How to Save Battery on Apple Watch (15 Tips!)

Learning how to save battery on your Apple Watch would be a lifesaver because the Apple Watch is not the most battery-efficient.

The battery life of the Apple Watch Series 7 and earlier generations has drawn much criticism over the years. With the Series 8 Apple Watch announcement, however, it appears that Apple has taken customer comments into consideration.

Even if you’re planning to upgrade to an Apple Watch Ultra, which has a whopping 36 hours of battery life in normal use and 60 hours in low power settings, there are a few things you can do to maximize your Apple Watch battery life.

To save battery and extend the lifespan of your Watch slightly, you can disable a few unneeded features.

As you browse the Watch’s settings, you’ll find some features that are only suitable for specific functions, such as workout assistance and calorie tracking. Disabling them will extend your Apple Watch battery life.

But this is not the only thing you can do to preserve your Watch battery. Here are the top ways to increase Apple Watch battery life if you notice that it’s not lasting long enough.

How Long Does the Apple Watch Battery Last?

You should realize that battery life is not fixed. For example, you could open an app that quickly drains the battery, or you could wear the Watch all day without monitoring it, resulting in a longer battery life.

Having said that, Apple does offer a general suggestion: 18 hours of battery life following an overnight charge. This info applies to Series 6, Series SE, Series 5, Series 4, and Series 3.

1. Turn off the Always-on Display Mode

Except for the SE, Apple Watch Series 5 and later models feature an always-on display. This implies that you don’t need to tap the screen or flip your wrist to check the time.

This is made possible by Apple using some cunning strategies to cut battery consumption, such as reducing the display’s refresh rate.

You may reduce power consumption even more by simply turning off the always-on display and then tilting the Watch to wake it. Here’s how to turn this feature off:

1. First, on your iPhone, navigate to Watch and then General.

2. After that, change Display & Brightness.

3. Then tap Always On.

2. Disable Wake on Wrist Raise

When you lift your wrist, the Apple Watch’s Pre-Series 5 models employ its gyroscope and accelerometer to turn on the display for simple viewing instantly.

Unfortunately, this implies that the display will turn on whenever you lift your wrist, stretch or raise your hand. Each time it occurs, the battery life suffers a slight setback.

This may be stopped by:

1. Access the Watch app, then Display & Brightness.

2. Tap and toggle off Wake Screen on Wrist Raise.

3. Use a Dark Watch Face and Reduce Brightness

Your Apple Watch’s display is a tiny OLED Screen that uses self-emissive technology. Each pixel on an OLED produces its own light. On an OLED, you can turn off the pixels to display black.

This implies that a watch face with a lot of black space should consume less power than one with many bright whites and solid colors.

You may change the current Watch face by tapping and holding on to it. You may then choose the one you want by simply scrolling left or right, or you can hit the plus symbol (+) to add a new one. Swipe up and pick “Remove” to get rid of a face you no longer desire.

The Brightness of the display may significantly affect energy consumption as well.

1. Navigate to Watch, General, and then Display & Brightness on your iPhone to change the brightness.

4. Reduce Motion

There are several smart graphical animations in watchOS that are intended to make transitions as smooth as possible, but they also use a little bit more CPU power, which reduces the battery’s life.

You may disable both the attractive melding animation on the app’s home screen and the transparency effects that appear when you scroll down on the notification pane in the Watch app’s Accessibility option.

5. Reduce Notifications

Push notifications represent a significant energy drain for both the Apple Watch and iPhones. Not only will doing away with some of these save energy usage, but it may also increase productivity.

All alerts from your iPhone are automatically mirrored to your Apple Watch. We advise keeping the information you get on your wrist to a minimum. You can always check it later on your iPhone if it can wait.

1. Launch the Watch app on your iPhone, then select Notifications to limit your notifications.

2.  To modify notifications, touch on each of the main Apple services at the top.

6. Do Not Use the Apple Watch to Answer Calls

The Walkie-Talkie feature on your Watch and answering calls both use more power. The occasional five-minute call won’t significantly drain the battery.

You should use your iPhone to answer the call if you expect to be on the line for a considerable amount of time.

Placing your palm over the screen while on a call can silence incoming calls and other notifications like alarms without requiring you to hang up.

7. Turn off the Sensors

The Apple Watch’s two primary sensors are heart rate and blood oxygen sensors.

You can turn off the heart-rate monitor and blood oxygen sensor if you are not interested in checking your vitals every few minutes.

