6 things you didn’t know your Apple Watch could do

Key Takeaways

• You can use your Apple Watch to activate the iPhone camera, calculate tips, and write your medications.
• Use gestures and accessibility features to navigate with one hand.
• Get turn-by-turn directions and have the time to talk to you on Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch goes well with the iPhone — peanut butter to its jelly or avocado to its toast. When it comes to tracking your sports and activities, monitoring important health and wellness, and accessing calendar notifications, incoming calls and messages, and other important daily data, a smartwatch is a powerful wrist device. But it can do more than that.

Of course, we all know how the Apple Watch works with tons of third-party (and Apple) apps to help you pay for things with Apple Wallet, hail an Uber or check your grocery delivery status, track morning sports, listen to music, and More. But there’s a lot the Apple Watch can do that you might not know about or haven’t tried using it yet. These features can help you realize the full potential of a smartwatch, and you’ll probably use them more than you think.

1 Act as a trigger for your phone’s camera

Take selfies, group photos, and more with ease

At a recent summer barbecue with friends, I propped my iPhone up on a table using a small tripod, then stepped into position for a group photo. The friends next to me were curious when they saw me raise my wrist and click the button to trigger the phone camera shutter. “What did you just do?” asked another friend. Such a simple feature that has been baked into the Apple Watch for a long time, but people don’t know about it or rarely use it because they don’t realize how easy it is to do.

With Camera Trigger, you can instantly connect to your iPhone’s camera, switch from rear-facing to front-facing camera, and set the photo to be taken after a short three-second timer. I use this feature every day to take post-workout photos to send to my fitness chat group, and in situations like the event mentioned above to take a group photo that includes everyone, including me. I have a camera trigger as a problem on my watch face so I can easily access it with a single button press.

1. Open the Camera app on your Apple Watch.
2. Tap that three dots right to adjust the camera view (before or behind), light (automatic, toor turned off), and Live Image (Open or close); and to enable or disable the three-second timer.
3. Press the button institution button and take a picture.

2 Calculate the tip and split the bill

There is no need for mental exercises

Yes, everyone knows that the Apple Watch has an Apple Wallet app that makes it easy to pay for things with a simple tap using a loaded credit or debit card. We also know that the Apple Watch has a working calculator app. But did you know that within that Calculator app, you can quickly calculate a tip based on the total amount of the bill and the tip percentage you want? You can even enter how many people are eating (or split the cost of an item) to get the final payment amount for each person.

It’s a great way to split the bill equally with friends when you go out to brunch or buy tickets to an event. Everyone can use Apple Cash to easily transfer the right amount of money to the payee. A handy feature that prevents you from doing math in your head or pulling your phone out in front of the server.

1. Open the Calculator app on the Apple Watch.
2. Enter the totality amount of debt.
3. Select Tip and use the Digital Crown to move the percentage up or down from the desired percentage value, seeing the corresponding dollar amount as you move it.
4. Select People and use the Digital Crown moving the number up or down based on the number of people splitting the bill.
5. See the total price and price per person below.

3 Enter medications and receive reminders

Let Apple Watch remember you

Whether it’s daily vitamins or medications for a specific illness or disease, maybe even antibiotics for a limited time while you’re recovering from surgery or an injury, you can use Apple Watch as a reminder to take them. You can also write to skip or take medication right on the watch screen.

You will first need to set up the medication in the Health app on your iPhone. This feature can be used not only for over-the-counter or prescription drugs, but for things like protein supplements, natural supplements, or pill reminders for pets.

1. Open the Health app on your iPhone, select Browse throughagain Medicines.
2. Select Add Medicinetype a name and select The next one.
3. Fill in additional information (energy in units or skip if not applicable), Usually, Start date, Time, Colorand even The situation of a tablet or bottle of anointing oil.
4. Now, open the Medication app on the Apple Watch.
5. Select The log whenever you take it.

Use your Apple Watch with one hand

Apple introduced the double-tap feature with the Apple Watch Series 9, but what most people don’t know is that this feature, in one form or another, has been available on Apple Watches for quite some time. It’s just hidden inside the access menu. It’s a great way to navigate screens in the View when you only have one hand, such as carrying groceries, walking the dog, or holding a hot cup of coffee in your other hand without spilling.

Tap your thumb and index finger together to initiate an action in an app or clench your fist to simulate a tap and make something happen, like selecting an item to go to the next screen or activating Siri. For example, I have the Clench function set to show apps and Pinch quickly opens Apple Pay. It won’t adapt as smartly to whatever app you’re in as the new feature does, but it’s an easy way to schedule one activity for each action if that’s all you want, or if you have an older Apple Watch model that doesn’t support it. the latest OS.

1. Open the Watch app on your iPhone
2. Underneath My Watchchoose Accessibility then AssistiveTouch and open it, and open it Hand Gesture.
3. From here, you can adjust that Pinch, Pin it twice,Clenchagain Double Clench touching.

5 Talk time with you

Hear the present time being called out loud

The Apple Watch face displays the current time in any format you choose based on the watch face you selected. But you can also make the Watch speak the time to you. This can help you when you’re just getting out of bed and don’t want to open your eyes, or when you’re deep in the throes of an assignment and just want a quick reminder of when you should look away from the computer screen. Once set, all you have to do is hold two fingers over the screen and the Watch will tell you what time it is. It’s that simple.

1. Go to the Watch app on your iPhone and below My Watchchoose A clock.
2. Make sure Talk Time it is open.
3. If you want it to work when the Clock is in silent mode, select it Talk Always.

6 Get turn-by-turn directions

Navigate to your destination with your phone in your pocket

As a self-proclaimed navigator, I like to use walking directions when I’m out and about on foot. With an Apple Watch connected to your iPhone, Apple Maps turn-by-turn directions can appear on the watch face. Even in silent mode, you can follow thanks to helpful buzzes that let you know when an opportunity is coming. This allows you to keep your head up and be sure you’ll get to your destination safe and sound, without your face buried in your phone trying to navigate on-screen directions. Also, it should be noted, you can enjoy this with Google Maps once you have downloaded that app to the device.

1. Open it Apple Maps on your iPhone, enter your destination, too select the navigation directions option.
2. Directions will automatically appear on the watch screen when connected to the iPhone.
3. You’ll see the upcoming turns and how far they are, too hear a little noise when the opportunity arisesso you can raise your wrist to check and track.