How to make my Apple Watch more useful every day

Key Takeaways

• Review and log into Health data daily to get a comprehensive look at your metrics and trends.
• Download and listen to music and podcasts offline on your Apple Watch without needing a mobile model.
• Use all compatible iPhone apps on your watch to get important notifications smoothly.

The Apple Watch is already a useful tool for iPhone owners. You can stay up to date with notifications, track workouts, sports, and activities, monitor priorities and sleep, and access apps on your wrist. There’s a lot you can do with the Apple Watch. There are many things you probably didn’t even know you could do with the Apple Watch. Once you’ve set up your Apple Watch and learned how to navigate it like a pro, you’ll want to take advantage of everything it has to offer to get the most out of it.

1 Keep tabs on every day of your life

Don’t ignore the data

The Apple Watch is managed through three apps: Health, Fitness, and Watch. Apple Health is where you can find more information about what the Watch is tracking, beyond what appears on the Watch screen itself. Go over this data every day, or at least every few days, to see more than just the progress you’ve made in completing your Rings. Here, you’ll see everything from the results of ECGs you’ve taken, your sleep report, any mood data you’ve entered into the mindfulness app, and more. There is also a Health Trends section where you can see average metrics like Active Energy, Blood Oxygen, Cardio Fitness level, Exercise Minutes, and more over the past 26 weeks.

1. Open the Health app on your iPhone.
2. Select the Summary tab.
3. Tap Show All Health Trends.
4. If you want to see your daily data, select Show All Health Data in turn.

2 Add music and podcasts

Listen without your phone

You don’t need an Apple Watch + Cellular model to listen to music on the go without your phone. And you don’t need to bring your phone to stream music. You can download songs and playlists from Apple Music (with a subscription) directly from the Watch to listen to the wearable connected directly to wireless earbuds or headphones. Don’t forget that Apple Podcasts are available, too. You can download podcast episodes from Watch to listen offline. You can also add shows you follow to Watch so that new episodes are automatically downloaded to the device. This way, there’s always something new and fresh for your next hike, run, or commute without eating up cellular data from your phone with streaming.

1. Open the View app on your iPhone.
2. Select the My View tab.
3. Scroll down and select Music.
4. Tap + Add Music.
5. Choose from Playlists, Favorites, Albums, Downloads, and more and tap the orange “+” button to add it directly to Watch for offline play.
6. For podcasts, follow steps 1 and 2 and select Podcasts.
7. Select + Add shows and choose from the following ones.

Note that downloaded content from Apple Music and Podcasts will only play if you have an active subscription.

3 Download all compatible apps for iPhone

These are useful notifications

If you have an app on your iPhone, you probably downloaded it for a reason. If it’s an app that provides notifications, you might want to see those notifications on your wrist, too. Be sure to install all apps on your phone that have an Apple Watch partner on the smartwatch, too, and enable notifications from them. These may be important notifications that you will enjoy seeing without picking up your phone. For example, I like to know when the laundry is done in the LG washer and dryer with notifications from the LG ThinQ app. My Ring video doorbell motion notifications also come to the Display. Even if you decide not to show the app on the Apple Watch to allow an unobstructed view, or to stop notifications if they are too annoying, trying it first to see the functionality it offers is worth it.

1. Open the View app on the iPhone.
2. Select the My View tab.
3. Select Notices.
4. Scroll down to Mirror iPhone Notifications From and make sure all the apps you want to see notifications from are open. If not, press the slider to the right until it is green to open it.

4 Set multiple watch faces

Have one for each time or time of day

Once you’ve downloaded an Apple Watch face to the device and customized it, it appears in the My Faces section of the watch app for easy access. You can download multiple faces and switch between them in this section of the app as well as on the watch itself. It’s a good idea to save a few favorites for quick access to change the date, time of year, or even event. Maybe you have a default watch face, but also one for when you’re on vacation or it’s the weekend that shows a fun selfie. You might also want a watch face that’s great at night versus a colorful screen that shows your workout stats, or a Snoopy photo. Saving many favorite watch faces in the My Watch section makes it easy to change faces with one quick tap.

1. Open the View app on your iPhone.
2. Select the Face gallery tab.
3. Scroll through the options and select the Watch Face you want.
4. Customize accordingly and select Add once done.
5. Go back to the My Watch tab and the watch face now appears at the bottom My Face.
6. On Apple Watch, press and hold the screen until you enter edit mode. From here, swipe left and right to switch between all saved watch faces and tap to select.

5 Use it with related products and services

Apple’s ecosystem is among the best

Apple offers an ecosystem of products that work seamlessly. You need an iPhone to use Apple Watch. But there are other Apple products that work well, too. A pair of Apple AirPods, for example, works seamlessly with the Apple Watch. Use them to play songs you’ve downloaded to the Watch, as noted above, or stream from your phone. A neat trick with the AirPods is that you can hold them next to the Apple Watch, open the case, open the Control Center on the smartwatch, and you’ll see the battery life of the AirPods and the case right on the watch screen.

The Apple Watch is also the perfect companion for the Apple Fitness+ subscription service. Once you’ve signed up, you can access tons of workouts, set up workout routines, check out guided workouts by workout type, equipment needed, trainer, and even the type of music that accompanies the music. Workout statistics are displayed right on the View screen, including countdown times for things like HIIT workouts. Once you’re done, you can manually enter the details of the new Training Load feature, part of watchOS11, and view a summary. I’ve done a lot of kickboxing exercises and find them engaging and effective, new ones are added constantly so you never run out of options. I also do a Time to Walk workout where a celebrity walks with you, talking about their life, career, and motivations. When they remember a certain time, the Watch beeps and displays the appropriate image on the screen. Speeches are motivational and great for stress relief.

6 Use it as a remote control for Apple TV

Control your play

If you have an Apple TV set up in the living room, bedroom, den, or other room of the home, you can use the handy remote app on the Watch to control playback. It’s a great way to use your phone as a remote control, which can drain its battery and requires you to turn on the device every time you want to browse the menu or pause playback. Yes, the Apple TV has its take-out, but who hasn’t dropped this little controller at one point or another? Instead of spending your time feeling the couch cushions or trying to remember where you left off when you have half an hour before bed to tune in to an episode of the show, just use your watch as a wrist remote.

7 There are many ways to get more out of your Apple Watch

Getting the most out of the Apple Watch is all about exploring the watch and its features, apps that run on it, and compatible products. By doing so, you will make the Apple Watch a useful tool that can help you throughout your daily life.