‘Watch only’ mode saves your Galaxy Watch 6 battery for weeks, how to use it

The Galaxy Watch 6 has proven to be the battery sweet spot among modern smartwatches. But if you’re looking to extend power from days to weeks, there’s a special mode called “Watch only” to save the Galaxy Watch’s battery. This guide will dig deeper and show you how to use it.

We’ve put the Galaxy Watch 6 through its paces for the last couple of weeks. That means days of activity and nights full of some pretty deep sleep. In all that time, it’s become impressively clear that the Galaxy Watch 6 has an improved battery meant to handle the average wearer’s patterns. It’s no Watch 5 Pro with 80 hours of on-time, but it’s perfectly adequate and doesn’t leave you wanting more.

That being said, there are going to be times you want to extend the Watch 6’s battery, whether proactively or in an emergency. There is Battery Saver mode, which turns off certain functions like always-on display and certain animations in order to save previous milliamp hours. That’s good enough to extend the battery life by a few hours, but what if you want days?

Enabling ‘Watch only’ mode

Watch only mode isn’t new to the Galaxy Watch 6 and has been around for a little while now. That doesn’t make the feature any less useful. When enabled, the feature essentially turns off every single feature of your Galaxy Watch except for the screen and single-tap functionality of the home button. In effect, your smartwatch becomes just a watch.

There is no AOD, so turning it on requires a tap of the home button. Beyond that, it does nothing spectacular you’ve come to expect from a wearable. It’s just a watch. It might sound counterintuitive, but this digital watch mode does wonders for the battery, giving it an estimated couple of weeks before it’s set to run out.

1. On your Galaxy Watch 6, swipe down from the home screen.
2. Tap the settings cog.
3. Scroll and tap Battery and device care.
4. Hit the battery card.
5. Scroll and tap Watch only.
6. Tap Turn on at the bottom.

Note: To turn off Watch only mode, press and hold the home button.

In an emergency or prior to a trip where a charger will not be accessible, Watch only mode can be a massive help. You can always turn the feature off, meaning you could save several days of Galaxy Watch battery and then disable the limitation to get back to using the watch as normal. Perfect for hiking a long way to a camp or needing to preserve power until a cell signal is possible.