How to turn on your Apple Watch and wake the display

Apple Watch
Image Credit: TechRadar

It’s a relatively easy process to set up and use your Apple Watch, but sometimes your mind can just go blank and you forget how to turn on your smartwatch altogether.

That’s why we’ve put together this guide to let you know how to switch your Apple Watch on, as well as how to wake the display too.

This is relevant to all current models of the Apple Watch all the way through from the original to the latest Apple Watch Series 4.

How to turn on your Apple Watch

This is a simple one, but it can sometimes be difficult to remember exactly how to do it. You’ll have to press down the button on the right hand side of your smartwatch until you see the white Apple logo.

The button is just below the rotating crown, and you’ll have to hold the button for a few moments before you can see that it's turning on.

After a few seconds more, you should also see your current watch face boot up. How long that'll take will depend on what model of the watch you have and a variety of other factors, but it shouldn't take more than 30 seconds.

How to wake your Apple Watch

It may be that your Apple Watch is already on and you’ve just got to wake the display, which there are a variety of ways of doing.

The easiest is perhaps tapping on the display itself or pressing down on the digital crown on the right hand side.

You can also raise your wrist to wake the display, which is a feature that is turned on by default. If it doesn't work, it may be that you've turned off the feature in the past.

If that's the case, you can turn it back on by heading into the Settings app (that's the grey cog icon) on the Apple Watch itself and finding the sub-menu called General.

Here you'll find an option called Wake Screen, and there's then an option to turn on Wake Screen on Wrist Raise. Here you can also decide how long your watch screen is on for, which has the option of either 15 or 70 seconds.

James Peckham

James is Managing Editor for Android Police. Previously, he was Senior Phones Editor for TechRadar, and he has covered smartphones and the mobile space for the best part of a decade bringing you news on all the big announcements from top manufacturers making mobile phones and other portable gadgets. James is often testing out and reviewing the latest and greatest mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets, virtual reality headsets, fitness trackers and more. He once fell over.