The Apple Watch is an excellent accessory that's become a mainstay in many's lives. It helps you stay on top of notifications that arrive on your iPhone — even when you're a little far away from it — and track your fitness goals via its built-in features and installable applications.

But this feature set makes the internal hardware of the Apple Watch extremely taxing on its battery, which means the wearable often only lasts between 18 to 30 hours before needing a charge.

If your Apple Watch is over a year old, you may have noticed it doesn't last as long as it did when you started using it. If you're suffering from this, recent updates have introduced features for certain models that will help your Apple Watch last you more than a few additional hours.

And here, we look into how you can improve battery endurance on Apple Watch.

1. Disable Always On (for Apple Watch Series 5 and later)

CASETiFY Impact case for Apple Watch - 23-1

The launch of the Apple Watch Series 5 in September 2019 brought one of the first significant upgrades to the Apple Watch display since its launch; this was the inclusion of hardware that supported always-on functionality. For those unaware, this enables Apple Watch Series 5 and later models (including Apple Watch Ultra but excluding Apple Watch SE models) to display the watch face or values from active applications.

While enabling it will help you keep track of time or quickly glance at the metrics during a workout, having it disabled will help reduce the strain on the battery. To do this, follow the steps listed below after opening the Watch application on your iPhone or Settings on your Apple Watch:

  1. Please scroll down to the Display & Brightness subsection and tap on it.
  2. Then press on the Always On section.
  3. On this screen, disable Always On.

If you choose to leave Always On active but prefer your watch not to display content from complications or notifications, you can also customize these settings in the Always On menu mentioned above.

2. Use Low Power Mode on hectic days

Apple Watch Series 8 Low Power Mode

When watchOS 9 launched in 2022, it brought to the Apple Watch a much-requested feature — Low Power Mode. Before this, the Apple Watch had a "bare-bones" battery-saving mode called Power Reserve. It would disable almost every feature leaving only parts of the display active, which showed the time.

Low Power Mode brought a significant improvement. It leaves all of the smart features on the Apple Watch intact, reducing only the processing speed in some cases and reducing background activity otherwise.

My 41mm Series 7 saw its endurance increase by 16 hours with Low Power Mode active, extending to 40 hours of use instead of the typical 24 hours.

To use Low Power Mode on Apple Watch, follow the steps below:

  1. Access Control Center by swiping up from the bottom edge of the Apple Watch display.
  2. Tap on the battery percentage button.
  3. Now, toggle on Low Power Mode.

You can also configure Low Power Mode to enable when working out, as the feature doesn't impact activity tracking. Enabling it will have a positive effect as it reduces the influence of background activities and the Always On display elements on the battery.

3. Manage applications with active Background App Refresh

The next step is managing which application can stay active and update data in the background, something made possible by a feature dubbed Background App Refresh. Like on your iPhone, not every app on your Apple Watch needs to fetch data or update constantly; hence we recommend disabling this feature for most applications.

To do this, head into the Watch application on your iPhone and follow the steps listed below:

  1. Tap on General.
  2. Scroll down and then press Background App Refresh.
  3. On this screen, choose which applications will always be allowed to refresh data by disabling the toggle on the rest.

4. Turn off certain Push Notifications

Now, although delivering notifications is a primary function of the Apple Watch, only some applications send alerts that require immediate attention. Thus, if you feel certain applications from your phone aren't sending essential information, you should disable their notifications from arriving on your Apple Watch. To configure this, follow the steps listed below:

  1. Tap on Notifications at the top of the Apple Watch settings on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down to find the list of applications under Mirror iPhone Alerts From.
  3. Now, please tap on the toggle next to the app to disable notifications from them arriving on your Apple Watch.

Other changes you should make to improve battery endurance on Apple Watch

an image with the apple watch and its battery application showing usage stats

A few other things we recommend looking into are reducing the haptic feedback of the Apple Watch and keeping the Bluetooth on your iPhone active.

The former is bound to help increase battery life as it will reduce the number of times the motor is active. As for the latter, when the Apple Watch connects to an iPhone via Bluetooth, it consumes less battery. A Wi-Fi-based connection — that occurs when Bluetooth isn't functioning — will lead to your Apple Watch using a lot more power than otherwise necessary.

Improve Apple Watch endurance with a few simple steps

Most of these recommendations will impact nearly all models of the Apple Watch. So be it the Apple Watch Ultra or the old Apple Watch Series 4, if you apply the settings recommended above, you will likely see an improved battery endurance on Apple Watch. Try them out, and let us know how it works with a comment below!

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