How to turn on an Apple Watch

It might not always be obvious how you can turn on your smartwatch.

Apple's lineup of smartwatches is brilliant - whether you're looking for a value option or a top-of-the-range premium pick, the best Apple Watch for you can take a few different shapes.

However, whether it's the Apple Watch Ultra or the more affordable SE, every Apple Watch model shares the same user interface, and turns on and off in the same way. Find out how to work it, right here.

Turning on your Apple Watch is very simple, provided there's nothing wrong with it.

Depending on your model of Apple Watch (particularly if you have an older one) you might find that it takes a little while for your watch to fully boot up ready to use, but newer versions are getting faster all the time.

The Apple Watch Series 8 has a great design, heaps of sensors, and more features than you'll probably know what to do with. Its battery life isn't the best on the smartwatch market, but fast charging makes it easy to charge daily and the fitness features are superb.

If you're finding that the above steps don't work, there could be something funky going on with your Apple Watch, and the below options could help you to toubleshoot it.

It might seem obvious, but if you haven't used your Apple Watch in a few days and can't get it to turn on, it could just have no battery left. Apple's watches only last a couple of days at most on a charge (unless you've got the Ultra), so it's easy to forget to charge them.

To charge your Apple Watch, just connect it to the magnetic charging puck that it comes packaged with and wait for it to display its charging status.

If you find that it won't charge, you could have a faulty charging cable or power outlet, both of which are worth swapping for alternatives to see if they're the source of the issue.

Sometimes Apple's software can get thrown for a loop and your Apple Watch can be left unresponsive - a reboot can help break it out of this cycle more quickly.

If none of those fixes have worked for you, there could be a few things wrong with your Apple Watch, and it could be worth heading to an Apple Store to see if an employee can help you figure things out (or book in a repair if needed).

However, there are still a few things that could be happening.

Sometimes (rarely, but still) your Apple Watch will have a bit of a heart attack and just freeze up - it's hard to detect, but if the watch is unresponsive and won't turn on or off, this could be the cause.

Fixing this could be a matter of a simple reboot as discussed above, but if you still can't jog it into life then you might have to head to an Apple Store.

Apple Watches have two modes that can make them look unresponsive if you're tapping the screen - Theatre Mode and Power Reserve.

The first is activated by swiping up from the bottom of the watch screen to access the Control Center, where you can hit the Theatre icon to activate or deactivate it, to stop your screen lighting up and disturbing anyone. However, clicking the Digital Crown or side button in Theatre Mode will wake your watch, so if it's still not responding it won't be this.

The same goes for Power Reserve, which Apple Watch models can use to keep their battery going for longer when they're on very low charge, turning off power-hungry settings to go more basic. Again, though, clicking the side button or Digital Crown should wake it.

Max is an avid gamer, but writes about whatever is newsworthy, and works across features, reviews, buyer's guides and more for the site.Max joined Pocket-lint after a fruitful spell writing about wearable and smart home tech for Wareable and The Ambient as a magazine journalism graduate from City, University of London.He's also contributed to Kotaku UK, The Sunday Times, the Press Association and MUNDIAL. When he's not working, his time is divided worryingly evenly between football, culture and sleeping.