As an Apple Watch owner, I was recently frustrated when I heard that it may not be safe to leave my device on the charger overnight. After doing some research and testing, I’m here to share what I discovered on the topic. In this blog post, I’ll explain the potential risks of leaving your Apple Watch on the charger overnight, as well as share some solutions that I discovered that might work for you.
Table of Contents
How Long Does It Take an Apple Watch to Charge Fully?
The charge time of an Apple Watch varies depending on the model of the watch in question.
For example, the Apple Series 7 Watch, the latest model, takes around 75 minutes to charge all the way to 100%, according to Apple.
However, these are theoretical numbers that will vary depending on the environment, the condition of your Apple Watch, and whether you’re using the Fast Charging USB-C Cable as well as Apple’s 20 Watt Power Adapter.
Additionally, the rate of charging isn’t flat across the entire charge. For instance, the watch takes 45 minutes to charge to 80%, then slows down and charges the remainder (20%) in 30 more minutes.
Older versions with smaller batteries still took longer to charge fully. For example, the Series 3 Watch takes around 120 minutes to charge to 100%.
Read more: How to know if the Apple Watch battery is dead?
Is It Safe to Leave Your Apple Watch on a Charger Overnight?
According to Apple, it’s safe to charge your Apple Watch overnight, even if you’re using an old model that took hours to charge fully.
Your watch is designed to be on your wrist almost all day long, the only time available for some people is simply during nighttime.
Since Apple is aware of that, they’ve designed the Apple Watch so that it charges up to 80% quickly and then slows down for the remaining 20%. Additionally, the watch stops charging automatically as soon as it hits 100%.
This prevents the charging circuit of the Apple Watch from drawing more power from the cable, and therefore, protects the watch from overcharging and overheating.
With that said, Apple’s latest Watch takes as little as 45 minutes to charge up to 80%, which can last you all day long. Since this is not long enough, charging your watch throughout the day might also be a plausible option.
Read more: Why can’t you hear a phone call on Apple Watch?
How Long Can I Keep My Apple Watch on a Charger?
Although Apple Watches are good at handling charging overnight, you shouldn’t leave the watch longer than 12 hours on the charger to avoid drastically shortening the life of the batteries.
If you’ve accidentally forgotten the watch on a charger for a long time, don’t worry! In most cases, your watch will be fine as long as you’re going to use the watch (a total of at least an hour throughout the day).
When Should I Start Charging My Apple Watch?
Apple Watches use lithium batteries. These modern batteries work best when they’re not fully heavily drained before charging (below 10%).
As a rule of thumb, you should charge the battery when it’s between 20% to 75% in order to retain the battery health for as long as possible.
How Long Does an Apple Watch Battery Last When Fully Charged?
The exact battery life of a fully charged Apple Watch depends mainly on the watch model, features enabled, and frequency of use.
Ideally, a fully charged Series 7 Apple Watch should last up to 18 hours with casual use and as little as 6 hours if you enable most features and use the watch frequently.
Tips to Maintain the Battery Life of Your Apple Watch
If you want to extend the battery life of your apple watch, there are plenty of things you can do. Here are some tips to help you achieve that:
- Turn on the Grayscale Mode if you don’t need colors
- Consider using minimalist watch faces
- Turn off the heart rate monitor and make it on demand rather than continuous measuring
- Disable unnecessary app notifications
- Turn on the power saving mode while training
- Turn off the “Wake on Wrist Raise” feature
- Disable unnecessary background apps refreshes
Wrap Up
With that said, our guide about charging your Apple Watch overnight comes to an end. As you can see, leaving your Apple Watch to Charge overnight is perfectly fine for a healthy device.
This is because Apple designed the batteries so that they slow down as they approach the last 20% of the charging process and the watch stops charging automatically when it reaches 100%, so it shouldn’t overcharge in normal conditions.
However, if the watch gets extremely hot after you leave it on a charger all night, stays warm for a long time, or drains very quickly, the battery might be malfunctioning, so you should consider sending the watch to an Apple-certified service center.
