4 smartwatch settings you should change to get the best battery life

06 Apr 2025, 14:57 by Chris Wedel · Android Police

As we move further away from outlets when using our mobile devices, battery life and longevity are vital. Charging speeds and technology are equally important. Having the best USB-C cables and chargers is the first step to keeping your devices up and running. However, with a smartwatch, there are other steps you can take to get the most from that small battery.

If we think of smartwatches like tiny phones, we can adjust their settings to eek as much juice from the battery as possible. Some wearables like the OnePlus Watch 3 go further than others, even when software tweaks have been made on those watches to compete. Still, regardless of which top Android smartwatch you use, getting more battery life is always a win. Here's how to stop charging your wearable as often.

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4 Always-on display

Do you really need it?

I've enjoyed the OnePlus Watch 3 since I got it. From the excellent performance and class-leading battery life, I still adjust some settings to stretch my daily use as far as possible. One of those settings is to disable the AOD, always-on display. I've never used this feature on my smartphone, but for the longest time, I did on my smartwatch.

However, in recent years, as long as I'm using a Wear OS device and not an alternative wearable like the excellent Amazfit Balance, I've been turning off AOD. I think I kept it on because it would make my smartwatch look less like tech and more like a timepiece. Now, I care less about appearances like that and value an improved experience.

Here's how AOD works. When you aren't using the watch, such as when you don't have it raised to look at, the clock remains visible on the display at all times. Although it is at a minimal brightness, keeping the feature enabled slowly eats away at your watch's battery. Depending on the device, in a 24-hour period, the AOD could drain anywhere from 5% to 15% of your smartwatch battery. The steps to disable AOD vary from device to device, but you'll find it in the settings and under the display section.

3 Screen off delay

Shorter is better

This alteration lines up well with the always-on display. The longer your wearable's display is on, the more battery is lost. When you actively use your smartwatch, you want the screen to be visible when doing things like reading a text, using an app, viewing your workout results, and more. But when you're done, you want the screen off as quickly as possible to reduce battery drain.

Smartwatches have added ways to accomplish this task. Each wearable brand puts its settings in slightly different places. Generally, you'll go to the Settings and then choose Display to make your adjustments. When you get there, you'll see an option for Auto Screen off. It's here where you can tell the watch how long you want the screen to stay on when it's been activated. I leave mine at 10 seconds. That gives me plenty of time to read what is on the screen before it shuts off.

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2 Display brightness

Save your eyes, too

Display brightness is another display setting to consider. As the biggest drain on a smartwatch's battery, aside from GPS usage, getting your screen's settings dialed in correctly has a huge impact on the device's battery life. Making sure the wearable's display is only as bright as it needs to be for the situation is a great step towards extending the daily usage of your watch.

Go to your smartwatch's settings and display section, then go into the options for brightness and manually lock it to a certain level. If you feel that a 50% brightness is fine most of the time when using the smartwatch, set it there. However, many of today's wearables can get very bright, like the Google Pixel Watch 3, which reaches a max brightness of 2,000 nits. If you are in bed at night and check your smartwatch, at 50%, those 1,000 nits will be very bright. On the flip side, it may not be enough in brighter environments.

I keep my watches on automatic brightness. This minimizes the possibility of temporarily blinding myself at night, and I can read my watch outdoors in the sunshine. Sometimes, the watch may not react as needed to be visible in situations. In those moments, I enter the display settings and toggle auto brightness off and back on. That usually clears up any bug that may have caused the issue.

1 Notifications

Only the essentials

This is something that isn't related to the display. Still, it comes into play here because getting a notification means lighting up the display and likely keeping it on to view why you were notified. In addition to your display firing up, depending on your settings, that notification could cause the vibration motor to activate along with playing a sound. Each of those actions uses more of your smartwatch's valuable battery life. Also, getting too many notifications can be annoying.

Adjusting my wearables notifications is one of the first things I do. The method of enabling and disabling what apps you do or don't want to notify you on your smartwatch varies between device brands. While some wearables allow you to make those changes on the device, others require you to use the companion app on your phone. However, going through a list of apps and toggling each one on your watch's screen could take a long time, and that uses more battery. Instead, dive into the watch app on your phone, go into the settings, and find the notifications section to fine-tune your notifications to save battery.

Use your smartwatch how you want, but for longer

Though I prefer not to wear a watch, I enjoy wearing a smartwatch as it keeps me connected to my phone. But on my terms. I also use it to wake up, monitor health metrics, control music playing on my phone, and more. When I have to take it off to charge my watch, I get a bit of FOMO and feel a bit off. To stretch out the time between the moments when my smartwatch is on the charger, I have to change the wearable's settings.

Regardless of whether it is your smartwatch, your phone, your TV, or anything else you use regularly, find what you enjoy and ways to make it work for you in as many ways as possible. You paid for it, make it yours.