The Apple Watch’s battery life isn’t the best, although the Watch Ultra has pretty decent battery life. Especially compared to other watches that last months or even years on a charge. But when it comes to smartwatches, the Apple Watch does pretty well on battery life.
However, it could always be better. So today we are going to go over a number of ways to improve the battery life of the Apple Watch Ultra and Apple Watch Series 8. These tips will mainly work for other watches Apple, although some of these features are not available on older models.
What is the battery life of the Apple Watch?
Apple claims that the models in the series get 18 hours of use. Whereas the Ultra is double that at 36 hours. Although you often get much longer battery life than that. Apple is pretty conservative with its battery life numbers.
How does Apple access these numbers? Well, the tests that Apple uses for battery life on the Watch Ultra, including running 180 time checks, 180 notifications, 90 minutes of app use, and a workout of 60 minutes with music playback from Apple Watch via Bluetooth. It also assumes 8 hours is on LTE, while 28 hours is connected to your iPhone.
Meanwhile, on the Apple Watch Series 8 and SE 2, Apple promises up to 18 hours of use. Which includes 90 time checks, 90 notifications, 45 minutes of app usage, and a 60-minute workout with music playing from Apple Watch via Bluetooth.
So that should give you a good idea of how much battery life you can expect from your Apple Watch. Now here’s how to squeak some more juice.
How to improve the battery life of your Apple Watch
There are a number of things you can do to improve the battery life of your Apple Watch. Some include disabling features, while others include changing things you don’t need or don’t use often. Let’s start.
Change charging time
The first thing you can do is adjust when you charge your Apple Watch. Since it does a great job of tracking your sleep, it’s not possible to charge it overnight if you want to track your sleep. Instead, you can charge it during the day. Fortunately, Series 7 and 8 load much faster. Thus, recharging it to 100% will not take long.
With the Apple Watch Ultra, it’s a little easier to change your charging time. Since you can get two to three days out of a single charge. I normally charge mine in the morning when I’m at my desk. Keep it between 50 and 80%. It’s better for the battery, but it will also give me a bit of a buffer if I don’t charge it the next day.
Complete your workout
This is going to sound like common sense, but make sure you end your workout when you actually finish your workout. Why? Well, tracking a workout is much more stressful on the battery. Since it tracks your heart rate every second, instead of every five or ten minutes. And if you’re running, it’s probably using GPS to track your run, which can also use a lot of battery.
So swipe right on the workout screen and tap “End” to end your workout.
Change the wake-up screen time
This is going to sound like common sense, but it still needs to be said here. Changing the wake up screen time is quite important.
You can disable the Wake on Wrist Raise if you wish. To do this, go to Apple Watch appPress on Display and Brightnessthen disable Wake up at wrist lift.
You can also change the duration of the alarm clock. To do this, go to Apple Watch appPress on Display and Brightnessthen press Wake up time. You can tick Wake on Crown up or Wake for 70 seconds, or Wake for 15 seconds.
Disable always-on display
Since series 6, Apple has launched the always-on display. Although it’s not on the SE models, only the Series and Ultra models. As you’d expect, having the screen on all the time consumes a significant portion of the battery. But you can disable this option and save some juice. How much juice? Well, it depends on the watch. On the Ultra, that can probably keep you comfortable for three days, but on the 40mm watches maybe a little more home.
To do this, go to the Apple Watch app. Tap Display & Brightness, then tap Always On. Hit the toggle to turn it off and that’s it.
Disable Hey Siri
Like many other smartwatches, the Apple Watch always listens for “Hey Siri” or even just “Siri”. It also consumes battery. Although this is probably a fairly small amount of juice, it is still juice that you can use later. And since there are quite often false positives, it’s a good idea to turn it off.
To do this, go to Apple Watch app. Press on Siri. Then turn off Listen to “Hey Siri”.
Adjust background app refresh
Just like on your smartphone, apps that refresh in the background use data and power from your Apple Watch. So if you turn it off, or at least adjust the apps you want to refresh in the background, you can also save battery.
To do this, go to Apple Watch app. Press on Generalthen scroll down to select Refresh the app in the background. From here, you can toggle which apps you want or don’t want to refresh in the background.
Adjust which apps can send notifications
Based on the last tip, another thing you can do to save battery is to adjust which apps can send you notifications. One app you can probably disable is Instagram. Many of these notifications are pretty useless and you need to open them on your phone anyway. Also notifications of all games you have installed.
To do this, open the Apple Watch app. Press on Notice. Then tap the app for which you want to change the notification settings.
Use low power mode
New in watchOS 9 (released in 2022), Apple added a new Low Power Mode. This will limit applications, as well as other functions and also slow down the processor. This is so your watch can last until you get to the charger. Apple says Low Power Mode can last up to 60 hours on the Watch Ultra.
To activate it, go to Control center on your watch. Tap the battery percentage. Then activate Low power mode.
Keep your Apple Watch up to date
Finally, this is probably the most obvious, but be sure to keep your Apple Watch up to date. It might sound a bit silly, but Apple will periodically send updates to your watch that will contain bug fixes, performance improvements, and more. Which can really help with your battery life.
You can make sure it’s up to date by going to the Apple Watch app. Press on Generalso what Software update. If an update is available, it will show up here. You can also enable automatic updates on this same page.
