The Apple Watch is not a watch only made for hiking and outdoors. It was meant to be a mini iPhone on your wrist. Therefore, the watch has many apps and features that use a lot of battery. It wasn’t meant to become a watch that you can take for many many days on a hike, and not have to charge it. Still, the battery should last you whole day, according to Apple tests of their own watch. You could also do use some tricks to improve battery life. But, if you go on a multi-day hike, bring a portable charger to charge your watch.
How long does the Apple Watch battery last during hiking?
Apple Watch will mostly last a one day hike. It will also not last the whole day if you plan to use all its features. Some of the features you’ll be using when hiking are GPS, navigation, listening to music, tracking workout etc.
Apple conducts their own battery life tests for each model of Apple Watch and publishes the results. For Apple Watch Series 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and Apple Watch SE, battery should last up to 18 hours.
For outdoor workout with heart sensor on, and using GPS without iPhone, battery lasted 5 hours for Series 3, 6 hours for Series 4, 6 and 5 hours (if LTE was on) for SE, 7 hours and 6 hours (if LTE was on) for Series 7. We couldn’t find information for Series 5 and Series 6, but battery should last around 6 hours like for other watches.
You can find more detailed information about battery life here, here, here and here.
Extending Apple Watch battery life
Here are some tips to extend battery life while hiking:
- The Apple Watch will last about 7 hours if the GPS is on. To save power, you can carry an iPhone with you. The watch will then use the iPhone’s GPS for navigation, and not its own. This saves battery considerably and can sometimes improve the accuracy of GPS.
- You can use power save mode to save battery life. This mode can turn off some features to save battery. With power save modes the battery can last all day.
- You can turn off unnecessary features like Always On screen.
- If you are going on a multiple day hiking trip, the easiest way to solve battery problems is to get a portable charger. Then you can charge your watch multiple times without having access to a power source.
Apple Watch portable chargers
The easiest solution for battery issues is to carry a portable charger to charge the Apple Watch. This is especially true for multi-day hikes.
Apple Watch Series 7 comes with Magnetic Fast Charger with USB-C cable. Other Apple Watches come with Magnetic Charging Cable with USB-A cable. Therefore, take that into account when buying portable chargers. For most portable charges you will need to plug the watches’ charger into a USB-A or USB-C slot. The charger itself will probably also be charged via a USB-A or USB-C, and will probably come without an adapter.
Therefore, you may need to buy an additional adapter with a USB-A slot or USB-C slot to charge the charger in the power outlet. You can also charge it on your computer, if it has a compatible USB slot. To sum it up, the charger will often come without a power adapter and only a USB cable to charge the charger. Also, make sure to check out whether the specific charger works with your Apple Watch model.
Here are some good portable charger recommendations:
Battery Pro
This is a great charger for both your iPhone and Apple Watch. Many people online recommend this charger for Apple Watch. You can charge your iPhone via a USB cable. You can also charge your Apple Watch by putting it into an in-built magnetic charger. It also works with all generations of Apple Watch. You can also charge your iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time. The charger will also charge your devices for up to 2 weeks. It’s also very small, being the size of an iPhone.
Anker PowerCore 10000 PD Redux
This is a great portable charger with both USB-C port and USB-A port. You can charge two devices simultaneously. You can also charge the charger via both USB-A and USB-C ports. It can charge your phone up to two times and you watch several times with your cable. This is a great charger that will last you a few days of hiking. You will need a cable to charge the watch. This isn’t a specific Apple Watch charger, but it’s a great charger to charge phones, tables, smartwatches and more.
Wustentre Fit
This is a small and portable Apple Watch Charger. It can be carried on a keychain.. It’s compatible with Apple Watch Series 7 / SE /6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1. It can charge your watch 1-2 times. The charger itself is charged via USB-C, so you also need a USB-C adapter to charge the charger. This is a great small portable charger for those who don’t need more than 1 or 2 charges for Apple Watch.
Check out the rest of articles about using Apple Watch to get rid of iPhone addiction, and decrease excessive internet and social media consumption. But still use the Apple Watch for actually useful functions (like navigation, communication, notifications, music and more) without relying on the iPhone:
Is Apple Watch Cellular worth it: going without iPhone
Can you use Apple Watch offline?
Use Apple Watch for camping
