3 Tips to Make You and Your Apple Watch More Productive

How to Make Your Smart Watch Work for You

Photo by Raagesh C on Unsplash

I’ve been using the Apple Watch for about 5 years now, starting with the Series 1 and currently own a Series 5 device. I jumped into the smart watch business for two main reasons:

• Fitness tracking
• Manage notifications and “things” more than on my phone

I love text messages, or seeing who’s calling at a glance. It’s also been easy to answer phone calls if I’m cooking dinner or doing some other activity. and can’t get to my phone. I’ve got podcasts, audiobooks and music saved on my watch. Paired with wireless headphones, I can work out to take my phone with me. This is especially nice if you have a larger phone.

I’m not here to tell you that you should get an Apple Watch. Fitbit, Garmin or whatever popular Android device is out now are all good items and there’s no “best watch”. It’s what works best for you and your lifestyle. But, if you do own an Apple Watch (or are in the market for one), I wanted to share some features you may want to take use:

1. Apple Pay
2. Unlock other devices
3. Automation & Shortcuts

You may not find these life changing, but I’d found they make small parts of my life easier. After the past 18+ months of a pandemic, I’ll take anything I can which makes my life simpler.

Apple Pay

Since the iPhone 6 introduced Apply Pay, you’ve been able to pay with a credit card on your phone. NFC has become more accepted since then. It exists in a large variety of retail, grocery stores, and other vendors using mobile devices.

I enjoy using this feature when I don’t have easy access to my wallet, or forgot my wallet completely. You can also enable Apple Pay on your Watch to leverage the same convenience. Once activated, all you have to do is double tap the side button on your watch and pay with ease.

If this really that much better than using Apple Pay on your phone? That’s up to you, but I find it quicker than fishing for my phone out of a pocket or jacket. This was especially when I carried an extra phone for work and had to grab the right one. If nothing else, I often get responses of “whoa, I didn’t know you could do that!” when making a purchase. Even if you don’t have your iPhone with you, you CAN still use Apply Pay. This is great for when you don’t want an extra device, or want to grab a bottle of water from a store while out on a workout.

For further information about setting up Apple Pay or what else your Watch can do, even without your iPhone, see the links below.

Set up Apple Pay

Your GPS-only Apple Watch can still do a ton of great things

Unlock Other Devices

If you have a MacBook, you can use your Watch to unlock your laptop hands free. Many of the recent MacBooks come with Touch ID to simplify login already. This feature will unlock your machine on wake-up/proximity. I keep my laptop lid closed while hooked up to my monitor, leveraging a wireless keyboard/mouse. The Touch ID button is inaccessible, so unlocking with my watch always me to avoid entering a password.

You can also use your watch to authorize other actions on your Mac. Such as one that requires you to enter your password when installing software or unlocking permissions. Simply double-click the side button (same as Apple Pay) when prompted on the screen.

Another use case came into play due to the COVID pandemic. With people wearing masks, it rendered FaceID non-functional. After iOS 14.5, if you have an Apple Watch, your phone can non unlock itself while you’re wearing the watch. I find this even more useful than unlocking your laptop. Both of these uses can save you time from entering passwords over the course of a day. Definitely a nice convenience factor.

Just check this item in your MacOS settings

If you open your Security & Privacy settings in MacOS. can you just need to check this box. And be logged into your Apple ID account.

For more detailed instructions, see this article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206995

(Edit: I’ve learned you can also use your watch to unlock your Tesla and other cars)

(Edit 2: You can use your Apple devices at Disney in conjunction with the MagicBand system to gain access to the park)

Automation & Shortcuts

Shortcuts is a feature added with iOS 13 and iPhone 11 back in 2019. I had known about it, but had never played around with them much or used it. Apple has added new face faces over the years with different pieces of functionality: Siri integration, Solar cycles, chronographs and different styles and layouts. One of the best ways to tailor your faces is via compilations.

Complications are app shortcuts available on your face instead of going into a menu that display related data. You can use these to see things like:

• current weather
• calendar events
• reminders
• 1-tap access to your fitness app of choice to start a workout
• and much more

The problem I’ve found is often that there is only so much room on the screen/face placement. This means you can’t fit everything you want to see at a glance. There are days/times when you may want to have access to different things based on what you’re doing. I recently put my work calendar onto a prominent portion of my screen to be able to see my upcoming meetings. This is fine during the work day, but resulted in a lot of wasted space after hours or on the weekend. It gives me a large block saying “No events today”. Shortcuts to the rescue!

There are a lot of options in your shortcuts, but I’ll share mine to get you started. I created a “Work Watch Face” and a “Personal Watch Face”. The Work face prioritizes my schedule and tasks. My Personal face was easy access to workouts, music and my current movement stats. My goal is make Work face display Monday to Friday, between 8:30a — 5p and then show Personal face the rest of the time.

Automations I currently have set up for my Watch

1. Open Shortcuts on your iPhone
2. Tap “Automation on the menu at the bottom
3. Tap the “+” in the top-right and choose Create Personal Automation
4. Select Time of Day (and whatever configuration you desire here)
5. Add an Action and search for Set Watch Face
6. Choose your desired face
7. Tap Next then disable Ask Before Running
8. Tap Done
9. Repeat for when you want to change back, or use a different face.

For fun, I also set up another automation to switch to my Virginia Tech themed watch face (complete the decibel levels). This gets activated whenever I’m on campus for football games, because why not?! These are very basic automations you can do, but there are a lot more complex options you can use. If/then logic, variables and menu options to select you can build into your shortcuts as well. So many possibilities for what you can do, on your phone or watch.

For for tips and tricks about using shortcuts on your watch, check out: https://www.howtogeek.com/702876/how-to-use-shortcuts-on-apple-watch/

Make Your Tech Work for You

As I mentioned at the start, will any of these tips save you money or drastically change your life? Most likely not, yet they can help you be more efficient in your life, and save you a bit of time during the day which can add up. If you were on the fence about whether you need a smart watch, consider items like the above into your choice. Apple is still investing in the watch adding new pieces every year. While some of these may require upgrading to the latest hardware to use new features, WatchOS gets many of these as software for you to take advantage of and customize in the future as well. There are also some great safety features like fall detection and calling 911 for you.

What are some other things you’ve done with your Watch to make your life easier?