Is it safe to leave your Apple Watch charging overnight?

For Apple Watch owners, daily charging of the device is a given. While Apple aims for 18 hours of battery life per charge, the watch will likely spend a portion of the day on its charging cradle. But if you don’t have the time during the day to babysit your Apple Watch, can you charge it overnight? Is this safe? We answer all these specific questions concerning overnight Apple Watch charging below.

Can you charge the Apple Watch overnight?

The short answer is yes. Apple itself acknowledges that you can charge the Apple Watch overnight. The device fast charges from 0-80%, but trickle charges between 80-100%. Still unconvinced? The company has included a Nightstand Mode, which turns the charging Apple Watch into a bedside alarm clock, but only when connected to its charger. This means that you cannot overcharge an Apple Watch.

We should mention that while you can charge the Apple Watch overnight, there are several reasons you might not want to do this. If you use the Apple Watch to monitor your sleep, you’ll want the device on your wrist rather than its charging cradle at night. In this case, it’s best to charge the watch while you shower, binge a TV series, or perform other mundane tasks.

Apple has improved the Watch’s charging speed, starting with the Series 7, cutting its time from 0-80% to 45 minutes. This improvement makes overnight charging an option rather than a necessity. With the Series 8 and watchOS 9, it also rolled out a new low-power mode, which can double the quoted battery life of the company’s devices at the expense of a few features. The Series 9 carries many of these features, too.

Regardless of how you use your Apple Watch, the battery life will deplete slightly after every charging cycle. Apple defines a charging cycle as every 100% battery capacity discharged. There’s no indication from Apple that charging overnight affects battery health.

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