
Step 1: Ensure your Apple Watch is not on its charger, and hold down the side button until a screen appears with the Medical ID and Emergency SOS sliders. It may sound like a cliché, but many odd behaviors are indeed solved by a simple reboot.

Jesse Hollington / Digital Trends Restart your Apple Watchīefore we get into the list of more specific Apple Watch problems and their possible solutions, there are a couple of things you should try right off the bat. Many of these have quick fixes that may save you a trip to your local Apple Store or repair shop, after which you can get back to enjoying your wearable and getting the most out of it with some handy Apple Watch tips and tricks. You can find the official “lost Apple Watch” guide here.Fortunately, we've done some of that legwork for you, rounding up the most common Apple Watch problems and their most likely solutions - from minor annoyances to more serious issues that could stem from the underlying hardware.

It’s handy in an emergency situation, of course, but it’s also a good thing to read ahead of time so that you’re familiar with the process. If you lose your Apple Watch, or if it has been stolen, there are several steps that you should take.Īpple has a step-by-step guide that tells you what to do if your Apple Watch goes missing. Learning more: What to do if your Apple Watch is lost or stolen Apple classifies things like heart rate, calendar appointments, messages, and so on as “sensitive”. Doing this will hide sensitive complication data when your wrist is down. Toggle on the Hide Sensitive Complications option. Next, go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Always On. This will hide the details of your notifications until you tap on the alert. Fortunately, Apple Watch has some privacy features that can help.įirst, go to Settings > Notifications > Notification Privacy and toggle the switch to on. That’s convenient, but it can also be a privacy issue for some people - especially if they are often in public places and have sensitive data that they need to keep safe from prying eyes. When you’re wearing your Apple Watch, notifications will show up on the face, and newer Apple Watch models come with an always-on display. Turn on Notification Privacy and Hide Sensitive Complications.You can decide whether you want an app to access location data from your iPhone and paired Apple Watch “Always”, “While Using the App”, or “Never”. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. To manage location permissions for individual apps, you’ll need the paired iPhone for your Apple Watch. This allows you to grant location access to the apps you trust, and restrict it for apps you’re not so sure about. However, there’s a better way to handle location privacy on Apple Watch: Fine-tune location permissions on an app-by-app basis. To find the off switch, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Note that you can shut off Location Services completely for an Apple Watch if you need to. It’s not totally optimal from a privacy standpoint, but realistically, this is the best way to get the most out of your device. In general, most users are going to want to keep Location Services turned on, even if they’re concerned about Apple Watch Security and Privacy. Fine-tune app Location permissions for privacy.This will ensure that your Apple Watch locks when you take it off. Go to Settings > Passcode and make sure Wrist Detection is turned on. This is actually the default setting for Apple Watch, but since people sometimes turn this off, it’s a good thing to double-check. You can set your Apple Watch to lock automatically when you’re not wearing it. To do this, go to Settings > Passcode and turn on the Erase Data option. The way to protect yourself in this scenario is to set your Apple Watch to erase all data after 10 failed unlock attempts. If your Apple Watch is lost or stolen, you want to be sure that no one else can get into it before you can mark it as lost in Find My.Ĭreating a strong passcode is a good first step - but what happens if someone is determined enough to keep trying to guess the passcode? To change your passcode to something stronger, go to Settings again, then Passcode > Change Passcode and follow the on-screen prompts. To do this, go to the Settings app on your Apple Watch, then go to Passcode and turn off Simple Passcode. If you set up a simple or easily guessed passcode, or if you’ve since disabled the passcode, it’s time to make sure your Apple Watch is protected.įirst, make sure that you can set up a passcode that’s longer than the four-digit default. When you first set up your Apple Watch, you were prompted to create a passcode.

Create a strong passcode for your Apple Watch.Do you have an Apple Watch? Here are 5 Apple Watch security and privacy tips to help you make your device more secure:
