As an Apple Watch owner, I was frustrated to find out that there was no clear answer to the question of how often I should charge my watch. After doing some research and testing, I’m here to share how I solved the mystery and the other solutions I discovered along the way.
It depends on your daily usage. An average Apple Watch’s battery lasts about 18 hours. So, one charge should be enough for a day of use.
| Tips |
|---|
| The average Apple Watch battery lasts around 18 hours |
| You generally don’t need to wait for the battery to discharge |
| You can check your Apple Watch’s battery charge using: |
| – Control Center |
| – A battery life complication |
| – A battery widget on your iPhone |
| – watchOS 7 and later’s Battery settings |
| To maximize battery life: |
| – Enable Bluetooth |
| – Disable Wake Screen |
| – Reduce animations |
Table of Contents
How Often to Charge Apple Watch?
Typically, you can’t overcharge your Apple Watch’s battery. You also don’t need to wait for the battery to discharge completely before charging it.
In addition, the charging process stops automatically once your Apple Watch is fully charged. So, no need to keep an eye on it.
Apple claims that the watch is able to learn your daily schedule and optimize the usage accordingly for maximum battery life.
Read more: Should you turn off the Apple Watch at night?
How to Check Apple Watch’s Battery Charge?
There are several methods to check your Apple Watch’s battery charge, including the following:
Method #1
Swipe your Apple Watch’s screen up to open the Control Center. There, you’re able to see the battery percentage, among other things.
Method #2
You can customize some Apple Watch faces to add a battery life complication. To do so:
- Touch and hold your Apple Watch’s face
- Tap Edit
- Swipe left to get to the complication
- Tap the desired complication to select it
- Press the digital crown on your Apple Watch to save changes
Method #3
You can check the Apple Watch’s battery level using your iPhone by adding a battery widget to the screen.
The battery widget allows you to check your iPhone’s battery life as well as the battery of any Bluetooth-connected device.
To do so:
- Tap and hold your iPhone’s screen until the apps wiggle
- Tap the Add button on the upper left corner of the screen
- Select Batteries
- Swipe left and right to choose the desired widget style and size
- Tap Add Widget, and it’ll appear on your home screen
- Adjust the widget position
- Press Done on the upper right corner to save changes
Method #4
For Apple watchOS 7 and later, you can check the battery charging level, as well as a detailed graph of the battery life. To do so, open Settings and tap Battery.
Read more: Functional vs traditional training on Apple Watch
Tips to Maximize Apple Watch’s Battery Life
There are quite a few tips that can help you maximize your Apple Watch battery lifespan, which include the following:
- Keep your iPhone’s Bluetooth enabled for more power-efficient communication between both your Apple Watch and your iPhone.
- Disable the Wake Screen option if you’re constantly moving to prevent the watch’s screen from turning on with every movement. You can do this by going to Settings > General > Wake Screen, then turn off Wake Screen on Wrist Raise.
- Disable the built-in heart rate sensor or use a Bluetooth chest strap for longer workouts and pair it with your Apple watch. That way, you can save the battery life on your Apple Watch.
- Make sure that your Apple Watch is always up to date with the latest watchOS version. To check for updates, go to My Watch > General > Software Update. While updating, don’t forget to connect your iPhone to Wi-Fi and put your Apple Watch on the charger.
- Reduce animations for older Apple Watch models by opening the Watch app and tapping My Watch > General > Accessibility > toggle on Reduce Motion.
- Disable background refresh by opening the Watch app and tapping General > Background App Refresh. Toggle off any app you don’t want to use this feature.
- Lower your Apple Watch screen brightness. To do so, go to Settings > Display & Brightness and use the button or digital crown to adjust the brightness.
- Close any background app you’re not using. To do so, press the side button on your Apple Watch and scroll through the apps. To close a specific app, swipe left on it and tap the red button.
- Set a less colorful watch face. The more the colors on the screen, the more the battery life is used. To do so, switch to a simpler black and grey watch face. Minimalist faces, like the numeral watch face, are perfect for this.
Conclusion
The Apple Watch is here to make your life easier, so you shouldn’t stress about how often to charge it and when you should do so. Set your schedule at your own convenience, and with time, your Apple Watch will pick it up.
