Smartwatches need to constantly be connected to your phone in order to function properly. While we always worry about the battery life of smartwatches, have we sat and thought about how much battery life our smartphone loses due to it being constantly connected to a watch?
So the main question – do smartwatches actually drain the battery of our phones?
Yes, while negligible, smartwatches do drain your phone’s battery. This is because your phone establishes a Bluetooth connection with your smartwatch. Therefore, it sends and receives data to and from your watch. This reduces your smartphone’s battery by a very negligible amount.
Now that we’ve established the fact tath your smartphone does end up losing a bit of its battery life, this begs the question, how much battery life does your smartwatch drain off your smartphone? We’ve answered that question in great detail down below!
Related: Can You Use SmartWatch Without a Phone?
How Much Battery Life Does A Smartwatch Drain From Your Smartphone?
Smartwatches are connected in very close proximity to your phone. In essence, you do not need an extremely strong signal to be transmitted to connect to your smartwatch. This is because of their relative distance from your phone and the fact that not much information needs to be sent constantly.
Think about it. You aren’t constantly streaming audio and video to your smartwatch now, are you? Even if you are, chances are that you do that over WiFi instead of hogging your phone’s data. In any case, a smartwatch requires periodic updates. For example, whenever a new notification comes or you’ve just finished a workout.
In essence, while smartwatches are companion devices, most of the processing is done on the smartwatch so that they do not need to constantly relay information from your phone.
With that said, modern smartwatches use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). The technology is specifically meant for devices that remain in close proximity to your smartwatch. In essence, they use a low-power 2.4 GHz band to connect to nearby devices.
Putting It To The Test
Now that we’ve understood the inherent technologies that go about reducing the overall amount of battery life your smartwatches drain, we picked out two different smartwatches and phones from the office and put them to the test.
| Apple Watch Series SE + iPhone 13 Pro Max | Samsung Galaxy Fold + Samsung Galaxy Active 2 | |
| Battery Drain Without Watch (24 hours) | 65% | 53% |
| Battery Drain With Watch (24 hours) | 64% | 51% |
From the tests above, it is quite clear that while a smartwatch does consume a bit of your battery life, it is only about 1-3%~ and is considered negligible. This is because 1-3% battery only nets you a few minutes of screen time.
And, from what we think, losing a few minutes of screen time for the ability to have a smartwatch that does so much more for you in terms of utility and function is a trade we’d be willing to take any day.
Surprisingly, a lot of people in our office have reported their smartphone actually having better battery life once they purchased a smartwatch. This is because the ability to check your notifications on a smartwatch without opening your phone leads to a drastic decrease in the amount of time you spend on your phone.
This, in turn, helps with your battery life.
How To Reduce Smartwatch Draining Phone’s Battery
If, by even all our testing, you still do not think that your smartwatch is draining a minute amount of battery life but is instead hogging your smartphone’s battery. No worries, there are a few tips and tricks that you can take advantage of:
- Turn On Airplane Mode: Whenever you aren’t using your watch or don’t want to be nagged by notifications, just enable Airplane Mode on your Watch. This way, it won’t connect to your smartphone saving you some battery.
- Turn Off Notifications: If you are constantly bombarded with notifications that are somewhat irrelevant on your watch, you can open the companion application and turn notifications for those specific applications off.
FAQ
Does Connecting A Smart Watch Drain Battery?
Yes, connecting a smartwatch to your smartphone does drain an insignificant amount of battery. While this won’t affect your real-life usage by a tangible amount, it will lead to about a 1-2% reduction in overall battery life.
Do Fitness Trackers Drain Phone Battery?
No, fitness trackers do not drain your phone’s battery because they hardly send and receive information to and from your smartphone. So, in most cases, the difference will be so minute that it won’t matter.
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I bought my first smartwatch in 2018 and have been wearing one ever since. It might get frustrating at times to receive 100 notifications a day. That's why we need to know how to make the best of them and how to use them to improve our daily lives, not the other way around. I write about the newest smartwatches, I create top picks, and I write helpful guides and simply explain complicated things.