The accuracy of calorie estimates is improved by the heart rate monitor’s constant monitoring of your pulse, although doing so uses quite a lot of battery life.

One of the biggest battery burners, pulse oximetry technology, can be disabled just like heart rate tracking.

You can disable both by going to Privacy then Motion & Fitness in the Watch app on your iPhone. If the Watch’s fitness features aren’t important to you, you can also turn off fitness monitoring while you’re on the same menu.

8. Turn on the Workout Battery Saver

Apple has a mode to conserve battery life while working out.

For walking and running exercises, the phone will turn off the heart rate sensor if Workout Power Saving Mode is enabled in the General section of the Watch app. Though less precise, your estimates of how many calories you burn will still save you some juice.

1. Open the Watch app on your iPhone, tap the My Watch tab, and then Workout preferences.

2. Toggle on the Power Saving Mode.

9. Adjust the Haptic Vibrations

A small vibration when you receive a text, prompt, or call is a terrific way to stay informed covertly but limiting this can have a slightly positive impact on your battery.

1. Turn off Haptic Alerts by going to Settings and selecting Sounds & Haptics.

10. Turn Off Siri

When your hands are full, Siri might come in extremely handy to carry out your voice requests. However, you risk losing some valuable battery life if you awaken Siri from a deep sleep.

1. By navigating to the Siri menu under the General heading in the Settings app on your Apple Watch, you can disable it.

11. Turn On Do Not Disturb

When you are in a long meeting, you don’t want your Apple Watch to ping, but you want them to resume afterward, so you won’t have to click through multiple menus.

The Do Not Disturb (DND) mode will let you do just that.

1. Swipe down from the watch face to access Do Not Disturb and bring up the Control Center.

2. Your Watch will temporarily stop buzzing, lighting up, or making noise once you tap the moon icon.

Conveniently, Do Not Disturb may be configured to terminate when you leave your present location, when an event in your Calendar concludes, or simply for a specific amount of time, much like on the iPhone.

12. Limit Background Refreshes

When you launch an app on your Apple Watch, you will immediately see the most recent news or sports score because those apps continually take in new data in the background and refresh in real-time. Battery life is the price of that convenience.

The Watch app’s General menu contains a Background App Refresh menu. You can either disable background refreshes for all apps or toggle them on and off for specific ones.

To conserve battery life, you can prioritize app refreshes for apps you frequently use while turning them off for non-essential apps.

13. Turn off Sound

If you don’t like haptic feedback, the Apple Watch can ring anytime you get a notification. This feature might be useful, but it has a negative impact on battery life.

You can swiftly switch off the sound by swiping up, clicking the bell icon, and ending the beeps and bops.

14. Use Theater Mode

A conference or a dark environment, such as a movie theater, where you expect alerts but don’t want your screen to switch on and disturb others mistakenly, is a fantastic place to use Theater Mode.

1. Swipe down and select the two masks (Theatre Mode) icon.

You have a little extra juice to get you through the day because it isn’t taking as much battery power to turn on the screen.

15. Turn on Power Reserve Mode

There is always Power Reserve mode to access if you’ve done everything possible but are still at risk of running out of power.

1. You can turn this on by holding down the power button while selecting Power Reserve.

You won’t be left with a dead screen on your wrist because this will turn off all features except the clock.

Why Is My Apple Watch Battery Draining So Fast?

Your Apple Watch could be dying so quickly for several different reasons. If it’s an older model, it can be because its parts are getting older. A pairing or software update issue might be with more recent devices, like the Series 7.

Fortunately, by changing your settings, you may be able to increase the battery life of your Apple Watch. However, the problem could occasionally come from without rather than within.

When batteries are too hot or cold, they don’t function properly. You may find your Apple Watch battery life reduced if you live in an especially hot or cold region, or if you wear your Watch in direct sunlight.

Final Thoughts on Saving Battery on Apple Watch

The Apple Watch 7 series and the earlier models fall short of their competitors in terms of battery life. Between charges, your Watch should last at least a day. If it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with the battery.

If it lasts up to 18 hours, but you still need more, the suggestions above may provide you with a little more juice.

You can, nevertheless, carry a power bank with you to charge the Watch. You can also use this to charge your phone as necessary. If you don’t want to change the settings on your Watch, investing in a power bank may be the best option.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions, we encourage you to suggest them in the comments below.