The Apple Watch should have enough charge to last you a full day with moderate-to-heavy use. If you don’t use it a ton, you might even get more than a day out of it!

But what do you do when your Watch battery just doesn’t last long enough? Here are some tips for making your Apple wearable last longer.

Disable Always-On Display (Series 5 and Later)

The Apple Watch Series 5 and later (except the SE) boasts an always-on display. This means there’s no need to flick your wrist or tap the screen to see the time. Apple uses some clever tricks to reduce power consumption to make this possible, including lowering the display’s refresh rate from 60Hz (60 refreshes per second) to just 1Hz.

You can save even more power by simply turning off the always-on display, and then just raising the Watch to wake it. To do so, open the Watch app on your iPhone, tap General > Display & Brightness, and then uncheck “Always On.”

Use a Dark Watch Face and Reduce Brightness

The display in your Apple Watch is a small OLED panel, characterized by its self-emissive technology. On an OLED, each pixel generates its own light. To display black on an OLED, you simply switch off the pixels.

This means an Apple Watch face with lots of black space should use less power than one with lots of bright whites and solid colors. Conduct some experiments to see how much of a difference this makes. If you have a Series 5 or later and use the Always-On display, you might notice a significant decrease in energy use.

You can tap and hold the existing Watch face to change it. Then, just scroll left or right to select the one you want, or tap the plus sign (+) to add a new one. If you want to delete a face you no longer use, just swipe up and select “Remove.”

Reducing the display’s brightness can also have a large impact on energy use. To adjust it, just head to Watch > Display & Brightness on your iPhone.

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