How To Extend Your Android Wear Battery Life

Just like phones, our watches these days are so much more than watches. They receive calls, track our workouts, play music, give us web access and more. It’s quite reasonable to expect all this functionality to affect your watch’s battery life. So is there anything we can do to have it all: all the exciting features plus a battery life to match?

Well, here a are a few tricks that could prolong battery life of your Android Wear.

First, let’s look at things that can actually affect your watch’s battery life. For instance, screen brightness level is one of the deciding factors, while the “always on” mode would not make that much difference (contrary to popular belief).

So here we go, and we are starting off with brightness.

How Bright Is Too Bright?

First, we have to come to terms with the fact that if you are out and about in the sun, you will have to use the maximum brightness on your watch, otherwise you will not really see anything (unless you are using E-paper display, but that’s a different story). However by turning down the brightness you can do some major battery saving – the key is finding the right balance between convenience and practicality. And when you are indoors and running low on battery, turning your brightness level to one can create some magic.

Save On The Buzz

When you get any notification on your smart watch, your wrist will buzz – that’s the beauty of the device, as it instantly and yet subtly lets you know that you have some news coming in. But if you feel like you could benefit from some quiet time, just turn off the buzz option: your screen will not light up or vibrate when there is a notification and some battery life will be saved.

The Devil Is In The Notifications

That’s where the true problem lies. Well, it’s not exactly a problem. I mean that’s why we get Android Wear in the first place – notifications conveniently keep you on track with what’s going on and disabling them would not really make that much sense, would it?

But do you really need that many? Take a long hard look at what notifications you receive daily. Someone liked your picture on Facebook, a new Twitter post or an email with the newsletter your signed up for?

All of these are eating away at your battery. So take another long hard look at your notifications and think about what you really need. After all, your phone is never really that far and your watch face can be reserved for really urgent stuff.

In the end, it’s all about balance. Go over your Android Wear settings, make a few adjustments and you’ll be able to benefit a prolonged battery life while still enjoying all the wonderful Android Wear features.