Things you can do with an old Apple Watch

There are a few useful things you can do with an old Apple Watch after you upgrade to a new one. You might think of the Apple Watch as being a disposable product — because who would wear two watches? But there are actually quite a few surprising use cases for having a daily Apple Watch and a secondary watch.

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Things you can do with an old Apple Watch

1. Dedicated night watch for sleep tracking

The Apple Watch is great for tracking sleep — even the different stages of your sleep through the night. And if you use your Apple Watch as an alarm, it’ll wake you up by silently buzzing on your wrist, so your partner won’t be awoken by your alarm if they wake up a little later.

But if you wear you watch during the day and you wear it to bed, when do you charge it? Personally, I hate the idea of charging my watch during the day because if I get up and move around while it’s juicing up, I won’t get credit for my Move or Stand rings.

This is a prime use-case for an old Apple Watch: A dedicated sleep tracker and alarm. You keep your old one on the charger during the day and wear your new one out and about; you swap them when it’s time for bed and after you wake up. You never have to worry about topping the battery up in the evening before you go to sleep or in the morning rush.

Another benefit is that if your daily watch band is for fashion and less comfortable, like a Milanese Loop or Twist-o-Flex band, you don’t have to switch it out with a Sport Band every morning and every night. You can pick the best band for each watch.

2. Risky activity tracking

The Apple Watch is surprisingly hardy and water resistant, but sometimes there are those occasional day excursions that make you a bit nervous. Instead of risking your expensive new Apple Watch when you go rock climbing, sky diving or swimming in the ocean, you can put on your old watch. After all, an old hand-me-down Apple Watch is much cheaper than buying a new Apple Watch Ultra.

Some people choose to protect their watch in a case, like this option from Elago. Personally, I find these a little unsightly, and they can be a pain to put on and take off. But you can keep your secondary Apple Watch permanently encased, so you don’t have to fiddle with every day.

3. Wearing a watch on your arm or leg

Although it’s designed for it, you don’t actually have to wear your Apple Watch on your wrist. There are a few exercise use cases for wearing your Apple Watch higher up on your arm or around your ankle.

If you play sports where precision is key, like tennis or basketball, the weight on your wrist might affect how you train and play.  The TwelveSouth ActionSleeve keeps your watch on your arm, where you can still use it for tracking your activity, but keep it out of the way. If you use your secondary Apple Watch for this, then you don’t have to worry about swapping out your regular band for a complicated accessory and case before and after every time.

On the other hand, you might want to wear an Apple Watch on your ankle. If you work at a treadmill desk, for example, you won’t get any credit for all that walking because your arms will be just as stationary as if you were at a regular desk. Wearing a second Apple Watch around your ankle, you can still work towards your Move, Stand and Exercise rings — and you’ll still have your main watch on your wrist for notifications and telling time.

4. Hand it down to a child

If your kid is old enough to spend the night at a friend’s house but too young for an iPhone (Like what, 17? I don’t know, I don’t have kids) you can give them an Apple Watch instead. You’ll be able to track their location using GPS and Find My, an easy way to send texts, and if it’s a cellular model, call them wherever they may be. Setting up an Apple Watch on behalf of your child is really easy — after wiping it and setting it up from scratch, just tap Set Up for a Family Member.

Because it’s only a watch and not a smartphone, you can rest assured they won’t get sucked into TikTok or Roblox or Wikipedia or whatever it is that parents are afraid of kids doing. (Again, I wouldn’t know.)

5. Beta software

If you want to check out the new features of what’s coming next in watchOS, you can install the watchOS beta. This year, the top features of watchOS 11 include a new Vitals app that gives you a broader picture of your health and various life factors, pauses to your streak for illness or injury, a workout Training Load that can detect how much effort is going into your exercise, a redesigned Photos face and much more.

But running a watchOS beta is kind of a pain in the ass. For one, you have to install the iOS beta on your phone in order to install the watchOS beta, and you may not want to put your most important device at risk. Unlike on the iPhone, you can’t undo a watchOS update. Once you’re on watchOS 11, you can’t go back to watchOS 10. And most of all, once you switch to the beta track, you get new software updates every two to three weeks — and installing updates on the Apple Watch is, notoriously, incredibly irritating.

If you really want to try out the new features early but you don’t want to put your primary watch on the line, you can install the watchOS beta on a second watch, provided it’s new enough. This year, watchOS 11 requires a Series 6 model, second-generation SE model or newer.

6. Turn it into a small phone

It’s easy to overlook how the Apple Watch is actually a pretty powerful and capable computer — and cellphone — all by itself. With the TinyPod, your Apple Watch slides into an iPod-shaped case that makes it a tiny standalone cellphone. It even has a click wheel that spins the Apple Watch’s Digital Crown for scrolling like it’s 2004.

A bunch of companies have tried and failed to reinvent the minimal cellphone, but the problem with abandoning your iPhone is that you get a new phone number that isn’t compatible with iMessage. If you use an old cellular Apple Watch instead, you can keep compatibility your Apple Account — switching is as simple as keeping your iPhone on your night stand and putting your TinyPod in your pocket instead.

TinyPod comes in sizes that fit all three sizes of Apple Watch, from the Series 4 / SE and newer: 40/41 mm, 44/45 mm and 49 mm.

Or, get a little trade-in money when you buy a new one

Personally, when I upgraded from my Series 3 model to my … (wait, which one do I have?) Series 7, my old watch felt so slow and broken that I simply traded it in. It was too old to be useful for basically anything else. If you want a bit of a discount when you buy a watch, you can use our trade-in program. (Or, you can use the savings to justify buying another watch band!)

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