Does Your Apple Watch Drains iPhone Battery? Fix It Today!

How iPhone & Apple Watch Use Each Other?

Your Apple Watch and iPhone need each other to provide you with a seamless experience, and when we say the experience we mean providing accurate health stats as well as a complete smartwatch experience. So one thing is certain, for your Apple Watch to bless you with Heart Rate readings and allow you to make calls or text there has to be some sort of connection between the two. But how would you make it possible?

Well, the answer is simple, you need any of these three things to establish a connection between Apple Watch and an iPhone.

• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• Cellular Connection

The easiest way to do so and certainly the best for the battery life of both is Bluetooth. Apple Watches uses Bluetooth 5.0 and it is based on Low Energy technology which is perfect for smart devices working on rechargeable batteries.

When a Bluetooth connection isn’t available your devices will fall to a Wi-Fi connection(it is necessary that they are on the same Wi-Fi network) to exchange data. While it is not an improvement on Bluetooth connection, using Wi-Fi to transmit data from iPhone to Apple Watch is acceptable and it wouldn’t be too much strain on the battery!

Lastly, when the above two mediums are out of the question if a cellular connection would be available then it is likely that it’d be used to exchange the data, and this right here is the major cause of drain batteries.

So the takeaway from here should be that we should try to make sure our devices – it doesn’t matter if they are Apple products are not – they should be connected with each other using Bluetooth at all times.

But there is more to it!

“Can Power Saving Mode Save My iPhone Battery?”

Of course, using the power saving mode on your iPhone can improve your chances and give your iPhone battery a fighting chance, we need to understand a few things before we make it our only option!

Just like the medium of connection (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Cellular Networks) isn’t the only contributing factor here. Only turning on Power Saving mode can’t save your iPhone battery, and it is because of other factors that are at play here:

• Applications Running In Background.
• Not updated OS system.
• Third-Party applications.
• Sync Frequency.
• Push Notifications.
• Taking Calls and Text on Apple Watch.
• Low Battery Health of iPhone.
• High brightness and Always On Mode.

Possible Solutions To Save iPhone Battery!

If you feel that your iPhone is suffering from its connection with your smartwatch, then your best possible chance to fight it off is using the following methods written below. A general word of advice would be to try each separately before mixing and matching them.

Use Bluetooth Always

Always make sure that your Apple Watch and iPhone are using the Bluetooth connection to transfer the data. As we mentioned above it is both convenient and super flexible for the battery life of a phone. However, when for some reason, you feel it’s not possible to do so then you should just switch off syncing completely.

Create Wi-Fi Network

First of all, make sure that both your watch and the iPhone are on the same Wi-Fi network (this is also helpful for applications like Spotify to run smoothly on your Apple Watch), and then to ensure that it doesn’t switch to Cellular Network turn it off for your Apple Watch. Under no condition should you go for an LTE connection being made if the preservation of the battery is important to you.

• Swipe up from the bottom of the watch face to open Control Center.
• Tap the Cellular button.
• Toggle the Cellular switch to Off.

Stop Push Notifications

Notifications are pushed from your iPhone to the Apple Watch and if you feel that it’s an unnecessary waste of data transfer then feel free to stop it completely. You can also opt for this function for selected applications. For example, if your Twitter notifications are constantly bombarding your Apple Watch then perhaps it’s time put the axe on it.

There are many ways to stop push notifications, you can turn on DND mode(we have explained DND mode here if you want to learn about it.), select the focus feature, or do this and put an end to the madness: Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and tap My Watch. Then, tap Notifications and scroll down to the app you want to change settings for. Tap the app and then choose from the following options:

• Allow Notifications: This will allow notifications from the app to appear on your Apple Watch.
• Send to Notification Center: This will send notifications from the app directly to Notification Center on your Apple Watch without making a sound or displaying a notification.
• Notifications Off: This will prevent notifications from the app from appearing on your Apple Watch.

Kill Background Applications

Check how many applications are running on your iPhone, if you are using iPhone X or those released after, just swipe up and you’ll see how many applications are open. With each flick, you can close those that you don’t need. In the happenstance, if you are using iPhone 8 or before it (the iPhone SE series counts too) do the same, but you just have to double press the main button and then close the applications.

To do the same on Apple Watch these are the steps:

• Press and hold the Digital Crown until the app switcher appears.
• Swipe left or right to find the app you want to force quit.
• Swipe up on the app to force quit it.

Switch Off the Refresh Rate!

Your Apple Watch is always in need of fresh data (it also depends on the need of an application that requires data, health apps usually require more than others). In which case if you feel like you can manage without a constant feed of fresh data then do this:

• Press the Digital Crown to open the app grid.
• Tap the Settings app.
• Scroll down and tap General.
• Tap Background App Refresh.
• Toggle off the switch next to any apps that you don’t want to refresh in the background.

Update The OS. Take Care Of Battery Health.

So many times the battery issue is also because of some internal bug in the watchOS or iOS system. In this case, all you need to do is make sure your devices are up-to-date with the latest patch. To check for new updates just go to settings and then general and from there you’ll see the option of Software Update.

Another thing you could do is keep an eye on your iPhone battery health. Usually what happens is that with time it goes from 100% to 85-80%. In which case you will get bad battery life with each charge anyway.

So, if you’re using an iPhone which was bought 3-4 years ago go to your Settings and then to Battery tab where you will see Battery Health button. Click on it to see where your phone stands, if it is near 70% there is nothing you could do turn things around. 

Use Different Charger

While there is no concrete evidence that the charger of an Apple Watch or iPhone can have an impact on its battery health. Apple has always maintained the same stance: Always use the authorized charger by Apple to charge your devices. In which case if it’s possible for you to make the switch between chargers, we would recommend that you try it too. Or if buying new chargers seems unnecessary then perhaps turn to alternative ways to charge your Apple devices.

Lower The Brightness of iPhone

Another culprit of taking huge chunk of your iPhone battery is the display screen. More so if you are fan of increased brightness at all times. To control the brightness of your iPhone all you need to do is access the quick control panel and lower the brightness from there. 

As for Apple Watch make sure ‘Always On’ mode is turned off from settings. You can also toggle it from the MyWatch application in your iPhone.

Secret Tip: If you have turned on Face ID sync between your Apple Watch and iPhone put an axe to it too. This is another one of pesky Apple feature which puts a strain on your phone’s battery.

General Trend Of Apple Watch Strain On iPhone Battery?

While there is no solid evidence to support the claim many users have claimed to notice degraded battery performance in first two-three weeks after buying the Apple Watch. According to various quotes we found on the web it was reiterated frequently how iPhone’s battery was suffering in first week using it with Apple Watch, but later recovered to normal level.

Although, there is no real weightage in these claims, if there is even little bit of truth to these, we can conclude that Apple Watches and iPhone take minimum of 7-10 days to reach an optimal status. In which case we should both practice patience and caution for our Apple devices to do what they do best: Make our lives easier.