How to Save Your Smartwatch’s Battery Life

Time flies, and smartwatches grow more feature-packed and attractive year after year, but battery life remains a major problem. Traditional watches can’t compete on functionality, but you rarely have to worry they’ll stop ticking. Smartwatches frequently cause battery anxiety at the end of a busy day or when you forget to charge them before leaving home. But don’t fret! These tips will help you save smartwatch battery life and beat the clock.

Most smartwatch battery-saving tips amount to turning a feature off, but if you switch all the smart functionality off, there isn’t much point in having a smartwatch. We recommend singling out the tips that suit you and how you use your smartwatch and skipping the rest. You may also want to dip into our guides on the Best Smartwatches, Best Fitness Trackers, and How to Sell Your Old Smartwatch (in case you spot something you want). We've also got similar tips on saving your smartphone's battery life.

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Most smartwatch manufacturers have built-in power-saving modes for when your battery is flagging, and the next opportunity to charge is distant. These modes will generally shut down some standard functionality and likely include some of the individual tips we outline below. Here’s how to activate power-saving mode on some popular smartwatches.

1. Swipe up from the bottom and tap on your battery percentage, or go to Settings > Battery to toggle on Low Power Mode.
2. This mode turns off the always-on display, reduces connectivity and notifications, and limits various sensor measurements.
3. You can choose Turn On indefinitely (until you turn it off again) or Turn On For a set period of time (one, two, or three days).

1. Swipe down and tap on the battery icon, or go to Settings > Battery to toggle on Battery Saver. (For older Wear OS watches it might be Settings > System > Battery).
2. This mode turns off the always-on display, reduces connectivity and notifications, disables vibrations and location services, plus reduces background data.

1. Swipe down and tap the Power saving icon or go to Settings > Battery and toggle on Power saving.
2. This mode turns off the always-on display, disables wake-up gestures, and reduces screen brightness, screen timeout, connectivity, location services, background data, and CPU speed.

Most smartwatches have additional modes designed for specific scenarios, but they can also save battery life and may be a good alternative if power-saving modes are too draconian for you. Here’s what they do.

• Airplane mode: Turns off connectivity, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE,  and GPS/GNSS. You can turn these back on individually, or toggle Airplane mode off again to turn everything back on.
• Theater mode: Turns off your screen temporarily and holds notifications and incoming calls.
• Do Not Disturb: Turns off all notifications and incoming calls, but you can usually set exceptions for repeat callers, specific contacts, and alarms.
• Bedtime mode: Usually mirrors Do Not Disturb in turning off all notifications and incoming calls, with exceptions for repeat callers, specific contacts, and alarms. With Sleep mode on an Apple Watch, the screen will also dim and show a simplified watch face.

The screen is the biggest drain on your smartwatch battery, but there are a few things you can do to reduce how much power it uses.

• Go to Settings > Display & Brightness, and you can reduce the brightness, turn Always On display off, toggle Wake on Wrist Raise off, and choose a shorter Wake Duration.
• You can also save a modest amount of battery life by choosing a watch face that has a black background and minimal complications or animations.  You can long press on your current watch face to cycle through options, edit them, and select them, but it is easier to browse options on your iPhone in the Watch app on the Face Gallery tab.

• Go to Settings > Display, and you can change Brightness, toggle Always-on screen and Sunlight Boost off, and choose a shorter Screen timeout. You can also go to Settings > Gestures to toggle Tilt-to-wake off.
• You can also save some battery life by choosing a watch face with a black background and minimal complications or animations. You can long press on your current watch face to swipe through options, edit them, and select them. You can browse watch faces in the Wear OS app on your phone.

• Swipe down from the top and tap the Brightness icon to reduce brightness. Go to Settings > Display to switch Always On Display off and reduce Screen timeout.
• Changing to a simple watch face with a dark background can also save some battery life. Long press on your current watch face and swipe or rotate the bezel to browse options. It might be easier to open the Galaxy Wearable app on your phone and browse on the Watch faces tab.

A steady stream of notifications will drain your smartwatch battery, so it’s worth culling any that you don’t feel you need. Here’s how.

