Apple designed its watch with a battery with enough power to reach the end day without problems with moderate use of the device. According to company estimates, most people will be able to enjoy 18h of daily use of the Apple Watch as long as we do not subject it to the extra effort involved in long sessions of physical activity or long phone calls. But, if you need the battery to last longer, here are some tips that could help increase battery performance.
The following tricks will help squeeze the battery to the fullest, which can come in handy on specific days or in emergency situations. Keep in mind that these tips will eliminate some services that consume a lot of battery, so the clock will be "less smart" to keep running.
Decrease screen brightness
Apple Watch includes a OLED display which already consumes little battery by itself. Less consumption can be achieved by lowering the brightness of the screen to maintain it as dark as possible. We can change the brightness directly from the clock by going to Settings / Brightness and Text size. We can also adjust the brightness from the iPhone Apple Watch application by going to My Watch and then to Brightness and Text Size. From both options we can choose one of the three brightness settings.
Use minimalist spheres
On an OLED screen, the black pixels consume the least, so we should choose a minimalist sphere if what we want is to maximize battery performance. We keep the sphere simple and avoid those that contain more colors and animations like Mickey Mouse and moving spheres like the following.
Eliminate extras in the spheres that make use of GPS
When we choose a sphere and manage what it will show us, we must consider the impact on the battery that each extra will make. For example, the moon phases, weather, and sunrise and sunset are constantly giving us information and using our position to give us relevant information. This entails a much higher energy consumption than static extras such as the date or the calendar.
Remove apps and extras that we don't need
We can also use our watch installing only those applications and extras that we need. To increase the performance of the battery, we must try to avoid those extras, such as the stock market or the weather, which are constantly consulting the internet. We should also avoid those applications that require an active internet connection to listen to music in real time or track our position.
Reduce haptic feedback
Haptic feedback is great, but its constant use can be using up precious battery time. We can easily disable feedback haptic alerts from the settings "sounds and haptics" from the Apple Watch or from the application for the iPhone.
Limit notifications
A constant stream of notifications will make our battery plummet. To avoid this overload of notifications we must go to the Apple Watch application and configure notifications so that only the most important ones reach us.
Do not play
Games can be great when we have free time, but worth playing on iPhone, not on the clock, since the smartphone has a bigger screen and more battery. It is logical. Games use the full potential of the clock's processor and display and both will make the battery drain quickly. That is not to mention the loss of the notion of time that can make us play longer than we originally planned.
Disable animations
Similar to iOS, Watch OS includes animations that enhance the overall visual experience of the wearable. This movement is pleasant to the eye, but it is not for the operation of the device. If we want the energy to lower us slowly, we can deactivate them from the iPhone application by going to General / Accessibility / Reduce movement.
Disable wrist detection
The ability to detect when we lift our wrist is one of the best on the Apple Watch, but it is a huge drag. This function allows the clock to activate its screen automatically when we make the gesture of looking at the clock, but there are also movements that can be erratically recognized as a query to the clock and this decreases the battery life. We can disable it by going to Settings / General / Wrist Detection.
Physical activity in energy saving mode.
When we go to do sports for a long time, we can minimize the impact on the battery by activating the saving mode, which deactivate the heart rate monitor. This point is not one of my favorites, since the heart rate monitor is one of the strengths of the Apple Watch and especially if we do sports, also increasing the precision of calorie consumption, but it will also help save battery, which is what it is about. To deactivate it, we go to the Apple Watch application of the iPhone, we touch My Watch and then we go to Physical activity / Energy saving mode.
We activate the Airplane Mode or Do not disturb
If we need to temporarily reduce consumption, we can activate Airplane Mode, which deactivates the WiFi functions but leaves the others activated. We can also activate Do Not Disturb Mode, which silences calls and alerts and also prevents the screen from turning on.
