My Apple Watch is my most used wearable throughout the day. It eliminates the need to have my phone with me at all times and delivers every notification, curbing unnecessary phone checks. But that only lasts me 10 hours on a good day!
Even at its best, the Apple Watch’s battery is something I’ll always have a beef with. Lately, however, it has been draining pretty quickly. So, here are some reasons I found for this decline and tips and tricks to extend its longevity.
Ideal Battery Life of an Apple Watch
Since its launch with the Apple Watch Series 1 till the latest model, Series 10, Apple has stayed consistent with its watch’s battery life of up to 18 hours. While this amount of time is not ideal – especially if you use your watch to track your sleep as well as activity, it could be painfully annoying if the battery falls short of this benchmark.
Why Is Your Apple Watch Dying So Fast?
Some possible reasons for a sudden decline in your Apple Watch’s battery health could be:
The Lifespan
We all know electronic devices’ batteries drain over time, so one possible reason could be that your Apple Watch is an older model.
Fix: Although you can get your watch’s battery replaced by Apple, investing in a newer model is much more feasible. This ensures longer use than the older version with a new battery since it gets regular software updates.
Bluetooth Pairing Issues
Frequent connecting and disconnecting with a phone or struggling to hold the connection could drain the battery of an Apple Watch faster. This is especially true for non-cellular Apple Watches that thrive on a Bluetooth connection.
Fix: Unpair your watch and your phone and pair them again. If this still doesn’t resolve the issue, turn both your devices off after unpairing them and then pair them again. This should fix the Bluetooth pairing issue.
Software Updates
Regularly keeping your devices updated with the latest software updates is ideal for maintaining battery health. Older software creates bugs and makes the working of the device slow. This, in turn, depletes the battery life significantly.
Fix: In case you haven’t updated your Apple Watch’s software in a long time, and it’s showing signs of depleted battery life, check for any possible updates. Additionally, I recommend updating your devices a few days after the release of new software to avoid any possible bugs.
Unsuitable Weather Conditions
I know, I was surprised to learn this, too. But batteries don’t perform to their full potential when subjected to adverse weather conditions. If you’re exposing your Apple Watch to an environment that is too cold or in direct sunlight, this could be a reason for its depleted battery life.
Fix: To resolve this issue, avoid exposing your Apple Watch to extreme weather conditions, such as direct sunlight, cold or heavy rains. Apple suggests wearing your watch “in ambient temperatures between 32°F to 95°F (0°C and 35°C).”
Additional Tips and Tricks to Save Battery on Apple Watch
Tip 1: Turn off ‘Always On’ Display
Increased display brightness is one of the biggest causes of battery drainage on all electronic devices, including the Apple Watch. Consider decreasing the display brightness and turning off the “always-on display”.
Head to Settings > Display & Brightness > Toggle off ‘Always-on’
Tip 2: Turn off ‘wrist-raise to wake’ gesture
Along similar lines is the ‘wrist-wake gesture’. With every wrist movement, the display turns on, draining the watch’s battery faster. Follow the steps below and then restart both – your iPhone and your Apple Watch.
Watch app > Display & Brightness > Turn off Wake on Wrist Raise
Tip 3: Turn off WatchOS animations
If you have an older version of the Apple Watch, turning off the WatchOS animations is a good call in order to save battery life.
On your iPhone, go to the Watch app > My Watch > Accessibility > toggle on ‘Reduce Motion’
Tip 4: Disable background apps
The apps running in the background also use a significant amount of battery on the watch, causing it to drain faster than your next talking stage. To close background apps is not as easy as doing the same on an iPhone, but it is necessary.
Press the side button on your Apple Watch and use the digital crown to scroll through all the open apps. Simply swipe from right to left and hit the close button on all the unnecessarily open apps.
Tip 5: Turn off Heart Rate Monitoring
Considering one of its main purposes is to accurately track my workouts, this one seems a little counterproductive. However, if none of these tips work for you, turning off the heart rate monitoring during workouts is worth a shot. It might slightly reduce the accuracy of tracking your burned calories, but if it makes the battery last for a full workout, why not?
On your iPhone, head to the Watch app > My Watch > Privacy > toggle off ‘Heart Rate’
Tip 6: Delete Unnecessary Apps
If there’s an app on your watch that you havent used in a long time, it is time to delete it and clear the clutter off of your Apple Watch.
Tip 7: Turn off ‘Time to Stand’ Reminder
Honestly, most of the time, I get a notification to get up and walk, I just hit Dismiss because I’m either busy or too lazy. So, turning off the activity reminder that isn’t serving up and only eating up my watch’s battery was a good call.
Settings > Activity > toggle off ‘Stand reminders’
Tip 8: Turn on Power Saver mode
Turning off the power saving mode on the Apple Watch disables a few features. Therefore, it is generally not my go-to solution. But in case I’m in a pinch, this does help with the battery life.
Settings > Battery > toggle on ‘Low Power Mode’
Tip 9: Turn on Workouts in Low Power Mode
This is an option still viable than Low Power Mode for the entire watch because when I use the Workout app to record my activity, even in Low Power Mode, it tracks metrics such as heart rate and pace. To turn on Low Power automatically during workouts,
Settings > Workout > toggle on ‘Low Power Mode’
Tip 10: Turn off ‘Hey Siri’
Although Siri is extremely helpful to me, if you’re someone who doesn’t use Siri as much, you can turn it off in the settings. Oftentimes, the watch will catch a “Hey Siri” even without being prompted. This consumes battery life and, if not required, can be turned off.
Settings > Siri > toggle off ‘Listen for “Hey Siri”’
Tip 11: Reset your watch
There have been a lot of complaints of the Apple Watch’s battery suddenly draining after an update to watchOS 10. If that is the case for you or even after following these steps, the issue still persists, and a simple unpairing didn’t do anything; completely erasing and resetting it might be the solution.
Wrap Up
If you are also facing an issue with your Apple Watch’s battery life, follow the tips above that worked for me, and you might just be able to enjoy all that your watch has to offer for a lot longer. And in case the battery is still an issue, it might be a hardware malfunction. I suggest reaching out to Apple support for help.
Till then, I can only pray they extend the battery life in their upcoming models.
