The Apple Watch competitors in many ways, but not when it comes to battery life. Since its debut six years ago, the best-selling smartwatch hasn’t changed much in terms of hardware. From Series 1 to the most recent Series 6, their appearance is almost identical, along with the same battery life – 18 hours.
For the current model, all-day battery life of 18 hours is based on the following types of use:
- 90 time checks
- 90 notifications
- 45 minutes of app use
- 60-minute work with music playback from Apple Watch via Bluetooth
- All this usage over 18 hours
So you can see a lot of factors determine Apple Watch battery life. Add in unoptimized settings, heavy apps, and other features, and you can get wildly different everyday results. Beware, that it’s extremely rare for hardware problems to cause battery life drain. In 99% of cases, it’s a software issue that will be the source of these problems.
We’ll now run through some of the most common causes of Apple Watch Battery Drain.
- Apple Watch Display Always On
- Apple Watch Display Settings
- With the Apple Watch Series 5, Apple created a feature that would allow you to keep your screen always on. As you can imagine with Display Always On, your Apple Watch will eat up a lot more battery.
But even older models of the Apple Watch also have extended screen on time functions.
- Start the Watch app on your iPhone.
- On the “My Watch” tab, tap “General.”
- Tap “Wake Screen.”
- Tap “Wake for 15 seconds.”
WiFi, Bluetooth, and Cellular Radios Using Lots of Battery
All Apple Watches have WiFI and Bluetooth connectivity. From the Apple Watch Series 3, you can also get LTE enabled Apple Watches. All of these forms of connectivity (also known as radios) use a lot of battery life, particularly cellular connections.
Unless absolutely necessary, you should leave your LTE connection disabled. Otherwise, continually connecting to cell towers can quickly drain your battery likewise, if you can save even more battery life by disabling the WiFI and Bluetooth connections through using Airplane Mode on your watch.
Apple Watch Needs a Reboot
It may seem like something of tech support from the 1990s, but all digital devices can use a periodic reboot. Think about it like this; you still turn your computer off and on and restart it. Why should it be any different for your iPhone or Apple Watch, which are just smaller sized computers? You can quickly reboot your Apple Watch
- Pressing and holding down both the digital crown and the side button at the same time.
- Keep them held down until the Apple logo appears on screen
- Release buttons
- Streaming Music on Apple Watch
- Streaming music on your Apple Watch is a huge battery drain. The Apple Watch has 8-16 GB of storage, so download some music to it to save battery life.
- Open the Watch app on iPhone
- Tap the My Watch tab
- Tap Music
- Add Music from Playlists and Albums. You can also directly search through your library and tap to add songs.
- Update and Sync Issues
The single most common cause of Apple Watch battery drain happens after iOS updates that cause glitches. From connection disruption to rogue processes, un-pairing and unpairing your Apple Watch can get everything back to normal
- Press the Digital Crown to switch to the app launcher.
- Select the Settings app.
- Tap on General
- Tap on Reset at the bottom. Don’t worry you can reload all data from your last sync
- Tap on Erase all contents and settings.
- Enter your Passcode to confirm.
- Unnecessary Notifications
- Apple Watch notifications
- Receiving notifications on your Apple Watch is one of its best features. But they not only light up your screen, but they also activate the Bluetooth and WiFi functions raining your battery.
- Launch the Apple Watch app and turn off notifications for anything you don’t really need. Keep what you care about, like Phone, Calendar, and Messages, and leave the rest for your iPhone.
Additional Apps
Apple optimizes its apps for the best performance on the Apple Watch. These means radios won’t transmit any more data than they need to. Other apps are not as efficient. Go the Apple Watch App and disable any apps you don’t use daily.
If you use your Apple Watch to exercise, Power Saving Mode is a great way to save battery life. It turns off the heart rate sensor while also not recording calories as accurately. Fortunately, most gyms have these metrics built-in to their cardio machines, and they’re nearly as accurate as the sensors in your Apple Watch.
To enable Power Saving Mode for the Workout app, go to the Settings app on your Apple Watch, tap General -> Workout, and turn on the switch next to Power Saving Mode. Make sure you also end all workouts after you complete them. Sometimes your Apple Watch may still leave this feature on which uses additional battery life.
Background App Refresh Hogging Battery Life
Background App Refresh ensures your Apple Watch always has current data. You have the same feature for apps on your iPhone as well. This can significantly affect battery life as it constantly sending and receiving data and turning on the radios. You can either choose to turn off this feature entirely or use it only on specific apps:
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone.
- On the “My Watch” tab, tap “General.”
- Tap “Background App Refresh.”
- Choose to either disable the feature or select specific apps, so only the most important ones to you get automatically refreshed.
Resetting and Restoring
If all else fails to improve your battery life, you can restore it to factory defaults. Beware when you do this, it will erase all your settings and content, including apps, music, and workout histories. It’s like starting from scratch with your phone. So make sure to backup to iCloud beforehand. To restore your Apple Watch to factory defaults, open the Settings app and tap General -> Reset and tap Erase All Content and Settings.
How to resolve Apple Watch Battery Drain
Solving a quickly draining Apple Watch battery is very similar to the steps you’d take on your iPhone. Disable unneeded apps and notifications, turn off network connections when not necessary, and optimize your settings. If none of this helps, there’s a rare chance you may have a hardware issue. Unlike iPhones, Apple your only real option for repair, and it can be pricey to get your watch fixed if not under AppleCare.