If you own a smartwatch, you may be wondering how you can increase its battery life. Battery life varies by model, but it is possible to make it last longer by following a few simple tips regardless of what watch you own.
How Long Do Smartwatch Batteries Last?
Most smartwatches are designed to last for at least a day. This usually means 12-48 hours of use, which is sufficient provided you are willing to charge your watch at night. If you want something that can be worn all the time, some smartwatches do offer longer battery lives. But you do need to shop specifically for this feature and usually pay more.
However, if you want a watch that can compete with a standard watch, you should opt for a hybrid model. Hybrid smartwatches combine an analog face with smart features and can last for months. This is not something that a standard smartwatch can compete with. Hybrid smartwatches also have a more minimal appearance which many people prefer.
10 Ways to Improve Smartwatch Battery Life
If you haven’t previously attempted to optimize your smartwatch, there are many steps that you can take to reduce power consumption. Here are ten ways to make your battery last longer.
1. Stop Unnecessary Notifications
People often buy smartwatches specifically to get notifications on their wrists. Along with being useful, however, they also use the battery. And if you receive a lot of notifications, all that power usage can really add up. Go through every app that sends you notifications and decide which ones you actually need. Text messages are obviously important but do you really need every social media alert? It’s also worth asking whether you want both your phone and your watch sending you identical alerts.
2. Turn Down the Brightness
Smartwatches have increasingly powerful screens, but the brighter they are, the faster they use up your battery. High brightness settings are useful in direct sunlight, but outside of this scenario, there’s very little benefit to having your screen turned up to full. If your watch has a light sensor, you can set it to adjust brightness automatically based on available light. Otherwise, you should try different percentages manually until you find the right balance between aesthetics and battery life.
3. Turn Off Always-on Display
Always-on displays are popular because they allow you to see the time without flicking your wrist. Always on displays, however, mean that your watch is always using the battery. Ideally, you should turn this feature off.
4. Turn Off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
Many features on a smartwatch require access to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Many apps need access to the internet, and your watch cannot interact with your phone without Bluetooth. Disconnecting your watch entirely obviously isn’t practical, but you can save a lot of power by turning these connections off when you are not using them. Many smartwatch apps will still work regardless.
5. Change Your Watch Face
Smartwatches offer a wide range of different faces. Many of these are highly interactive, and while this added information is useful, it also requires more power to run. If you’d like to limit the power that your watch uses, you should therefore look for a watch face that actually shows less information.
6. Use Power Saving Mode if Available
Some smartwatches have power-saving modes that automatically optimize the settings to use less power. Turning it on can significantly improve battery life if your smartwatch has this feature. However, it’s important to note that this is usually achieved by turning off many of the watch’s features. You should therefore try it out before wearing your watch somewhere important.
7. Turn Off Tilt to Wake
If you’re not using an always-on display, most smartwatches will use tilt to wake or touch to wake instead. This allows you to turn on your watch by tilting your wrist or touching the screen. These features are obviously convenient, but they also mean that your watch is constantly monitoring your wrist and screen. You can save battery by turning these features off and waking your watch by pressing a button instead.
8. Turn Off Voice Assistants
Voice Assistants are popular in smartwatches because they provide an alternative to using a very small screen to give instructions. In order for a voice assistant to work, however, it has to listen to everything you say. Privacy concerns aside, this uses battery. If you’d like to turn it off and still use a voice assistant, many watches allow you to turn voice detection back on by pressing a button. This allows you to give voice commands, but it won’t use the battery at any other time.
9. Uninstall Apps
Having too many smartwatch apps installed can slow down performance. It can also increase power consumption if those apps are running in the background. It’s, therefore, a good idea to go through all of your installed apps and uninstall any that you don’t need.
10. Use Theater Mode
Many smartwatches have a theater mode that allows you to turn off many features temporarily. Depending on the watch, this turns notifications off and prevents the screen from lighting up. This is ideal if you want to increase battery life for a specific period but want your watch to operate normally immediately after.
Should You Try a New Smartwatch?
Smartwatches can be optimized to use less battery, and many users will find that they can greatly increase the battery life by making the right adjustments. Outside of this, however, you are limited to the size of your smartwatch’s battery.
If you’ve tried the steps in this article and your watch still isn’t lasting as long as you’d like, it may be worth trying a different watch that’s designed for better battery life.
Hybrid models offer the best battery life and allow you to enjoy the functionality of a smartwatch with the battery life of a standard watch. But many power-focused standard smartwatches are also worth considering.