• Open the Watch app on your connected iPhone and select Notifications on the My Watch tab. You can tweak some settings at the top. Scroll down to find individual apps and decide what, if any, notifications you want them to send to your Apple Watch.

• Open the Wear OS app, go to Settings > Notifications, and you can choose to Block app notifications. You might find more options in your watch manufacturer’s companion app (if there is a separate one).

• Open the Galaxy Wearable app, tap Watch settings, and then tap Notifications, and you can decide what notifications you want to receive.

You can always use Airplane mode to quickly cut all connectivity, but you can also cut things individually. Most smartwatches connect to smartphones using Bluetooth LE (Low Energy), which is the least power-hungry option.

• Swipe up from the bottom of the screen, and you can tap to turn off Wi-Fi and Mobile Data. You can also go to Settings to turn Bluetooth off.

• Go to Settings > Connectivity, and you can turn Wi-Fi, Mobile Data, and Bluetooth off.

• Go to Settings > Connections, and you can turn Wi-Fi, Mobile Data, and Bluetooth off.

If you don’t use voice commands with your smartwatch, you can save some battery life by telling it not to listen for voice assistant wake words. Here’s how.

• Go to Settings > Siri and toggle off Listen for “Hey Siri” and Raise to Speak.

• Go to Settings > Google > Assistant and turn off “Hey Google.”

• Open Bixby, go to Settings and turn Voice wake-up off.

Smartwatches make various sounds and vibrations, and they are often superfluous. Turn them off or reduce the volume, and you can save a little battery life.

• Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics, and you can toggle off sounds and vibrations or reduce the volume.

• Open Settings > Sound and vibration, and you can turn off various sounds and vibrations and reduce volume levels.

By default, many of your apps are working behind the scenes to update data, but this can drain your smartwatch battery, and you likely don’t need every app to be constantly updating (it will pull data when you open it anyway). Here’s how to limit background app refresh.

• Open the Watch app on your connected iPhone, and tap General > Background App Refresh to toggle it off completely or toggle off individual apps.

• This is managed automatically on Wear OS watches, but you can limit app permissions by going to Settings > Apps and notifications > App permissions (just be careful, as some apps will not work properly if you limit their permissions).

Working out what is draining your smartwatch battery makes it easier to fix. Check battery usage, and you can learn what changes might be effective. Unfortunately, there’s no way to see this information on an Apple Watch, but you can check battery health in Settings > Battery > Battery Health.

• Open the Wear OS app or your smartwatch companion app on your phone, and go to Settings > Advanced settings > Watch battery to see which apps are draining your battery.

Any apps you don’t use should be uninstalled to ensure they don’t impact battery life.

• Press the Digital Crown to bring up the app screen, tap and hold anywhere, and choose Edit Apps. Tap the X and Delete App to get rid of any apps you don’t want.

• Press the Power button, scroll down, and tap Play Store, then My apps. Tap any app you want to delete, scroll to the bottom, and tap Uninstall.

• Go to the Apps screen, tap and hold on the app you want to get rid of, then tap Uninstall, then OK, or the Delete icon, then tap the checkmark to confirm.

There are likely to be several other features and functions on your smartwatch that can be deactivated to save battery life, so take a look at your device's settings. On the Apple Watch, for example, you can go to Settings > Activity to turn off reminders, or Workout to switch to Low Power Mode during workouts and toggle on Fewer GPS and Heart Rate Readings. Dig around in the settings and turn off anything you don’t need or want to use.

If you’re not keen on turning off features, you can always up your charging game. An extra charger on your bedside, desk at work, or even in your pocket or bag could make the difference. Unfortunately, most smartwatches require proprietary chargers, but there are several options for Apple Watch owners, like the OtterBox 2-in-1 Power Bank with Apple Watch Charger ($50) and the Satechi Quatro Wireless Power Bank ($100).

You can find more options in our Best Apple Watch Accessories, Best Wireless Chargers, Best Portable Chargers, and Best Apple 3-in-1 Chargers guides.