How to improve your Apple Watch battery life

While the Apple Watch gets a bad rap for its battery life, the latest iteration can last up to 18 hours, an improvement over its predecessors. Nonetheless, it means you will need to charge your Apple Watch daily. But what if your Apple Watch battery is draining rapidly and doesn’t even last a full day of use?

In that case, here are some tips you can follow to maximize your Apple Watch battery life and fix the issues which lead to the battery draining rapidly.

Disable AOD (Always on display)
Disable Raise to wake
Use dark watch faces
Disable Background Refresh
Reduce notification permissions
Disable Sound or Haptic feedback
Enable Power Reserve mode
Update watchOS
Miscellaneous tips
Contact Apple Support

1. Disable AOD (Always on display)

Apple Watch Series 5 and above come with support for Always-on Display. It indeed is a great feature as it helps function the smartwatch as its traditional counterpart. However, the battery takes a hit in the process and if you’re trying to save the battery, disable it. And here’s how to do it,

Open Settings on your Apple Watch by pressing the Digital Crown once the watch is unlocked.
Navigate and tap Settings.
Select Display and Brightness.
Navigate and select Always on.
Toggle off the feature.

2. Disable Raise to wake

Another feature mostly used as a substitute for AOD is Wake on Wrist Raise. However, if you want to save your battery life, disabling this feature might help. Here’s how to do it,

Open Settings on your Apple Watch by pressing the Digital Crown once the watch is unlocked.
Navigate and tap Settings.
Select Display and Brightness.
Navigate to the WAKE section and disable Wake on Wrist Raise.

3. Use dark watch faces

For those unaware, the Apple Watch features an OLED display. An OLED panel lights up individual pixels in use, which helps conserve the device’s battery life. To help save the battery on your Apple Watch, make sure you use watch faces that are mostly black. Doing so will help reduce battery consumption and increase battery life.

4. Disable Background Refresh

Ever wondered how Apps get added to your Apple Watch automatically? Well, it is because whenever you download an App for your iPhone, it downloads it by default if it has a companion app for the Apple Watch.

For all these apps, refreshing in the background will lead to excessive battery consumption, and disabling Background App Refresh is the only solution. Here’s how to do it,

Open the Watch App on your iPhone.
Tap General.
Select Background App Refresh.
On the next screen, toggle off the Background App Refresh option.

5. Reduce notification permissions

Yes, the Apple Watch is also used as a tool to get notified of your messages and reply to them instantly. But, getting notifications from all applications installed on your iPhone might be unnecessary in most cases. As the Apple Watch mirrors all notifications from your iPhone, you get every notification on your watch.

Turning these unnecessary notifications off might be helpful as the notifications not only light up the display and have sound and haptic feedback. Here’s how to reduce notification permissions,

Open the Watch App on your iPhone.
Tap Notifications.
Now, select the apps and services you want to receive notifications from and select Mirror My iPhone or customize the permissions.
Also, scroll down to Mirror iPhone Alerts and toggle off the apps you do not want notifications from.

6. Disable Sound or Haptic feedback

As I already mentioned, the Apple Watch is a tool for notifying users. However, you can make do with either sound or haptic feedback, which acts as an indicator when you receive a notification. Here’s how you can disable either Sound or Haptic feedback on your Apple Watch,

Open the Watch App on your iPhone.
Tap Sound & Haptics.
Toggle on Silent mode or Toggle off the Haptic feedback based on your preference.

7. Enable Power Reserve mode

To help improve the battery life, enable the Power reserve mode on your Apple Watch . When enabled, your Apple Watch serves only one purpose: displaying time. Yes, the features won’t work, but if in an emergency turning on Power Reserve mode is your best bet.

8. Update watchOS

The watchOS version running on your Apple Watch might be infested with bugs leading to battery drain of the device. Apple is renowned for fixing bugs soon, and if a software bug is leading to battery drain, updating the watchOS might help. Here’s our step-by-step guide on updating watchOS on your Apple Watch.

9. Miscellaneous tips

Enable Workout Power saving mode: Apple Watch is an excellent fitness tracker. But if you want to save some battery, turn on Workout Power Saving mode on your Apple Watch.
Disable Environmental Soundtracking: When you step into a zone with loud sounds, the Apple Watch detects unsafe sound levels and notifies you about the same. However, this is one reason for battery drain, and if you want to save battery and live in a rather quiet place, here’s how to disable Environmental Soundtracking.
Reduce Animations: If you don’t care much about animations on your Apple Watch, turning on Reduce Motion reduces the animations. Less animation = less power consumption. Here’s how to turn on Reduce Motion on your Apple Watch.

10. Contact Apple Support

If none of those mentioned above help improve your Apple Watch’s battery life, your last resort is to contact Apple. Apple support might be able to help solve your issue, and if you’re covered under Apple Care or Apple Care+, it is a bonus. Follow this link and learn how to contact Apple Support.

I hope these steps help you fix the battery life on your Apple Watch. If you have any other queries related to the battery life of your Apple Watch, leave a comment below and I’ll try my best to provide you with a solution.

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