Stopping screen from locking during use

By Brian Giles, 24 November, 2023

Forum
watchOS and Apple Watch Apps

Hello all,

Now it's my turn to ask a seemingly stupid question. lol

Maybe there's a setting I'm missing somewhere, but my Apple watch screen locks a lot when I'm trying to use an app, and then I have to turn the digital crown upward to wake it up again (I have raise to wake turned off). The most frustrating time this shows up is when I'm trying to start or end a workout. For instance, I will go to end a workout, and after I swipe down to page 1 of 3 where the end workout button appears, I will try to double tap the end button but my screen locks, and I have to go through the whole thing again.

Any helpful suggestions. I don't think this is a VO-specific issue, hoping I just need to tweak something in settings.

Options

Comments

By Brooke on Tuesday, November 21, 2023 - 19:46

I've often wondered about this, as it happens to me constantly.

By William Garcia on Thursday, November 23, 2023 - 19:46

Have you tried to adjust the screen wake settings? To do that you need to open the Watch app, go to 'General' > 'Wake Screen', and there you can change how long the screen stays awake after you tap it.

Just a suggestion

By Brian Giles on Sunday, December 24, 2023 - 19:46

I tried that but it had no effect. You can only have the display stay awake for 70 seconds. Even Apple accessibility was stumped about what was going on.

I'm wondering if the Apple watch is super picky about how you hold your wrist. I find it hard to try and navigate around the screen if I have the top of my wrist turned toward my face the way a sighted person would glance at their watch's screen. So I try to have my palm facing down toward the floor, making it easier to use my other hand for gestures. I also don't use digital crown navigation. But if my wrist moves a little bit, the screen lock sound plays and I have to turn the digital crown up to wake it up. This is most noticeable when trying to use 2 fingers to scroll, like in the music or work out apps. Does this make sense?

I used Apple store gift card credit I got for Christmas to upgrade from my 128GB iPhone 12 mini to a 256GB 15 pro, and I decided to also trade in my watch to help with that. Decided the little annoyances especially since watchos 10 weren't worth what I was getting out of it. I never used any apps, and I never did figure out a way to make the watch approximate what my old iPod nano did; have a set amount of downloaded music without having to manually sync music over from your iPhone.

I'll miss the activity rings, but at least I still get a move ring, which I put on my lock screen, like I used to have on my activity watch face.

Hopefully what I had going was mostly just user error with my watch, and maybe they'll have squashed some of the VoiceOver bugs so it would be easier to use if I should get compelled to get another one.