We deactivate heart rate and fitness tracking
These two are two of the star functions of the Apple Watch, but they are also the most consuming. The heart rate monitor saves our pulse every 10 minutes during the day and the fitness tracking will use all the available sensors to calculate parameters such as the distance traveled and the calories consumed. According to Apple estimates, the use of these sensors could reduce battery life by two thirdsWhich It would leave us only 6.5h of battery. We can deactivate these functions from the Apple Watch application on the iPhone by going to Privacy / Movement and Fitness.
Use power reserve mode
Apple introduced a Power saving mode aware that the battery of the watch could reach a critical point in some circumstances. This way disables all watch functions except time, which allows us to consume very little battery and use the watch as what it is, a watch. To activate the saving mode, we swipe up from the sphere, we move to the energy section, we touch Energy Saving and then we touch proceed. We can also press the side button until we see the energy saving slider and slide it to the right to enter the Saving mode if the battery percentage is below 10%. To return to normal mode, we press the side button for 5 seconds as long as we have enough battery.
Managing your battery use
Apple also added some basic statistics in the watch settings that show us our charging and usage habits. To access these statistics we have to open the Apple Watch application on the iPhone, tap on My Watch and go to General / Use. Here we can see the Stand By values that provide us with the usage time since the last charge. We can also see the reserve time, which estimates how long the clock will last until the battery reaches critical levels and the saving mode is activated automatically.
It is clear that there will be some tricks that are not to your liking, since there will be things that are important to you and you do not want to stop using them, but here are a lot of tips so that the Apple Watch has enough battery so that you do not have to worry about.
And with all that I ask myself: Isn't a normal watch better? gives less trouble.
Or don't use it. That way you won't have any problems.
So I think, if you deactivate everything for that I catch a CASIO it does not screw you !!!
That is clear you will never know the time but you will wear an appel on your wrist and that is the most, that and that you tear your wrist to steal it.
How cool is my 20 euro Casio.
You have them cheaper in the Chinese, € 20 seems expensive to me
I think that these tricks are a bit unnecessary in some cases, it lasts up to two days for me and the only time where I would use more battery is when I train, since I use a timer, the training app that uses all the sensors. I think that the best recommendation to save battery is that you limit certain notifications when you are at home or in the office that you have the phone in front of you, in my case I set the clock to do not disturb, so the notifications reach me on the phone, but without remove the monitoring functions on my watch, but since I have the phone in front of the desk I don't need the notifications on the watch, if I go to a meeting I put it on the watch but in silence. At the end of the day I usually have 50 or 60% battery, I don't sleep with the clock on, in that case I sometimes put it on to save battery and in the morning I put it on again and it lasts for just two days.
I know this comment shouldn't go here, but I don't know where to leave it. Why don't you open a special page for the Apple Watch? In the same way that happened with the iPad, the Apple Watch should have a page outside actualidad iphone, since those of us who are only interested in the iPhone and do not want smart watches, get bored, and end up changing places.
Good afternoon, Jaime. I have explained it a couple of times: the Apple Watch is an accessory for the iPhone since it is not completely autonomous. In addition, there are many people who are interested. We are aware that there is a lot of information about the watch, but that is not controlled by us. It is controlled by Apple. If you look 12 months or 24 months ago, we already had information about the new iPhones everywhere, but now Apple is not interested in having information about the iPhone so that the watch has more publicity. If we published on the iPhone only, we would have practically nothing to publish.
I understand your point of view, but we ask that you please understand ours. If in the future the clock gives for a blog by itself, surely it will be created, but you cannot create a blog, with its cost, for a device that could work or fail.
Thanks for understanding.
Thanks for the clarification Pablo, I understand perfectly now. Greetings and thank you.
One question iwatch can connect to wifi.
Yes. In fact, you have this entry on the cover https://www.actualidadiphone.com/capacidad-apple-watch-solo-wifi/
Tango 78 years and I am fascinated by Iwatch
Lasts 48hrs between charges
Tango activated notifications, VERY practical and nothing else