Battery life has been one of the highlights of the new 2022 Apple Watch generation, for both the SE, Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra. In this post we are going to analyze how to activate the low consumption mode and what functions this alternative deactivates to extend the battery of your Apple Watch.
The low consumption mode is designed for the 8 series and the SE , since the Apple Watch Ultra has a larger battery and is designed for professional sports. According to the data provided by Apple, the autonomy goes from 18 to 36 hours when we have the low consumption mode active in the case of having an Apple Watch SE or Apple Watch 8. If we compare it with the 75 hours that the Ultra provides us in standard mode is something to consider, for sure.
How to activate low power mode on Apple Watch
We have two ways to activate low power mode regardless of the Watch you use, which we will explain below. Remember that when your Apple Watch is in low power mode, a yellow circle appears at the top of the screen.
The steps to activate this mode through the control center are as follows:
- Touch and hold the bottom of the Apple Watch screen. Wait for Control Center to appear, then swipe up.
- Tap the battery percentage button.
- Turn on low power mode.
The steps to activate this mode through settings are as follows:
- Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
- Scroll down and then tap Battery.
- Turn on low power mode.
Every time you activate low power mode, an information screen appears. Scroll to the bottom, then tap Activate or Activate for. If you select Activate for , you can choose 1 day, 2 days or 3 days.
Features that are disabled in low power mode
The low consumption mode deactivates some functions of your Apple Watch to extend the battery of your smartwatch. Obviously, more features are disabled on the Series 8 than the SE, as the former has far more features than the latter. Below we cite the main functions that are inactive.
- always on display
- Notifications about irregular heart rate, high heart rate and low heart rate
- Heart rate measurements in the background
- Background blood oxygen measurements
- Training start reminder
- Some animations and scrolling may appear less smooth
- Turn off incoming phone calls and notifications when iPhone is not nearby.
- Reminder to start training
Low Power Mode disables these features when your iPhone is not nearby:
- Wi-Fi and mobile connections
- Incoming phone calls and notifications
Low Power Mode affects these features
- Making a phone call can take longer
- App refresh in the background is performed less frequently
- Complications are updated less frequently
- Siri may take longer to process a request
- Some animations and scrolling may seem less smooth
These features also affect workouts, as you don’t measure all the parameters you analyze when you have this option turned off. Among some parameters that it continues to analyze are the parameters of heart rate and rhythm. In this sense, Apple watches over the health of users at all times. You can activate low power mode automatically when you start a workout:
- Open the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
- Scroll down and tap Training.
- Turn on low power mode.
