6 Simple Tricks to Extend Your Apple Watch’s Battery Life

For the times when its “all day” battery life just isn’t enough.

Published November 11, 2024

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Updated November 11, 2024

The worst thing about an Apple Watch, the world’s most popular smartwatch, is that its battery doesn’t last longer. No matter which model you get — be it a Series, Ultra or SE — they all have the same 18-hour “all day” battery life. This means you have to charge it once a day or at night.

In recent years, Apple has given its smartwatches several features to combat this issue, such as faster charging and introducing a low-power mode. However, when compared to other smartwatches, an Apple Watch’s battery life still leaves something to be desired.

That said, there are a few settings you can change, as well as some best practices, that could help extend the battery life of your Apple Watch. Most aren’t game-changers and some, admittedly, limit what the smartwatch can do.

But if extending your Apple Watch’s battery life is your ultimate goal, these will definitely help.

Turn off always-on display

Bar the SE, every Apple Watch that Apple sells has an always-on display — and it’s been that way since 2019 when Apple launched the Series 5. It’s a great feature for quickly checking the time or notification without raising your wrist, but it doesn’t help your Apple Watch’s battery life.

It’s not a game-changer, but disabling the always-on display can give your Apple Watch a little extra run time.

Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
Select Display & Brightness.
Scroll down and select Always On.
Toggle it off.

Manage your Wake settings

You can manage your Apple Watch’s Wake Settings so that it doesn’t light up every you raise your wrist or touch your Digital Crown. This can help extend your watch’s battery life because it’s not constantly going full brightness as you move or touch your Apple Watch.

Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
Select Display & Brightness.
Scroll down to Wake settings.
Toggle off “Wake on Wrist Raise” and “Wake on Crown Rotation.”

Use Low Power mode often

In fall of 2022, Apple introduced Low Power mode with watchOS 9. It’s a feature that, when turned on, almost doubles the “all-day” battery life of any recent Apple Watch, taking it from roughly 18 hours to 36 hours.

Low Power mode is different from Power Reserve mode because, instead of disabling most features (which turns your Apple Watch into a simple digital timepiece), it simply turns off battery-killing features like always-on display and heart rate detections — so still keeps track of fitness metrics and workouts.

In a nutshell, Low Power mode won’t drastically change your Apple Watch experience and it’s worth turning on if you know if you won’t be able to charge your smartwatch for a day or two.

Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
Scroll down and select Battery.
Scroll down and toggle on Low Power mode.
Select Turn On.

Get fewer notifications

Every time you get a notification on your Apple Watch, it chips a tiny bit into its battery life — they fewer notifications you get, the better your Apple Watch’s battery life will be.

If you’ve worn an Apple Watch for some time, you likely know which notifications you get are essential and which are, well, annoying. The good news is that you can prevent certain apps from sending notifications to your Apple Watch.

Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
Select Notifications.
Go through and de-select the apps you don’t notifications on your Apple Watch from.

Turn off Background App Refresh

Background App Refresh is a feature that allows Apple Watch apps to stay up to date even when you’re not using them. So when you upload the News app, for example, you won’t have to wait as long for load times to see up-to-date content and headlines.

Naturally, these apps running in the background can take a small toll on your Apple Watch’s battery life. Here’s how to disable it.

Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
Select General.
Scroll down and select Background App Refresh.
Toggle it off.

Stop Siri from always listening

Another easy setting change that can slightly improve your Apple Watch’s battery life — prevent Siri from always listening for its wake words. When disabled, you can still access Siri by holding down the Digital Crown.