Are you tired of clicking pictures of pillars while parking your car, and then struggling to find said pillars? Well, if you haven’t noticed already, your Apple Watch can mark your parked car and help you find the directions to it, even with hands full of shopping bags.
How does Apple Watch know where my car is?
If your car uses CarPlay or is connected to your car in any capacity, such as Bluetooth, your iPhone and your Apple Watch will mark the location as ‘Parked Car’. You will also need these services for your Apple Watch to know where exactly your car is parked:
Location Services
Enabling location services on your Apple devices helps them keep track of your current location. This is also used by your Apple Watch to track where your car is parked.
To enable this, head to Settings on your iPhone > Privacy & Security. Tap on Location Services and toggle this on.
Significant Locations
Once the location services are enabled, Significant Locations help the Apple Watch understand patterns and, therefore, track your frequently visited locations. Whether this is an invasion of privacy or a helpful feature is up for debate.
To enable this, head to Settings on your iPhone > Privacy & Security. Tap on Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations. Toggle this on.
Parked Location
Once these two settings are enabled, Apple Maps uses another significant setting to determine where your car is parked. To enable this, head to Settings on your iPhone and tap on Maps > Show Parked Location.
How to Find Your Car with Your Apple Watch
Image Courtesy: How-To-Geek
Compass App
The Apple Watch redesigned its Compass app with watchOS 9. With this redesign, available in Apple Watch Series 5 and later, comes the ability to look for my parked car.
- Open the Compass app on your Apple Watch.
- On the compass dial, look for a blue waypoint that has a car photo on top.
- Use the Digital Crown to zoom in and out for a better view of how far your car is parked from your current location.
- Tap the blue waypoint and tap Select to activate the navigation and follow the directions towards your parked car.
Add a complication to the watch face
To add the Parked Car Compass as a complication on your Apple Watch face:
- Tap and hold the Apple Watch face to edit.
- Tap Edit on a watch face that supports complications and tap on a complication you want to customize.
- Use the Digital Crown to scroll through the available complications and select Parked Car Waypoint under Compass Waypoint.
- Press the Digital Crown to head back to your now customized watch face.
Maps
To use Maps in order to look for your parked car,
- After you have parked your car, open the Maps app on your Apple Watch and wait till the blue location dot aligns with your current location.
- Tap the blue dot and scroll down to tap Mark My Location. This will drop a purple pin at your current location.
- When you’re ready to return to your car, open the Maps app again on your Apple Watch and tap the purple pin.
- Select your method of traveling to your car and tap Start to follow directions to your parked car.
Wrap Up
Whether I’m shopping, hiking, or navigating a new city, using the Apple Watch to locate my parked car has been a game-changer. No more pillar pictures that I forgot to delete, which end up taking so much of my phone memory. Of course, this convenience comes with a question of privacy.
My devices using my location data to the point where they know my frequently visited places is a little shady, not going to lie. But Apple designs these features with privacy in mind. These location markers are not shared with anyone unless I choose to. All these settings are customizable and designed to assist, not intrude!
