11 Hacks To Extend Your Apple Watch Battery Life

I love my Apple Watch, but if there’s one thing I have a problem with, it’s the short battery life.

I researched for hours and tested all the settings to find the absolute best hacks to extend you Apple Watch Battery life.

Let’s get started…

Put Your Apple Watch in Theater/Cinema Mode

If you’re short on time and just want one hack that gives you loads more battery life, just do this.

put apple watch in theater mode

Designed to prevent your smartwatch from lighting up when you move your wrist while watching a movie, Theater Mode can also help you get a lot more battery life from your Apple Watch.

Theater Mode also turns your Apple Watch to silent mode. You’ll still receive haptic notifications when Theater Mode is enabled. Plus, you can wake your watch at any time by tapping the screen. 

How to turn theater mode on:

  1. Swipe up to open the Control Center
  2. Tap the Theater Mode button, which looks like the classic comedy and tragedy masks that are associated with acting
  3. The icon will appear at the top of your screen to indicate that Theater Mode is on.

Choose a Dark & Minimal Watch Face

If your watch face is unnecessarily bright and animated, you could be losing valuable battery!

dark apple watch face

The OLED screen on the Apple Watch doesn’t need any power to display the color black, so a watch face with a black background uses less power than one with a colored or light background.

You’re not limited to black if you’re not a fan. But the brighter your watch face, the more power your Smart Watch needs to display it, so minimal watch faces are your friend when you want to preserve battery life.

Interestingly, blue pixels use more power than red or green ones, so you might want to stay away from faces that are blue-heavy.

Chronograph is likely to use less power than Breathe, Solar Dial, or Motion. If you’re a diehard blue lover, you can choose a darker shade to slow the battery drain, however.

Speaking of motion, animation may contribute to battery drain, so look for faces that are static or show less information and do not update as often as others.

How to change your watch face:

  1. Press and hold the watch face screen
  2. Swipe to either side to see all the watch faces you’ve added, stopping on the one you want to activate.

If you haven’t yet added watch faces:

  1. Long-press on the watch face screen.
  2. Swipe all the way to the right, then press the “+” (plus) button to add new faces.
  3. Scroll until you find one you like, then select “Add.”
  4. Some faces are customizable, so you have to choose settings before they become live on your watch.

Turn On Power Saving Mode During Workouts

If you don’t need HRM data, or to see data on your watch constantly while you’re working out, you NEED to turn this setting on.

If you’ve got an Apple Watch Series 5 or later, your watch display is always on during workouts, which is a big drag on the battery. Fortunately, the folks at Apple realized that not everyone needs this function and created a way for you to disable it, ultimately saving battery life.

Keep in mind that the heart rate monitor (HRM) and cellular data will also deactivate when you turn on power saving mode.

How to turn on power saving mode:

  1. Open the My Watch App on your iPhone
  2. Select the My Watch tab, then choose Workout.
  3. Toggle Power Saving mode on.
  4. The same instructions let you turn this mode back on whenever you want it.

Disable Siri Listening

Who actually uses Siri anyway?

If you find Siri to be more of a nuisance than a help, you might be happy to discover that you can turn Apple’s voice assistant off. And stopping Siri from listening for your voice saves battery life to boot! 

You can still give voice commands by pressing the button on your Apple Watch. Siri just won’t respond when it thinks you want it to, which we all know is sometimes not the case. 

How to disable Siri listening:

  1. Open Settings on your Apple Watch
  2. Touch Siri, and switch the toggle to Off for the listening function.

Use a Bluetooth Chest Strap HRM During Workouts

Need that HRM data? Use a bluetooth chest strap heart rate monitor to save battery. They’re more accurate anyway.

hear rate monitor chest strap

This tip is especially useful during longer workouts: Use a chest strap heart rate monitor instead of relying on your watch to sense your heart rate. This will save you lots of battery power.

The following 2 devices are well reviewed and recommended:

Once you’ve got the external monitor in your hands, you’ll need to pair it with your Apple Watch.

How to connect the bluetooth Chest Strap to your Apple Watch:

  1. Turn on the monitor and make sure your watch can discover it.
  2. Open the Settings app on your watch, and touch Bluetooth.
  3. Touch the name of your monitor to pair it.
  4. After the monitor is paired, you only need to put on the strap and make sure it’s on before your workout.
  5. You’ll need the vendor’s workout app to track your heart rate because Apple’s Workout app won’t track this data when the internal HRM is off.

