Having Google Maps or Google Play Music on your smartwatch can come in handy, whether you need a tool to help you move around or you just want to satisfy your hunger for music. However though essential, these two functionalities can be the cause of your battery dying out earlier than usual. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways you can reduce the amount of battery life drained out by these features.Also check out a few tips how you can prevent Google Maps from killing the battery on your Android device.

Prerequisites:

To accomplish this, along with your Android Wear device you’ll need an Android phone or tablet. Additionally ensure that you have the Android Wear app, Google Play Music as well as Google Maps.

Block automatic services to reduce battery use on your Android Wear device

By default, the launch of Google Maps or Google Play Music on your Android phone or tablet causes the navigation or Music controls to be synced automatically on your Android smartwatch. This alone, may cost your Android watch at least 50% of charge in under 2 hours.By blocking the automated services you won’t really disable the navigation or music control features, but rather you’ll regain control of when they can happen.Here is how you can do this:
  • On your Android phone or tablet, open up the Android Wear app.
  • Tap the wheel Settings icons seen at the top right corner.
  • On the Settings page that follows, tap the Block app notifications option.
  • You’ll be directed to a Block apps page, where the apps that are prevented from sending notifications to your watch are displayed. If you don’t find Google Maps or Google Play Music on the list, tap on the “+” icon at the bottom of the screen to add an app.
  • Find the Maps option and tap on it to add it.
  • Repeat the same step for the Google Play Music option.
You can also add any other apps you wish to block automatic notifications from. Here you can control how much your Android phone or tablet interact with the option of returning whenever you want to re-enable the app notifications, by tapping the “X” icon beside each app entry.If you are worried about being able to use the Google Play Music controls or Maps navigation from your smartwatch, don’t be, it is still possible, you just have to choose when.The good thing is that you won’t always have to go back to the Android Wear app on your phone to re-enable, there is an easier alternative. Rather than launching the Maps navigation or Play Music playback controls from your phone or tablet, you can easily start these processes from your Android Wear device.Note that after blocking your Maps and Google Play Music notifications, the Android Wear controls may be triggered if you have the apps restarted on your Android phone or tablet soon after, but after that the launch of the services on your Android phone will no longer have an effect your Android watch.What other Android Wear battery saving tips would you like to share? Let us in the comments.

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What's my model number?

There are several ways to locate your model number:

Option 1
On your device, go to Settings, then "About device" and scroll down to "Model number"
Option 2
Often times you can view the model number inside the device, by removing the battery
Option 3
Using Samsung's model/serial number location tool

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