The Apple Watch is a small but highly influential tech gadget that can help in all sorts of areas of your life. Maybe you got one to help meet your new year’s wellness goals or as a fitness tracker for adventures both high and low. Or perhaps you just wanted a great-looking timepiece with extra smarts. Whatever the reason, I’m willing to bet you’ve only scratched the surface (but not the screen) of what the Apple Watch can do.
Here are some of my favorite everyday tips that save time and trouble.
Also, check out how to add custom watch faces and ways to extend the utility of an old Apple Watch you might have in a drawer.
Swipe between watch faces (again)
Until WatchOS 10.0, you could swipe from the left or right edge of the screen to switch active watch faces, a great way to quickly go from an elegant workday face to an exercise-focused one, for example. Apple removed that feature, likely because people were accidentally switching faces by brushing the edges of the screen.
Swipe from the edge to switch between faces. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET
However, the regular method involves more steps (touch and hold the face, swipe to change, tap to confirm) and people realized that the occasional surprise watch face change wasn’t really so bad. Therefore, as of version 10.2, including the current WatchOS 11.2, you can turn the feature on by toggling a setting: Go to Settings > Clock and turn on Swipe to Switch Watch Face.
Stay on top of your heart health with Vitals
Wearing your Apple Watch while sleeping offers a trove of information — and not just about how you slept last night. If you don the timepiece overnight, it tracks a number of health metrics. A new feature in WatchOS 11 gathers that data into the Vitals app that reports on the previous night’s heart rate, respiration, body temperature (on recent models) and sleep duration. The Vitals app can also show data collected during the previous seven days — tap the small calendar icon in the top-left corner.
(If you own a watch model sold before Jan. 29, 2024, you’ll also see a blood oxygen reading. On newer watches in the US, that feature is disabled due to an intellectual property infringement fight.)
The Vitals app reports heart and health trends collected while you sleep. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET
How is this helpful? The software builds a baseline of what’s normal for you. When the values stray outside normal ranges, such as irregular heart or respiratory rates, the Vitals app reports them as atypical to alert you. It’s not a medical diagnosis, but it can prompt you to get checked out and catch any troubles early.
Make the Smart Stack work for you
Bring up the Smart Stack using the crown or by swiping. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET
The Smart Stack is a place to access quick information that might not fit into what Apple calls a
7 Everyday Tips to Get the Most Value Out of Your Apple Watch
