Save battery on Apple Watch 7

Apple Watch 7 has a rated life of 18 hours. You need to charge the Apple Watch 7 every day. This is assuming that you are using the default settings and configuration on the Apple Watch 7. But, there are ways that could help save battery on Apple Watch 7. With the default settings on the Apple Watch 7, your watch should offer a backup of 15-18 hours.

The poor battery life of the Apple Watch 7 is a constraint we have to live with. But, people love Apple Watch 7 on account of the various features offered by the watch. To extend battery life on an Apple Watch 7, you could optimize the settings on the Apple Watch 7. We look at the reasons that make Apple Watch 7 drain battery. And, we look at the basic settings that can help improve the battery life of an Apple Watch 7.

Why does my Apple Watch 7 battery drain?

Apple Watch 7 has a rated battery life of 18 hours. Most people will find that the battery lasts 15 hours at best. This is on the default configuration of an Apple Watch. Here are the most probable reasons that make the battery drain faster on an Apple Watch 7:

Bigger screen size. Apple Watch 7 has a screen size that is 50 percent bigger than an Apple Watch 3. A bigger screen area to power requires more battery charge. This causes the battery to drain faster on an Apple Watch 7 series watch.

Apple Watch 7 has an Always-on-Display OLED screen. AOD consumes a lot of battery charge. This, in turn, causes the Apple Watch 7 battery to drain faster. AOD is a major battery resource hog and is known to reduce the battery charge significantly.

GPS connectivity on the Apple Watch 7 causes the battery to drain faster. If you are using GPS at all times, the battery drains at a much rapid pace on the Apple Watch 7. We do suggest using GPS during your fitness sessions or running efforts.

Music streaming apps like the Spotify app also adds to battery usage. People who stream music through the Apple Watch 7 will experience faster battery drain. Obviously, we cannot deprive the music streaming feature on the Apple Watch 7. So, the music streaming capability is one of the most needed features of an Apple Watch 7.

Background app refresh is a major drain on the Apple Watch 7 battery. Disabling the app refresh for unwanted apps will help in conserving the battery.

Notifications on Apple Watch 7 are another source of significant battery drain on the Apple Watch 7. For most people, the default configuration of notifications may not be needed. A higher number of notifications consumes battery life.

Cellular models of the Apple Watch 7 require a battery charge for offering cellular network connectivity. Cellular models of the Apple Watch 7 offer cellular connectivity even when you are not carrying the iPhone with you. In a way, the cellular model of the Apple Watch 7 gives it an independent role over the iPhone. A cellular model of the Apple Watch 7 will try to take you to the cellular network. In doing so, it consumes an additional battery. When your iPhone is near the watch, you really do not need the watch to connect to the cellular network.

There are 44 apps that come in-built on the Apple Watch 7. All these apps draw battery charge to work seamlessly. But, do you really need all the apps? Weather widgets and apps are useful. But, there is a ton of stuff on the watch that may be rudimentary at best. It may be worthwhile to optimize the apps, especially for background refresh of the apps.

How can I extend the battery life of an Apple Watch 7?

There are simple ways that should help you in extending the battery life of an Apple Watch 7.

Before trying any steps to optimize battery life on an Apple Watch 7, please do update the watchOS to the latest version on your Apple Watch 7.

To update the software or firmware on your Apple Watch 7 to the latest version, please follow the instructions below:

Tap Settings on Apple Watch 7.
Tap General under the Settings menu on Apple Watch 7.
To ‘Software Updates’ on the Apple Watch 7. The watch will check for available software updates.
If a software update is available, the watch OS will get updated to the latest version.

You can save the battery life of an Apple Watch 7 by following the instructions below:

Disable Always-on-Display

One of the most profound ways to conserve the battery life of an Apple Watch 7 requires you to turn off the Always-on Display feature of the Apple Watch 7. You can disable the AOD feature on an Apple Watch 7 by going into settings. Now, choose ‘Display & Brightness’. Turn on or off the Always-on Display feature. If you wish to retain the Always-on Display, please consider reducing the screen brightness on the watch to 2 bars. That should work and offer a little bit of support to the degrading battery levels.

Turn off background updates for the Apple Watch 7 apps.

There are 44 apps that come pre-installed on the Apple Watch 7. These apps would seek a refresh or update to bring the latest updates. An example is the weather app that updates the weather status periodically. Running the app refresh process in the background puts a regular strain on the watch in terms of battery usage. You may consider turning off the background refresh of apps. To do so, please use the Settings —-> General —–> Background app refresh.

Turn the toggle button from on to off to disable background app refresh. We suggest turning off the background app refresh for those apps that you are not using very actively on the watch. Avoid turning off the background app refresh for all the apps, because some apps are pretty useful in terms of updated information. One such example is the Apple Watch weather update. There are people who may not derive much functionality from the News app or the Mail app. If you do not use these apps, turn off the background app refresh, and save the battery on Apple Watch 7.

