When you turn on the Low Power Mode, the system disables the always-on display, background heart rate and blood oxygen measurements, workout reminders, auto workout detection and notifications for irregular heart rate rhythm, high heart rate and low heart rate. During its “Far Out” event, Apple said the Low Power Mode can give you up to 36 hours of battery life on a full charge for the Apple Watch Series 8 and 60 hours of battery life on a full charge for the new Apple Watch Ultra. It’s about turning off power-hungry and, perhaps, unnecessary features to help you eke out more life - but for the most part, it’s still a fully functional smartwatch. Once in that hibernative state, the device isn’t good for much other than telling time. Before this announcement, the Apple Watch had a Power Reserve Mode, a feature designed as a kind of last resort when your battery dips into the double digits. Instead, it’s addressed the issue through a new Low Power mode rolling out with watchOS 9. As a result, the sports-focused model effectively doubles the Series 8’s 18 hours to 36, in spite of a slightly larger screen and double the brightness (from 1,000 to 2,000 nits).Īs for the rest of the line, Apple is once again looking to improve battery life without any meaningful hardware changes. The larger case (49mm to the Series 8’s 45), coupled with a slimming down of components like the haptic motor, offer more internal space for the battery. The Watch Ultra, which goes on sale today, finds Apple addressing the problem head-on. Rather than increasing the mAh on the hardware, Apple presented a workaround: an alert that pops up if the user dips below a certain percentage before bed time, requiring a recharge. The issue only became more pronounced when the company went all-in on sleep-tracking with watchOS 7 in 2020. Battery life has long been the Apple Watch’s biggest drawback.

Low battery mode