Speaking of featuring shortcuts for your iPhone, the Apple Watch can control your iPhone’s camera. This is particularly useful if you need to record yourself or want to take a group picture. 

One of the apps on the Apple Watch is similar to the iPhone’s camera app. When you open it, it’ll turn on your phone’s camera. The app will has a three-second timer by default so you don’t appear tapping your watch in that selfie. Just prop your iPhone on a table or shelf, or a tripod if you want to get fancy, and you’re ready to control the camera remotely.

To find the camera app on your Apple Watch, simply look through your apps by pressing down on the digital crown, then choose the one with the camera icon. This will open the camera on your iPhone and show a preview of what the camera sees on your watch’s display.

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You can choose from the front or rear camera from your watch, as well as options like flash, live photo, and HDR. Holding down the shutter button will record a video.

The importance of hand-washing in personal health and hygiene can’t be overstated — as we all know more than ever now that we’ve lived through a pandemic. 

To help us all keep up with the thorough hand-washing habit, the Apple Watch can automatically detect when you start washing your hands. It then starts a 20-second countdown, vibrating when the time is up. If you don’t already wash for the recommended 20 seconds, this is a great tool to motivate you to start.

This feature is unfortunately not available for teeth-brushing, but I wouldn’t put it past Apple to consider it in the future.

Review: I put the Apple Watch Ultra through a Tough Mudder

Now you can stop singing the ABC’s every time you wash your hands.

If you need directions often and have an Apple Watch, then I can’t recommend using Apple Maps enough. 

In true Apple ecosystem fashion, your Apple Watch works best when combined with Apple’s proprietary navigation app. You can search for directions from the Apple Watch, and when you’re using step-by-step navigation, you’ll get haptic feedback when you need to make a turn or take an exit. 

Also: How to share your location on iPhone (and do it safely)

This feature is particularly helpful if you live in a big city and do a lot of walking. You can avoid getting distracted by looking down at your phone for turn-by-turn directions. This can also prevent distracted driving, or if you just tend to miss turns and exits no matter what navigation app you use.

Keep in mind that this is more of a guide than a replacement for GPS navigation, as the Apple Watch doesn’t give different vibration patterns to alert to make a right or left turn, rather it vibrates when you need to take an action. You’d still need to look down at your watch to see what to do, unless you have earphones in to hear the voice direction at the same time. 

The Apple Watch is a great sleep tracker. It’s able to track sleep stages and cycles with decent accuracy, especially for a device we wear on our wrists. But using it in combination with your sleep schedule on your iPhone is even more helpful.

Also: How to sleep better with the Apple Watch

The Health app houses your sleep options. Here you can see all your sleep data from nights past and also edit your sleep schedule. 

Adding a sleep schedule from 11:15 p.m. to 6:15 a.m. means I get reminders to start winding down each night at 10:30 p.m. The sleep focus comes on automatically every day during my “asleep” times on both the iPhone and Apple Watch. And I set an alarm for each morning.

Personally, using the Apple Watch for my alarm alone has made it a lot easier to get up in the mornings, since I feel the vibrations on my wrist every morning rather than just an audible alarm. I don’t know how I’d be able to peel myself off the bed without it anymore.

If you’re always trying to close the activity rings on your Apple Watch, then you’re probably used to getting reminders to stand up every hour at fifty minutes past. 

Now, I’m not sure about you, but I’ve grown to appreciate the reminders to get out of my chair and move around. It did wonders when house-training my dog, too, but that’s an added benefit. However, the Apple Watch’s stand reminders can be applied to create your own version of the Pomodoro Technique, for example.

This is a time management and productivity technique that alternates focused work sessions with restorative breaks. 

Also: Want to win an Apple Watch activity challenge? Here are 3 ways to make it happen

Though the timing for stand reminders is different when you follow the true Pomodoro Technique, the purpose remains: Give yourself time every hour to take your eyes off of any screens and stretch, maybe walk around or, if you work from home, pet your furry friend for some extra endorphins.