The Apple Watch has never been known for having a long battery life. Case in point: Apple never budged from its 18-hour battery life estimate until it released the Apple Watch Ultra. In 2022, the company introduced a new low power mode when it launched Ultra and has now extended the time between charges for Apple Watches running watchOS 9 and later.
Previously, the Apple Watch had a power reserve mode, which disabled any features other than the ability to tell time and turned your smartwatch into a regular watch until you could connect it to a charger. This mode is different: it is more like the iPhone's low power mode. When enabled, you will still be able to use your Apple Watch, but certain power-intensive features will be disabled or limited to conserve battery.
What does low power mode do?
On Apple Watch, Low Power Mode disables the always-on display and limits sensor readings such as background heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring. (You should note that it also disables irregular heart rate notifications, as well as high and low heart rate notifications.)
Low Power Mode also restricts LTE and Wi-Fi connectivity. While you'll still be able to send messages or make calls from your watch, you'll only receive notifications about once every hour. As a result, you may miss timely text messages and emergency alerts.
However, if you are exercising, don't worry: your heart rate and GPS will not be affected. Another option that reduces heart rate and GPS sampling is also in the works, but is currently not available.
This mode is a great option if you have an older Apple Watch but don't want to upgrade (since battery life is often the reason people buy new watches). However, your mileage may vary. Battery life depends largely on individual usage and the health of your watch's battery is also a factor. You can only take advantage of Low Power Mode to a limited extent if your battery has degraded significantly over the years.
As with the iPhone version, you'll automatically be prompted to turn on Low Power Mode once the battery reaches 10 percent. But some people, especially those with Ultras, might want to be more intentional about how they use the feature—for example, if they're participating in an Ironman and need at least 12 hours or so of GPS and activity tracking. On the Ultra and Ultra 2, Apple says Low Power Mode can extend battery life up to 60 hours. (According to our testing, however, it may go much further than that.)
Enable low power mode
First things first: Again, to use Low Power Mode, you'll need to have watchOS 9 or later. (We're currently on watchOS 10, but it will still work on watchOS 9 if you don't like how the latest version updated the Apple Watch interface.) That also means you'll need at least a Series 4. If you have an older watch and think this feature is worth it, you might want to consider upgrading.
In any case, assuming your Apple Watch is equipped with compatible software, you can enable the feature in two ways.
Using Control Center
The quickest way is through your watch screen. Control center.
- If you're still using watchOS 9, swipe up to access. In watchOS 10, you'll need to press the side button. Then, find the battery percentage tile and tap on it.
- You should see a reading of how much battery you have left. Tap on the Toggle low power mode Turn it on. You will then see an explanation of what features are disabled in this mode, which will appear each time you activate it.
- From there, you can tap Light either Activate to… The first enables the modality indefinitely. The latter will give you the option to turn it on temporarily for one, two or three days.
Using settings
You can also activate low power mode by going to Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode. The benefit of doing it this way is that you get additional context on battery life. Not only can you see how the battery has been draining since the last charge, but you can also see when you have previously activated low power mode.
and you can touch Battery status from this menu to check how much the battery has degraded and enable optimized battery charging settings.
Update, March 12, 2024, 12:03 pm ET: This article was originally published on October 14, 2022 and has been updated to include information about watchOS 10 and how to access the control panel.
