How to Save Battery on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3

With features like ECG, path detection, and oxygen monitoring, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 is a compelling smartwatch. The best part about it is that it beautifully balances the fitness-oriented features with the smart features. however, things don’t look good when it comes to battery life.

When I got my hands on the Galaxy Watch 3, it could barely last a day. One night I fell asleep with the watch showing 42%, and the next morning it was dead. No kidding.

Compared to previous smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch 3 has a shorter battery life. For example, the Galaxy Watch 46mm lasts up to 4 days on a single charge.

Nonetheless, I tinkered with the watch and made a few changes, and luckily made the battery last a bit longer. If you are seeing very poor battery life on your Galaxy Watch 3, here are some changes you can make.

1. Deactivate permanent display

Agreed that the Always On Display (AOD) is one of the juicy features of the watch. However, this is also one of the main reasons for battery drain, especially with fancy dials. It goes without saying that the AOD helps you see the information on your watch without waking it up or lifting your wrist. However, if your watch is suffering from a terrible battery drain, it’s time to let it go.

To deactivate, pull down the Quick settings menu and tap the Watch Always On option.

If you’re not in the habit of clicking the Home button or the Back button to wake up your watch, turn on wake-up gestures. You can find it under Settings> Advanced in the Galaxy Wearable app.

2. Turn off Wi-Fi

From what I’ve seen, turning on the watch’s Wi-Fi has a serious impact on the battery. This was a problem with my Watch Active 2 smartwatch, and the Galaxy Watch 3 is no exception. For notifications and calls, convenient Bluetooth is more than sufficient if you have the connected phone within pairing range.

Turning off Wi-Fi is easy. Like the method above, you need to pull down the Quick Settings menu and toggle the switch.

The same goes for other connections like NFC, as long as you don’t use it often. I have found that turning off the Wi-Fi connection dramatically improves battery life.

3. Use dark dials

Sure, the colorful dials look classy and all. But they are also heavy consumers of battery. Solution? Use dark colored dials.

The wearable app and Samsung store have plenty of AMOLED compatible watch faces that go well with your smartwatch and in doing so will help you save battery. In AMOLED displays, the black area means the pixels are off, which saves battery life. The mantra here is to go for blacker watch faces to conserve battery juice.

Although you can get multiple AMOLED-enabled watch faces on the Galaxy Wearable app. Also, you can visit the Galaxy Store to find out more. To do this, open the Wearable app and tap the Discover tab at the bottom.

When done, hit the Search button at the top, search for AMOLED and that’s about it. Once you find the one you like, apply it after the installation is complete.

4. Optimize the battery if you use too many apps

Galaxy Watch smartwatches may not have as many compatible apps as the Apple Watch, but it’s safe to say the numbers are pretty decent. And if you already can’t do without the limited options, your best bet would be to keep an eye on the status of the app.

Like older smartphones, apps can still consume battery power even when you’re not actively using them.

The Optimize battery mode of your watch takes care of such issues. Therefore, be sure to optimize the watch battery every now and then. To do this, go to the Quick settings menu and tap on the battery icon, which will take you to the power saving screen.

Rotate the bezel clockwise and you will see the Optimize option. Battery optimization mode also supports screen brightness and screen time if they are too high.

On top of that, you can also check your watch’s battery stats to see which app is consuming the most juice.

To do this, select the About phone option on the app and tap on the battery icon. Since I am using a non-Samsung watch, you can see that Samsung Health is consuming the maximum amount of juice.

5. Reduce screen brightness and timeout

This one is not rocket science. The screen tends to eat away most of the battery juice and if the screen brightness and screen timeout are increased.

To reduce the screen timeout to around 30 seconds, go to the Wearable app and select the Display option.

As for brightness, pull down the Quick settings menu and tap the brightness icon, and you know the rest.

6. Heart rate monitoring

Can you afford to do heart rate monitoring every 10 minutes? As you might have already guessed, keeping it on continuously will lead to rapid battery drain.

To change the heart rate monitoring frequency, head to the Heart Monitoring widget on your watch and scroll down until you see the Settings option. Once inside, tap the Every 10 minutes option.

7. Stay up to date

Whether it’s a smartphone or a smartwatch, it is always recommended to keep it up to date, unless of course it is riddled with bugs. For example, my watch barely lasted a day before. Once I updated to the latest version, I can now see the battery last for about 2 days with the Wi-Fi turned off.

Remember to check the Auto download via Wi-Fi option enabled (under Update watch software). As the name suggests, this will ask you to install the OTA at maturity.

Use them correctly

If your watch is connected to a Samsung phone, you are in a safe zone (from a battery perspective). When connected to a Samsung phone, syncing does not damage the battery much. Unlike that, when you’re hooked up to something other than Samsung, battery drain is significant, and right now, unless you turn Bluetooth off, there’s not much you can do. Bummer, I know.

As for the steps above, you won’t be able to go through all of them as they will essentially give you a smartwatch. The mantra here is to find the ones that work best for you. For example, I can afford to keep the Wi-Fi turned off and the heart rate monitoring every 10 minutes. Additionally, I turned on notifications for only a few selected apps like Slack.

Quite naturally, activating the GPS when you go for your walks, runs or bike rides will cause the battery to drain more quickly when the GPS is turned on. Again, if you can bear not to do this, you can do it from Connections> Location> GPS.