17 Apple Watch Battery Saving Tips That Actually Work

Out of the box, your Apple Watch comes loaded with

battery

-draining settings. We'll tell you about the biggest

battery

drainer on the Apple Watch, as well as some bad advice other YouTubers are giving. But first let's start with some advice that may seem contradictory. Stay with us. First, open the Settings app, press the Digital Crown, and find the Settings gear icon. Tap that and then we'll scroll down to Battery. David is using the Digital Crown to scroll right. You can also just slide your finger up and down on the screen, right? Tap Battery, scroll down, tap Battery status, scroll down, tap the switch next to Optimize charging limit, turn it off, scroll down again, and then tap Power off.

This is like charging the optimized battery on the iPhone. Your Apple Watch learns from your daily habits to determine when is the best time to charge it to 100%. That sounds great, but we recommend turning it off because it requires turning on two other settings. We recommend disabling them and we will tell you about it later in this video. First, let's talk about low power mode. Let's tap back in the top left corner of the screen and look at the switch next to Low Power Mode. Should we activate it all the time to save battery? You could, but Low Power Mode disables a bunch of essential Apple Watch functions and that's how it saves battery.

The goal of this video is to optimize the settings of your Apple Watch, so you don't have to rely on low power mode. Let's talk about one of those settings that Low Power Mode completely disables, background app refresh. We tap back, in the top left corner of the screen, scroll up using the screen, scrolling up now and tap General, scroll down and tap Background App Refresh. Some YouTubers tell you to turn this switch off completely. That's bad advice. It's bad advice because background app refresh is

actually

a good thing in certain circumstances. Allow certain apps to download new content in the background, even when you're not using them.

Instead of turning off background app refresh entirely, scroll through the list of apps and ask yourself: Do I want this app to be able to download new content in the background of my Apple Watch? Most of the time, the answer will be no, but for messaging apps in particular, it's a very good idea to leave Background App Refresh on to disable Background App Refresh for an app to disable the switch to your right. We know we go through these settings pretty quickly. If you join our channel by tapping the Join button below, you'll be able to download a free PDF of everything we talked about today.

Whats Next? Notifications. And unfortunately, you can't change them on your Apple Watch. We need to enter the Watch app on our iPhones. I'll tap this folder, open the Watch app, and tap Notifications. A single notification won't drain your battery much, but if you receive notifications all day, it could be annoying and drain your battery. In the Watch app on your iPhone, scroll through the list of apps and decide which apps you want to be able to send to you. Notifications. Again, messaging apps. You want to receive those messages immediately. You want to know when you have a message right away, but for example, full attention.

I hate those Apple Watch mindfulness reminders. I don't want to calm down and relax. Let's just turn off Notifications and now I won't get those mindfulness notifications anymore. Next, let's talk about display and brightness settings. Let's go back to the Apple Watch. Tap back, in the top left corner of the screen, return to the main Settings page, scroll down, tap Display & Brightness. The first thing you should look at is the appearance slider on your Apple Watch. Lowering the brightness of your Apple Watch can save some battery life. Imagine that. It's not as granular as the iPhone slider, right?

Only three levels. You can tap the sun icon on the left to make it the lowest brightness level, but unfortunately it's not as good as the iPhone. Below are the settings that I personally don't choose to turn off, but that will save your battery if you do. Always on display. All Apple Watches since the E5, except the SE, support Always On Display. Always On Display gives you information at a glance and lets you see the time. I think it looks great in an app like Settings, but when it's on the

watch

face, it's too bright for me.

In our Display and Brightness settings, if we scroll down, we can tap Always On. At the top of the screen we have the Always on switch. If you want to turn off Always On Display completely, tap that switch to turn it off. But if you like Always On Display, like I do, you don't need to keep all the switches on. You can see what you want. If we scroll down, we have three settings. The most important one for me is Show Apps. We tap on that and turn off the switch at the top of the screen.

This is how I like Always On Display when I leave it on. It just gives you a nice, simple view of Always On Display. Next, let's talk about Wake Screen when raising your wrist. It's a good feature. I leave it on, but if you want to maximize battery life you may want to turn it off. Let's tap back, in the upper left corner of the screen. Back to our Display and Brightness settings, scroll down and notice the switch next to Wake On Doll Raise. Like any other

watch

, you probably want to be able to see the time when you raise your wrist, but your Apple Watch can't tell if you're looking at the time or taking a sip of water.

You have a few options. You can disable Wake On Doll Raise completely. It may be a little excessive, but it will save battery. Or you can go down here, tap Activation Duration and set it to Activation for 15 seconds. This reduces the amount of time your Apple Watch screen is on when it wakes up. On the iPhone, there are many cool features in the accessibility section of settings that maximize battery life. Unfortunately, there is only one on the Apple Watch. And that setting is Reduce Motion. Let's go back to the main settings page of our Apple Watch, scroll down and then tap Accessibility, scroll down and then tap Reduce Motion.

Flip that switch. How noticeable is the difference here, David? It's not so noticeable that I didn't

actually

realize I had Reduce Motion Mostly turned on on my Apple Watch. You won't notice the difference. Reduce motion is much more jarring on the iPhone than on your Apple Watch. It's a really easy way to save some battery. Below, we'll talk about some settings that even Apple admits drain battery life, sounds, and touch feel. And we are going to focus more on the tactile part. I have a question. What the heck is a haptic? Small haptic vibrations that you feel while you do things on your Apple Watch.