Optimize Siri on Apple Watch 7

Out of the box, Siri is enabled for voice recognition on an Apple Watch 7. Your watch’s MIC is always active and listening for the ‘Hey Siri’ command. Anything that is continuously probing for voice instructions will add to the battery drain. Siri, however, is a useful feature that adds to the functionality of the Apple Watch 7. What we need to do is to optimize the Siri settings on Apple Watch 7. We just want to alter a few settings on the Apple Watch 7 to save our battery levels. Here are the 3 Siri settings that we will take in to try and conserve battery life on the Apple Watch 7:

Access the Siri settings in the Settings icon of the Apple Watch 7. Look for Siri settings.
Within the Siri settings, you will see multiple options that allow you to configure Siri voice playback and voice recognition settings.
First, we will disable the ‘Listen for “Hey Siri”‘ command. You can toggle the icon off. This ensures that the watch MIC is not active at all times and adds to battery life.
Then, we will turn off the ‘Raise to Speak’ option.
Change the ‘Voice Volume Speaker’ on Siri settings from 80-90 levels to something more conservative. Depending on your comfort, you could set the ‘Voice Volume Speaker’ on Siri to 50 or 60 levels.

These three settings will take off a bit of a drain on the Apple Watch 7’s battery levels.

Turn off automatic app downloads on Apple Watch 7

The default or out-of-the-box setting for an Apple Watch 7 allows it to pull or sync all the apps from the iPhone. All apps that exist on the paired iPhone will automatically add to the Apple Watch 7. In doing so, you are consuming watch storage space. And, periodic updates and refreshes of these apps will add to the battery drain.

So, we will optimize the app settings on the Apple Watch 7 to ensure that apps on the iPhone do not get automatically downloaded onto the Apple Watch 7.

Tap on Settings on the Apple Watch 7
Tap on App Store to bring up the app store settings of the Apple Watch 7.
Disable the ‘Automatic Downloads’ by turning off the toggle button on the Apple Watch 7.

Use a minimalistic watch face on Apple Watch 7

The watch face used on Apple Watch 7 draws power from the watch’s battery. A complicated Apple Watch 7 watch face will consume more battery. Use a minimalistic watch screen that offers basic inputs about time and other user parameters. This saves battery life on Apple Watch 7. The more information displayed on the watch face means a higher battery usage.

Also, the light color watch screens are known to consume more battery charge. Consider using a dark or black theme watch face to save battery on Apple Watch 7.

Disable Notifications on Apple Watch 7

Apple Watch 7 has 44 apps on the watch store as an out of box installation. All these apps get updated from time to time and exchange notifications with the Apple Watch owner. A higher number of notifications add to the battery drain on the Apple Watch 7. Disabling the app notifications is a useful feature that can help in arresting battery drain and extending battery life from 15 hours to more than one day.

You can disable notifications for all or any number of apps. To do so, please follow the instructions below.

Swipe down from the Apple Watch 7 screen to read all the notifications that have been delivered to your watch.
To disable a particular notification, tap on it and swipe left to bring up the 3 dots menu.
Press the 3 dots menu to bring up the ‘notification settings‘.
Choose the option of ‘Deliver Quietly‘. This will disable any alerts for that particular app from being sent to the Apple Watch 7. The messages still get delivered. It is just that the notifications do not get sent separately to the Apple Watch 7.
You can choose the option of ‘Turn off on Apple Watch‘ to turn off the app notifications on the Apple Watch 7.

Use battery-friendly watch mode on Apple Watch 7

If you are running out of battery on the Apple Watch 7, these simple modes would help arrest the battery drain and save battery on Apple Watch 7.

Use silent mode on the Apple Watch 7. All alerts and notifications on the Apple Watch 7 would be in the form of a vibration. No audible alerts are sent, and this adds to battery life.
Use DND or Do Not Disturb mode on the Apple Watch 7. Audible alerts are sent only for specific causes. DND mode is slightly more liberal in terms of watch notifications and alerts.
Use Theater Mode on the Apple Watch 7. The ‘Theater Mode’ on Apple Watch 7 changes the screen background to a dark color. Dark backgrounds conserve battery life on an Apple Watch 7.
If you do not make use of the Wi-Fi on your Apple Watch 7, consider activating the ‘Airplane Mode‘. This will turn off WiFi on the Watch 7. Since WiFi is a major user of the battery life of an Apple Watch 7, the airplane mode will bring in some improvements in the overall battery life of an Apple Watch 7.
Finally, you may activate the ‘Power Saving Mode‘ on the Apple Watch 7. The ‘Power Saving’ mode boosts battery life by allowing only a limited set of functionality on the Apple Watch 7.

Summary

The steps given above will help you save battery on Apple Watch 7. You can expect to extend the battery life of an Apple Watch 7 from 15 hours to up to 2 days. For this, you will need to optimize the Apple Watch 7 based on the instructions shared above.

You may also like to read the following content related to Apple Watches:

Helen Kurt

Helen Kurt is a geeky nerd who loves to cover the wearables space. She has over 5 years of experience in the smartwatch domain. You can reach her on email at [email protected].