The battery life of Apple Watches has never been very good. Apple Watch Series 8’s battery life is only listed at 18 hours, despite the company’s boasts of a full day’s battery life. Even while the watch lasts significantly longer than the advertised 18 hours, its battery life is still subpar and leaves more to be desired. The new Low Power Mode comes into play here. So remember to use the Apple Watch low power mode the next time you’re travelling and can’t charge your watch.
Apple Watch Low Power Mode (Power Reserve)
Apple Watch’s battery saver mode has seen a few tweaks since watchOS 9 was released. The only way to make sure that your Apple Watch could last for more than a few days without recharging was to enable Power Reserve in earlier versions of watchOS. The new low power mode in watchOS 9 allows you to increase battery life.
We’ll look at turning on and off low power mode on your watch in this article. In addition, we’ll look at the battery-saving features of the low power mode and make a short comparison between it and the previous power reserve mode.
How to Enable Low Power Mode
You may instantly turn on low power mode if your Apple Watch is running low on power. Two strategies exist for doing this.
Control Center usage
- Open the control center on your watch by swiping up from the bottom of the home screen. Here, tap on the battery percentage.
- Scroll down and enable the toggle next to Low Power Mode .
- Tap on Turn On . Alternatively, you can tap on Turn On For and then choose a duration for which you want to enable low power mode. You can turn it on for 1 day, 2 days, or 3 days.
Employing Settings
- Open the Settings app on your watch and tap on Battery .
- Scroll down and enable the toggle for Low Power Mode .
- Tap on Turn On . Alternatively, you can tap on Turn On For and then choose a duration for which you want to enable low power mode.
A yellow circle icon will appear on Apple Watch when low power mode is activated.
Use Low Power Mode when Battery Goes Below 10%
Your Apple Watch will advise you to either charge it or set it in low power mode if there is less than 10% battery life left. If you choose to activate low power mode using this prompt, your Apple Watch will automatically shut off once its battery is charged to 80%.
How to Disable Low Power Mode
You can also quickly disengage low power mode if you decide against using it any longer. There are two approaches to accomplish this once more.
via Control Center
- Open the control center and tap on the battery percentage (it should be yellow, if the low power mode is on).
- Here, disable the toggle next to Low Power Mode .
via Settings
- Open the Settings app and go to Battery .
- Here, disable the toggle next to Low Power Mode .
That’s all; your Apple Watch is now out of low power mode and will function normally.
What Does Low Power Mode Do?
That pretty much wraps up the tutorial portion, but if you’re curious about how the low power mode preserves and increases the battery life of your Apple Watch, let’s take a quick look at what happens in the background.
Disabled Features
In essence, low power mode deactivates a number of functionalities that aren’t necessary for the Apple Watch to work. As a result, it disables features that have low priority but consume a lot of battery life:
- Always on display
- Continuous (background) heart rate measurements
- Heart rate notifications for low heart rate, high heart rate, irregular rhythm
- Background blood oxygen measurements (series 6 and later only)
- Workout reminders
Additionally, low power mode goes even farther and disables two additional features on your Apple Watch if your iPhone is not close by:
- Incoming calls and notifications
- WiFi and cellular connections
Note:According to Apple, the Apple Watch in low power mode will continue to periodically check for incoming call notifications and other notifications.
Features that Might be Affected
Some other aspects of your Apple Watch might not function normally if you are using it in low power mode. These Apple Watch functions could be impacted by the low power mode.
- Background app refresh frequency is greatly reduced
- Complications don t update as frequently
- Animations and scrolling can appear less smooth
- Siri might respond slower and take longer to process requests
Low Power Mode (watchOS 9) vs Power Reserve (watchOS 8)
You may be curious as to why Apple changed Power Reserve to Low Power Mode. Does that even constitute an upgrade? So let’s quickly examine how the two traits differ from one another.
In watchOS 8 and before, Power Reserve is a feature that helps to prolong battery life. Entering the Apple Watch’s battery settings will enable this capability. In terms of the purpose of the function as well as how it is activated, this is comparable to the new Low Power Mode.
However, Power Reserve was employed to disable all Apple Watch features other than the time display. The Apple Watch entered a very low power state as a result, but it was also essentially unusable.
On the other hand, the watch’s features aren’t all turned off by Low Power Mode. Instead, some power-intensive features are disabled, while other features are managed such that the battery life can be increased.
Likewise, turning off Power Reserve mode required some effort. The Apple Watch’s side button needs to be pressed while still being held down in order to essentially reset the device. On the other hand, disabling the low power mode is fairly simple and won’t cause you any trouble.
One could argue that Power Reserve was a better feature because it significantly increased battery life. My watch has been on Power Reserve for a full week, and it has lasted the entire time. However, you may still use your Apple Watch as a smartwatch using Low Power Mode, albeit with some capabilities missing.
Use Low Power Mode to Extend Battery Life on Apple Watch
That being said, in circumstances when you won’t be able to charge your watch for a time, you can use the new low power option on your Apple Watch. As you can see, it’s fairly simple to enable the function, and the greatest part is that it’s equally simple to disable it later. Low power mode appears to be a promising upgrade to watchOS 8’s power reserve feature, though it will be some time before I can say with certainty whether it works or not. What do you think of watchOS 9’s low power mode, then? Please tell us in the comments.