Hi, I usually go to the gym without my iphone because I don't like any distractions so I was wondering if turning off wifi in these situation will improve battery life because I don't really need wifi when I'm working out just the workouts app.
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Do you turn off wifi when working out only with your AW no iphone?
- Thread starter Kraizelburg
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You can enable Do Not Disturb instead, at least you could triage your notifications after workout finished, instead of missing or delaying the arrival. I do not think this will improve battery life, especially if your gym has a Wi-Fi watch will use less energy when connection to Wi-Fi instead of Cellular. If you don't have cellular watch, it will probably save battery a little. Also you can try AirPlane mode. Your headphones will continue to work.
My apple watch doesn't have celular and to be honest I think it saves some batt life as the watch isn't looking for networks to connect to. I just wanted to ask some other user the experience in this regard and the best tip. Also I've noticed that when I left my watch at home and it has wifi on drains more battery because it's connected to wifi instead of BT. So question is.. is there any point for not leavin airplane mode on at all times?
Even in airplane mode BT still works just no wifi, so I don't really see any advantages od not leaving airplane on at all times. Well maybe some apple watch Guru can explain 😅
What if your iPhone is not in range, like, in the office. You still be able to receive messages from your family. Using Apple Watch Wi-Fi allows you to leave your phone in the bag. Also you could forget your phone home, and don't realise it, until your get a message on your Apple Watch. This happened to me.
I understand that but my point is that when I work out I never take my iPhone, also I don't like to be reacheable 24/7 unless I know something important may happen. I have apple watch series 4 but I also use other non smart watches like suunto core, and my submariner thus I leave my AW at home many days.
This is what I said whether leaving airplane mode on most of the time makes sense or not.
For your preferred use case, I'd recommend turning on Airplane mode at the gym if you're not taking your phone with you and really any time you prefer to not receive notifications. I've used that in areas while hiking in the rockies where cell reception is almost non existent and it certainly helps preserve battery life. Once you turn off Airplane mode, any health data or other info gathered should sync up with iPhone. That would be why you want to turn it back on.
Conversely, if notifications are not your cup of tea, you could change settings to severely limit the notifications received and leave the watch out of Airplane mode except when out of range of your phone.
Conversely, if notifications are not your cup of tea, you could change settings to severely limit the notifications received and leave the watch out of Airplane mode except when out of range of your phone.
Exactly! that is what I have been doing all this time. To be honest the only notifications I have enabled are phone calls any other is turned off. What I don't completely understand is what exactly airplane mode does as it seems it only turn off wifi but all other features work just as expected, BT, etc.. so I don't see the difference between turning wifi off and airplane mode.
I turn off Wifi on my Series 5 due to a handoff bug that will not allow it to re-acquire bluetooth when I'm near my phone again (it will remain on wifi connected remotely).
Besides I only use wifi 15% the time I'm actually standalone. I often leave my iPhone at home lately since I prefer to 'disconnect' when out and about. People are too into their smartphones. I only need mine when I expect a call or if I'm stuck waiting for an oil change or something to read a book or play some music. My Watch can play music during a walk. No need for a phone, and hardly a need for wifi.
Disconnecting and even using an MP3 player full of music is quite liberating.
Besides I only use wifi 15% the time I'm actually standalone. I often leave my iPhone at home lately since I prefer to 'disconnect' when out and about. People are too into their smartphones. I only need mine when I expect a call or if I'm stuck waiting for an oil change or something to read a book or play some music. My Watch can play music during a walk. No need for a phone, and hardly a need for wifi.
Disconnecting and even using an MP3 player full of music is quite liberating.
I also turn off WIFI at the gym to prevent trying to connect to local WiFi networks. This both prolongs battery life and prevents cell hangups. I leave my phone in the glove box.
I never use airplane mode because I still want to be reachable in case of an emergency.
I never use airplane mode because I still want to be reachable in case of an emergency.
Battery life goes BT > WiFi >> LTE.
If you're turning off WiFi in favor of LTE, you're not doing yourself any favors.
If you make the assumption that the WiFi network is known and the watch has a password than I would agree with you. The problem I run into are the 10 secured WiFi networks that my watch seems to keep trying to hook up before it’ll trigger LTE.
Also, since LTE is so battery intensive, the Wifi radios go into full on search mode constantly looking to reconnect to WiFi ASAP. If I know it’s futile, I’d rather stop that wifi radio activity.
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Interesting thread, assuming we don’t have phone and it’s a known WiFi network (to the phone that’s off or not there) will the watch automatically hook up, or if it’s an unknown network how do you hook up using the watch, and once one is on WiFi without the phone in range is the full range of functions available? Sorry just new to the Apple Watch and trying to figure it out.
Interesting. My watch, as far as I can tell, when I'm out and about without my phone, simply ignores wifi networks that are unknown to it and will promptly flip to LTE.
But since I've not really done a recent A/B test with wifi on and off, perhaps battery behavior/power use has changed in watchOS 6 compared with prior versions.
