Congratulations on your new Apple Watch! You must now be ready to take your user experience to the next level. The Apple Watch is an impressive multipurpose device, even if it isn’t as powerful as a Mac or iPad.
With an Apple Watch, you can do everything from listening to music and tracking your workouts, to monitoring your heart rate and looking at your images, depending on your model or kind of Apple Watch and where and how you use it. As with the iPhone and iPad, you can fine-tune the Apple Watch’s performance by adjusting various settings and choices.
watchOS 8
watchOS 8 is the most recent release of Apple Watch’s watchOS operating system. A sneak peek was given to the public at WWDC in June, and it was made available to the general public on September 20th, 2021.
Most of the new capabilities in watchOS 8 are extensions of improvements made in iOS 15 in order to help consumers remain healthy, active, and connected with friends and family.
And thanks to the fairly recent release of watchOS 8, the extensive feature set has further increased. Now, an Apple Watch can accomplish a lot more than the average user realizes.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of handy tips and tricks for the Apple Watch.
Here’s all you need to know about watchOS 8:
What exactly does the Apple Watch do when you take it out of your pocket?
- Notifications and messages on your wrist
- Monitor your physical and mental well-being (calories, exercise minutes, standing)
- Keep track of your workouts
- Monitor your heart rate
- Alert people to unusually high or low heart rates
- Look for signs of a fall
- Series 4/5/6 ECG readings only and the oxygen levels in the blood (Series 6 and 7)
- Track workouts, including location via GPS
- Send and receive text messages and phone calls (LTE versions with data plan enable this without iPhone)
- Set reminders, alarms, and timers using Siri
- Display boarding passes and tickets
- And of course… Find out what time it is
That’s just a handful of things that pretty much everyone knows about. But did you know the list of what your Apple Watch is capable of is almost endless?
Let’s go over just a few of the coolest Apple Watch tips. Did you know that your Apple Watch can…
- Unlock your Mac?
- Be used as a clock at night in Bedtime mode?
- Flash when you ping it to make sure you can find it, even in the dark?
- Use it to share your location with loved ones?
- Reply to a message without typing?
- Use it to take a photo with your iPhone?
- Pay for things?
- Check what battery life is left in your AirPods?
- Change the volume on your AirPods?
- Get Siri to tell you the time?
- Get Siri to translate something into another language?
- Answer calls using the speaker and microphone?
- Share your location if you get lost?
- Use it on either wrist if you’re a leftie or a rightie?
- Mute notifications discreetly
Apple Watch battery life tips
That’s not all we know. The low battery alert that shows long before your day is through will be familiar to anybody who has an Apple Watch. Although it’s the world’s most popular wearable, the battery life is the one downside that comes up time and time again. Users have been begging for at least 24 hours of battery life since the dawn of the Apple Watch. As yet, this call has gone unanswered. Though, in Apple’s defense, with the release of the new Apple Watch Series 7, we have seen battery charging time improve to be 33% faster. Meaning there is less time attached to a cable.
However, until then, there are a number of things you can do to extend the battery’s life. Find out how in the next paragraphs!
Here are some Apple Watch battery life tips. Make the most out of your 18-hour battery life!
- Turn off cellular connectivity when you don’t need to use data.
- Switch to silent mode when you don’t need noisy notifications
- Turn off the Always-On display
- Turn off notifications when you’re driving, working, studying or exercising
- Go one step further and use Do Not Disturb for those times
- Utilize the “Power Reserve” mode
Hope you’ve found this article useful and are equipped to get the absolute best out of your Apple Watch!
