Maximize Your Apple Watch Battery Life: Tested & Proven Strategies for 1.5-2x Longer Performance

How long can you make your Apple Watch’s battery last? Between the 5 recommended tips by Apple, I’ve narrowed it down to two which are screen settings and Low Power Mode. Also, there are two recommendations that Apple makes that don’t actually work, especially the one that costs extra money!

Now Low Power Mode is going to net you the most battery savings at the cost of the functionality of your Apple Watch. With Low Power Mode, I was able to stretch my battery life from 2 days to 4 days but again, I didn’t really use my Apple Watch (it was basically dead weight).

My recommended Apple Battery Life saving strategy? Turning off Wrist Raise Off and the Always on Screen off. My Apple Watch Ultra would get a 50% boost in battery life and my Series 8 would get a 20% boost in battery life. If you’re using an older model like the Series 3, the savings is considerable!

In this video:

0:00 Intro
0:22 Power Saving Mode?
1:35 Bluetooth HR Monitors
2:13 Wrist Raise Off
4:06 Turning Off Bluetooth?
5:52 Low Power Mode
6:30 My recommendations

#techreview #deinfluencing #reviewernotinfluencer

For Apple’s first recommendation of turning on Power Saving Mode (which doesn’t exist, it’s Low Power Mode in the workout settings), I observed a savings of 2% over 2 hours which isn’t significant considering you couldn’t extrapolate the savings into a 24 hour period since most of us won’t workout for 24 hours straight.

“Use an external Bluetooth HR monitor” which is Apple’s second recommendation will actually cost you more battery power which is the exact opposite of what Apple claims will happen.

Bluetooth is a funny thing. Toggling the Bluetooth in Control Center resulted in decent battery savings though technically it doesn’t do anything to the Bluetooth connection between the Apple Watch and iPhone. With Bluetooth completely off (disabled in the settings), the Apple Watch’s generally lasted the same as regular usage.

A few things about how I got the observations for this video:

-Each observation was recorded manually by recording the start battery power and end battery power after each interval
-Each test value was based on the averages of at least 10 observations (so to establish a baseline for the AWU took about two weeks)
-The observations were taken during the waking hours which is why I did 12 hour and 8 hour intervals
-I did do observations during the night but didn’t include those in the averages
-I used the Apple Watch’s during the tests as “normally” as possible (i.e. workout tracking)
-All Apple Watches used in the testing were paired to iPhone 14’s except for the Series 3)
-All Apple Watches were running watchOS 9.3 (except for the Series 3 which was running watchOS 4)
-I’m right handed and I kept the Series 8 on my right hand for testing so those observations will most likely be higher in terms of battery consumption
-The AWU was kept on my left hand throughout this entire testing process

Collecting all this data was tough. Had some syncing issues at the beginning where I lost about a week or so of data. Trying to keep track of all the different things I was measuring was also annoying as I would have different timers going all the time and sometimes one would go off and I had no idea what it was for.

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[qaesarx]

The doggo is THE charm of this channel 😀🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

[akashvyas]

thank you for making unbiased videos to help people out

[Armageddon]

This is the video that I always needed thank you!
Although I don’t agree with you on the low power mode I don’t think it completely cripples the watch it just turns off the sensors which is something you don’t always want or need but everything else still functions normally like getting notifications and calling siri opening apps setting timers …etc

[jacksonj]

I notice listening to music or podcast via bluetooth to my iPhone compared to listening to music or podcast downloaded to my Ultra2 makes a huge difference.

[cnapoli]

Thanks for testing this. I think the Bluetooth off suggestion is also one of those "your mileage may vary" things. The Apple Watch does most of its data communication with the internet via its bluetooth connection to an iPhone, then the iPhone uses its wi-fi connection to actually send/receive data. BT uses less power than wi-fi on the Apple Watch, but is slower. If you use an Apple Watch for any type of home automation like controlling Hue lights, you really notice the lag as the command from your Apple Watch goes to your iPhone via BT, then from your iPhone via wi-fi to the Hue Hub that controls the lights. My guess is if you have a Apple Watch that has to sync a lot of data with its host iPhone (music, photos, workout data, etc.), turning BT off cancels those syncs saving power until BT is re-enabled or the Apple Watch is in its power cradle where it will use wi-fi to sync.

[Abdullah-zlub]

Isn't the smartwatch smart enough to stop using the wifi when not needed? also, don’t we need those updates to be installed? Which is better, to turn off the wrist raise or the display as a whole? Isn't the brightness automatically based on the sensors and environment?

[notyouraveragevegan]

Doesn’t make sense to me why they would turn off the heart rate and gps for workouts when that’s basically what you need for your workout

[johto]

Lol that old dog. So cute. Just chilling while your hyper LOL

[AshChapman]

What about turning WIFI off on the Apple watch? Would that help?

[GT-hoco]

Really good analysis. Personally I don’t buy either iPhone or Watch to turn off features and prefer to enjoy the experience as it’s designed. When flying low power mode makes sense and saves a ton of battery but I wouldn’t use it day to day.
Thanks for the effort it testing all scenarios 👍🏼 would love to see you prove or disprove “saving” battery on iPhone too.
Hi to Monty 🐶

[SNIVY]

The wrist raise was the first thing I turned off with my series 3 when I got it, and I've kept it that way with my Series 4 and my Ultra. The battery life is pretty good with the Always On Display, though I know turning that off could improve my battery life a good bit. Having the Sleep Focus enabled might also help because it turns the display off while you sleep, so that saves power for sleep tracking.

[WhittyPics]

I use the always on display my regular screen. I turned off raise to wake and as many notifications as possible.

[widyantonugroho]

I learnt a lot of things from you since you test the best tempered glass for iphone.

Keep going even though the views not always great but you can see how much people appreciate your effort in the comments section✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽

[alface]

Love Doggy ❤

That Beautiful Doggy is a great Partner listener

[boulinkaterina]

I do have a problem with messenger .Don't get alerts ! Can you help me please? Thank you in advance!😍 I have 8 series watch

[scottsgaragecave]

Good video, clear, quick and, concise. Thanks

[vipulukey]

Damn! That doggo is so calm, like he is meditating! 🙏

[alidikristallo]

HI ! Can I ask what kind of workout you put on your apple watch when you do weight training in order to track calories? Thank you

[ti_vo]

Theater mode is my goto on my series 7
It’s a faster way to turn off wrist raise and alarms without having to navigate the settings maze.

[Piyushpandey]

What about turning on greyscale in accessibility in settings?
you didn’t cover that