’s disabled, consider turning it on to reduce battery aging.
If the battery isn’t the problem, there are a few other things we can try to extend the battery life of your Apple Watch.
Watch out for sudden drops in battery power
On your watch, go to Settings > Battery and check the graph to see if there are any sudden dips, which you can try to correlate with what you were using the device for at the time so you can determine if something you need to do differently.
Enable Low Power Mode
At the start of a long day, consider turning on Low Power Mode to extend your Apple Watch’s battery life. Your Apple Watch will automatically prompt you to turn on Low Power Mode when the battery level is 10%, but you can turn it on ahead of time to extend its life.
Low Power Mode turns off sensors and background apps to extend battery life. This includes a heart rate sensor, which means you won’t receive notifications when your heart rate is low or high, and your workouts may not display accurate heart rate data when Low Power Mode is enabled. Incoming notifications may also be delayed.
If you’re happy with the compromise, press the side button on your Apple Watch and press the battery percentage button. Then select Low Power Mode > Enable . You can also turn on Low Power Mode during workouts by going to the Watch app on your iPhone and choosing Workout > Low Power Mode .
Update your Apple Watch
Sometimes using older versions of watchOS can drain your battery. Apple continues to release software updates that fix various issues, so you should try updating to the latest version of watchOS to improve your battery life. To do this, go to Settings > General > Software Update on your Apple Watch.
Don’t turn off Bluetooth on your iPhone
It may seem counterintuitive, but you shouldn’t turn off Bluetooth on your iPhone if you value the battery life of your Apple Watch. When Bluetooth is turned on on your iPhone, communication between iPhone and Apple Watch becomes much more energy efficient.
Disable always on display
Higher-end Apple Watch models (like Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 ) let you quickly check the time without turning on the watch display first. Unfortunately, this feature is a notorious battery hog, and if you want to extend your Apple Watch’s battery life, you should ditch it. On your watch, you can go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Always On and turn this feature off.
Turn off Siri
Siri is very useful on Apple Watch because it speeds up tasks that require multiple taps on the tiny display, such as setting timers or reminders. If you haven’t used Siri much, you can ask it to stop listening to the wake phrase, which will sacrifice that functionality but will improve battery life.
To do this, go to the Watch app on your iPhone or Settings on your Apple Watch and navigate to Siri . Turn off everything here, including Listen to “Hey Siri,” Raise to Speak, and Press Digital Crown .
Disable radio
Walkie-Talkie allows you to communicate in real time with other Apple Watch users. This is a great feature if you use it regularly, but if not, you should disable it to extend the watch’s battery life. Press the side button to open Control Center on Apple Watch and turn off the radio icon . If it’s yellow, it means it’s on; if it’s gray, it means it’s disabled. You can also turn off walkie talkie notifications. Open the Watch app on your iPhone, go to Walkie Talkie, and select Notifications Muted .
Use sleep mode before bed
Most people don’t need to turn on their Apple Watch while they sleep. This is where hibernation can be put to good use. Once you set a sleep schedule, sleep mode will automatically turn on and off at the times you specify. In sleep mode, all notifications are snooze, the screen brightness is reduced to minimum, and the device simply shows the time and alarm time.
You can set this up by going to the Watch app on your iPhone and going to Sleep > Manage Sleep Focus in Settings . This will open the Sleep page in the Settings app on your iPhone, where you can enable Sleep Schedule and customize it to your liking.
Disable background app refresh
Background app refresh allows apps to update even if they haven’t been opened. This feature allows the Activity app on Apple Watch to easily send fitness data to your iPhone. Likewise, refreshing apps in the background means other apps won’t waste time updating data when you open them.
However, this feature also negatively impacts battery life. Some apps may ping your phone too frequently or experience glitches in interaction, resulting in reduced battery life. That’s why we recommend reviewing which apps need to be updated in the background and disabling this feature for all other apps. You can do this by going to the Watch app on your iPhone and selecting General > Background App Refresh . Disable this feature for any apps that don’t need it.
Remove unnecessary apps from Apple Watch
Sometimes having too many apps can also drain your battery. You can quickly get rid of apps you don’t use using the Watch app on your iPhone. Scroll down to the Installed on Apple Watch section and tap the name of any app you want to remove. Then turn off Show App on Apple Watch or choose Remove App on Apple Watch .
Disable unwanted notifications
Reducing the number of notifications on Apple Watch also improves battery life. Some notifications are necessary, but the vast majority of alerts are probably unnecessary on Apple Watch. If you don’t mind reducing notification spam, go to the Watch app on your iPhone and select Notifications . Scroll down, select an app, and tap Notifications Muted to turn off alerts.
Be aware of how often you wake up your Apple Watch display.
Some people lead extremely active lifestyles, which may inadvertently wake up Apple Watch much more than usual. If you’re one of these people, open the Watch app on your iPhone, go to Display & Brightness , and turn off Wake when you raise your wrist . You can also select Wake Duration and Wake for 15 Seconds to shorten the amount of time the display stays on after it wakes up.