Always Ensure Bluetooth Is Enabled On Your Phone

Turning bluetooth off means that your watch is forced to use Wi-Fi to sync, and this drains your Apple Watch battery, big time.

bluetooth

When it comes to wireless connection, Wi-Fi drains the battery more quickly than Bluetooth, so it’s better to connect your Apple Watch and iPhone over bluetooth.

How to ensure Apple Watch bluetooth is turned on:

  1. Open the Control Center on your iPhone and touch Bluetooth to enable it. If this doesn’t work, Bluetooth might be disabled entirely. 
  2. Open the Settings app. Select Bluetooth.
  3. Touch the toggle to turn it on.
  4. Then, you can enable Bluetooth at will on your iPhone, and it will always connect to your Apple Watch that way instead of using Wi-Fi.

Disable Always On Display

Don’t need to see your display all the time? Your Apple Watch battery will thank you.

By default, Apple Watch (5 and later) display is always on, ensuring that you never miss an alert. However, this also guarantees that your battery will drain more quickly than it would otherwise.

Don’t need this? Turn it off and extend your battery!

How to disable Apple Watch always on display:

  1. Press the Digital Crown button to open the home screen.
  2. Touch Settings.
  3. Select Display & Brightness.
  4. Scroll down to Always On, and tap it.
  5. Touch it to disable this feature.

Disable Display When You Raise Your Wrist

If you don’t want your Apple Watch to turn on when you raise your wrist, you can disable the feature and save some battery too!

Sure, it’s nice that your Apple Watch turns on when you raise your wrist, but you probably raise your wrist frequently during the day when you’re not looking at your watch. You can permanently turn this feature off to prevent your watch from waking during the day and save more battery power. 

Keep in mind that your watch won’t respond unless you tap the display to wake the device.

How to disable Apple Watch raise and wake:

  1. Tap to launch Settings on your Apple Watch. 
  2. Scroll to Display & Brightness.
  3. Touch to turn off Wake on Wrist Raise and Wake On Crown Rotation if you also want to turn off that feature.

Adjust Haptic Vibrations

If you don’t want your Apple Watch to turn on when you raise your wrist, you can disable the feature and save some battery too!

Haptic

The Apple Watch’s haptic alerts get your attention when you’re not looking at the screen. But they also drain the battery. If you’re not expecting any urgent notifications or can use your phone instead, you can prolong the life of your watch’s battery. Follow these steps to disable haptic notifications.

How to disable haptic alerts:

  1. Open the Settings app.
  2. Scroll down to Sound & Haptics and select it.
  3. Touch the toggle to turn haptics off if they’re on.

Reduce Notifications

Besides being annoying, notifications can also drain battery. Don’t need ’em? Disable ’em.

Notifications. They never end, right? Aside from being annoying and distracting, they also reduce your watch’s battery life, even if you only turn off some notifications temporarily.

You have several options for reducing notifications on your watch.

Do not disturb (DND) mode is a great way to reduce alerts and boost battery performance by temporarily turning off light, vibrations, and sounds for alerts.

How to turn off notifications on Apple Watch:

  1. Swipe down from the watch face to open your Control Center.
  2. Tap the moon icon to turn on do not disturb. 

Still Running Out Of Apple Watch Battery Life Fast? Try This…

The previous hacks only work if your iPhone and Smart Watch are working properly. Glitches could still drain your battery, even if you’ve changed settings. Sometimes these issues can be fixed by unpairing your watch from your phone and then connecting it via Bluetooth again.

With your watch and phone close together, open Apple Watch on your phone. Open the My Watch tab and select All Watches. Touch the info button next to the problematic Apple Watch. Select to unpair your watch.

Once your Apple Watch is disconnected from your phone, you can pair it again. Usually, your Apple Watch will pair automatically when it’s within range of your iPhone and turned on. You can follow the instructions to pair the two devices.

However, if your phone doesn’t detect your Apple Watch, you can kickstart the process.

How to pair & unpair your Apple Watch:

  1. Open the Apple Watch app on your phone.
  2. Tap Pair New Watch.
  3. Choose Set Up For Myself.
  4. Place your watch within the viewfinder of the app to pair the devices.
  5. Touch Set Up Apple Watch and follow the prompts to finish the process.

After trying all of the steps on this list, we’re confident that your’ll be able to extend the life of your Apple Watch so that you won’t have to charge it as frequently or worry about the battery dying when you’re busy with something else.

Still, you’ll probably need to charge your Apple watch once per day to make use of all its awesome features.

I recommend taking advantage of downtime during sleep or a shower to charge your phone, so it’s always at max battery when you’re ready to use it.

Photo of author

AUTHOR

Joe Davies
Joe has a keen interest in wearable tech, after running marathons and triathlons and trying just about every Garmin watch there is.