Is The Always-On Display Bad For The Apple Watch?
Since the Apple Watch Series 5 was released, developers have declared that the Apple Watch will have a default ‘Always On’ feature. This feature allows the time to always be visible on your Apple Watch. I have researched this feature and can help you know if leaving this feature on will hurt your Apple Watch.
The ‘Always On’ feature on the Apple Watch does drain the watch’s battery faster. Still, the Apple Watch Series 5 was created to have a larger battery life to handle the ‘Always On’ feature. The ‘Always On’ feature also has dimming features that help preserve the battery life.
As you can see, having the ‘Always On’ feature enabled on your Apple Watch does affect the device’s battery life, but there are other benefits that may out outweigh the negatives. To find out information that will help you decide if you will want to keep this feature on, keep reading.
Battery Life
The ‘Always On’ feature will affect your Apple Watch’s battery life. It makes sense, since providing this feature means that your watch is always going to be using the battery to keep the screen lit. Due to that fact, your battery will drain a little faster when the ‘Always On’ feature is activated than when it is off.
“It’s nice to have but it does drain 30% of the battery in a 14 hour period. I recently turned it off on my series 5 and can’t say I’ve missed it.”
The-Real-Deal82
This review shows the public’s view of the ‘Always On’ display feature. It does take up a bit of the device’s battery life. There are people who say that it is not worth 30% of the watch’s battery life, but others swear by it and don’t notice the impact on the watch’s battery life.
“For me it is [worth it]. I want my watch to do its primary function first and foremost. That function is to be a watch… I wear my watch 22hrs a day and I only charge it before bed. I get alerted when it’s above 90% and then I put it back on. I go to bed with DND and theater mode on. I don’t charge it when I wake up because it’s still between 75%-90%.”
JBaby
This review shows that if you have a routine of when you charge your watch and turn off the feature when you do not need it, like when you are asleep, the battery life issue will not be a problem. It really depends on what your lifestyle need is.
If you need the watch’s battery to last all day because you are busy and do not have time to charge your watch regularly, this may not be the best feature for you to use, as you will likely need to charge your Apple Watch every day.
Default Setting
One thing that people find annoying about the ‘Always On’ feature is that it is the default setting for the Apple Watch Series 5. When you get your watch, this display feature is going to already be on, and therefore, if battery life is your top priority, you are going to have to go into your Apple Watch settings and turn it off.
Luckily, it is not too hard to turn off your ‘Always On’ feature. The first thing you are going to do is swipe down on your screen to access your ‘Quick Panel’.
Once the ‘Quick Panel’ is accessed, you are going to tap on the ‘Always On Display’ button to deactivate or activate this feature. This should fix your issue if you do not want the display to always be on.
Therefore, having the ‘Always On’ display as a default setting does not make it any worse for your Apple Watch. What it does is introduce new users to the feature when they get their Apple Watch. It allows them to know everything that their watch is capable of and then allows them to make the decision whether or not they want to keep the feature turned on.
Looks Like a Watch
A great reason to keep the ‘Always On’ feature on is that it makes your watch actually look like a watch. A lot of the older generation complains that people’s watches nowadays are just like phones on your wrist. The ‘Always On’ display allows people to see the Apple Watch as a watch at all times.
You will not have to deal with waving your arm around like a madman or tapping a button to get your watch to display what time it is or what the weather outside is when you have the ‘Always On’ feature on, which is really convenient. Other consumers have talked about the benefits of being able to use an Apple Watch like a regular watch as well.
“Makes the watch much more enjoyable to use always being able to see your favorite watch face at every glance .”
Orbitalpunk
This user found joy in the customization aspects of the ‘Always On’ feature that allows you to see your favorite watch face. They find that having the watch face display makes it more fashionable and more fun to wear.
Dimming
If you are really concerned with the ‘Always On’ feature using up your Apple Watch’s battery life, I have good news for you.
The ‘Always On’ feature does not mean that your watch is going to be on full brightness all the time. Your watch display is going to be on at all times, but when your wrist is down or when it is covered by something, the display will be dimmed. This will help your Apple Watch’s battery last longer.
Apple does not want to waste a large amount of energy in lighting up your watch’s screen all of the time, but it does understand that a black screen is not the most friendly of aesthetics.
Due to that, they created a dim mode that allows your watch to be able to save some of its battery while still showing that the watch is on and is in fact a watch rather than an extremely small phone.