Okay, let's tap back, in the top left corner of the screen, scroll down to Sounds & Haptics, and scroll down to Haptics. You can set it to Featured where your haptics are more prominent or choose Default. That will save you some battery life. Next, scroll down and look at the switches next to Crown Haptics and System Haptics. So Crown Haptics, for example, when you scroll using the digital crown on your Apple Watch, you'll feel a nice little vibration. I like it. I like System Haptics and Crown Haptics. I'm going to leave them on, but to save battery, you can disable both.

I'm not a fan of haptics, but I am a fan of people who subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking the big subscribe button right below the video. Let's go back to the Settings app on our Apple Watch, go back to the main Settings page, scroll down and tap App Store. Next, we need to talk about uninstalling apps you don't need on your Apple Watch. They are sending data back and forth with your iPhone, syncing data and draining battery life. They also take up unnecessary storage space. If you completely run out of storage space on your Apple Watch, that can be bad for the system and your battery, but it will also prevent you from following an important tip that we'll talk about later in this video.

The easiest way to remove apps from your Apple Watch is to put them in list view first. Let's tap the top left corner of the screen, scroll up and tap on the apps view and then select the list view. This is one of my favorite

tips

for Apple Watch in general. Even if this specific setting doesn't save your battery, it just makes my life easier. Then, press the Digital Crown on your Apple Watch. You may have to press it twice to access the list view of your apps. Scroll through a list of apps and see which ones you can delete.

So, for example, I don't need the cycle tracking app on my Apple Watch. So what I'm going to do is long press on that app. And then I'm going to touch edit applications. Small Xs will appear in the upper left corner of those app icons. To delete an app, tap it, and then tap delete the app. You don't need to touch the little X. It doesn't

work

. And to exit this wave app mode, press the Digital Crown once again. Next, we'll make sure that new apps you download on your iPhone won't automatically install on your Apple Watch.

Let's go to the settings. We're now in our app list view and they're in alphabetical order, which makes things a lot easier. It's much better than honeycomb. Move to down. There are settings. Let's tap the top left corner of the screen to return to the main settings page. Scroll down, tap App Store, and turn off this switch next to Automatic Downloads at the top of the screen. This is also one of my favorite iPhone

tips

. Just because I download an app on my iPad doesn't mean I also want to download it on my iPhone, my Apple Watch, and everything else.

I usually change the settings on my Apple Watch before making these videos so I can show you how to turn them on or off. I was too afraid to turn on automatic downloads before this video. Turn it off, leave it off. It's a bad scenario. Next, email configuration. We talked a lot about how to optimize the Mail section of your iPhone's Settings app. And we'll link to that video in the card above and in the description below. Fortunately, it's easier to optimize your email settings on your Apple Watch. This is a setting that you cannot change on your Apple Watch.

Then enter the clock app on your iPhone. Scroll down and tap Mail and make sure Mirror my iPhone is selected. If you haven't seen that video, click the card above or become a member of the channel by clicking the big join button below this video. PDFs of some of our top setup videos show you exactly how to optimize your email settings and more on your iPhone. Next, let's talk about music and specifically how to add songs to your Apple Watch to maximize battery life. Downloading songs to your Apple Watch uses much less battery than streaming songs all the time.

For example, if you listen to music every day on your Apple Watch and stream it over the Internet, it will use up more battery because it constantly maintains that connection than if you downloaded that music to your iPhone and then streamed it. on your Apple Watch and then play it from your Apple Watch. And over time, this will cause your Apple Watch to go through more charging cycles, which will have a greater impact on the health of your Apple Watch battery. So all this is to say download songs directly to your Apple Watch. We do this in the clock app on our iPhone.

Move back to the top left corner of the screen. Play music. The first thing to look at here is recent music. As you can see, recent music is automatically downloaded to your Apple Watch. What we recommend doing is creating another playlist so that when you add songs or remove them, they are also added or removed from your Apple Watch. Let's tap the Add Music button. I'm going to play playlists and I want to add my groovy playlist to my Apple Watch. I'll tap it and then tap the plus button at the top of the screen and now, as you can see, it appears in playlists and albums.

Below are some configurations that are generally a good one.idea. And believe it or not, they live in the general environments section. Let's tap the top left corner of the screen to return to the main settings page. Scroll up until you see general. Tap general and then tap software update. It's always a good idea to keep your Apple Watch up to date to keep everything running smoothly and protect against security vulnerabilities. It's also a good idea to turn off your Apple Watch perhaps once a week. Keep everything running smoothly. Maybe something just failed in the background.

Just give it a good new start. To turn off your Apple Watch, press and hold the side button until the sliders appear, then tap the small power icon in the top right corner of the screen and slide the power off slider from left to right. Sometimes it takes 10 to 30 seconds for the Apple Watch to turn off completely. Once you've done that, press and hold the side button again to turn your Apple Watch back on. Next, let's talk about some of the biggest battery drains and they are found in the privacy section of settings. Let's tap the top left corner of the screen to return to the main settings page.

Scroll down and tap Privacy & Security, then tap Location Services. So if you scroll down and tap on an app like the app store, we see that everything is grayed out. What's up with that? Unfortunately, you have to change these settings on your iPhone and they are then reflected on your Apple Watch. But luckily for you, we've created a comprehensive video on the iPhone settings you should change. Check this out below to optimize your iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time.