5 unique ways to use your Apple Watch with your iPhone

The Apple Watch is considered the best smartwatch out there by many. While aesthetics and features do play a part, there’s more to Apple’s Apple’s wearables. The tightly knit ecosystem allows your Apple Watch to do a lot more when it is used with an iPhone. While some of these can be handy time-savers, others are simply a boon to have on your wrist. Here are five unique ways to use your Apple Watch.

1. Get medication reminders

Taking regular medications or keeping track of the same for kids or elders in the family can be a hassle. However, Watch users can leverage the wearable to make sure they never forget to take a tablet or apply an ointment.

Using the Health app on an iPhone, users can set logs for their medication timetable and also set reminders. When the time to consume a medication is near, the Watch will alert users. Since the Watch is always on you, forgetting to take your medications becomes very unlikely using this feature.

2. Use custom timers

Pretty much every gadget has a timer these days, but wearables are the devices where timers can be the handiest because of their proximity to us. However, most smartwatches or bands will only have preset timer countdowns on their built-in timer apps.

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An Apple Watch, however, will let you set custom timers for specific time durations (like 17 minutes) and even name these individual timers. To set custom timers, users can open the Timer app on the watch and select the ‘Custom’ option among the presets.

3. Remotely control your iPhone camera

Asking someone else to take a picture is always a security risk, not to forget you will always require someone to be around to take pictures of you and your friends. However, if you have an Apple Watch, you can use it as a remote shutter, complete with a mini viewfinder view of its own.

Simply open the camera app on your Apple Watch, use the viewfinder to set the frame and make sure everyone is in it, and press the shutter button to click your picture. Throw in a portable tripod to help set up your iPhone wherever you go, and you’ll never need a stranger’s help again.

4. Locating your iPhone

Losing your iPhone in the dark can be a nightmare, but not if you have a connected Apple Watch on your wrist. From the Watch, open the Control Centre, press and hold the iPhone icon and the watch will signal the phone to play a loud tone and light up the flash at the same time. This gives users both audio and visual cues to locate the lost iPhone.

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5. Use the Water Lock feature

Taking your iPhone near water is never a good idea. The newer Apple Watch models though are perfectly capable of handling small splashes, while the Apple Watch Ultra is also able to dive down with you. However, one common trouble users face when they’re around anything from a shower to a waterfall is the water droplets on your screen affecting your actions.

Fortunately, the Apple Watch has a neat water lock feature to combat this. Activating this feature, which can be found in the control centre, basically locks the watch’s display from accidentally detecting inputs and taking actions.