The Invisible Power Drain
By default, watchOS allows installed applications to constantly run in the background. Features like “Background App Refresh” permit weather apps, news readers, and social media clients to silently wake up, connect to the internet (via your iPhone or cellular), and download new data even when you aren’t looking at your wrist. Because the Apple Watch has a tiny physical battery, this constant invisible downloading is the single largest cause of poor battery life. To guarantee your watch survives an entire weekend without a charger, you must completely terminate the background downloading engine.
How to Turn Off Background App Refresh Globally
You can permanently sever all background internet connections via the General settings.
- Open the Settings app directly on your Apple Watch (the grey gear icon).
- Scroll down the main list and tap on General.
- Scroll down and tap on Background App Refresh.
- At the very top of the screen, locate the master toggle switch labeled Background App Refresh.
- Toggle this switch to the Off position (the green background will disappear).
On-Demand Updates Only
The change takes effect instantly. The Apple Watch will completely shut down the background scheduling daemon. Your installed applications will no longer be allowed to wake up and download data while your wrist is lowered. To conserve maximum battery power, data will now strictly load “on demand.” This means your weather widget or stock ticker will only consume battery power to download new numbers at the exact physical moment you tap the app to open it.