The Must-Know Apple Watch Setting For Every Moviegoer
The Apple Watch has several features that make it more than just a top-notch timepiece, especially since it's used in tandem with an iPhone. Much like the Apple smartphone, the Apple Watch also has a Control Center feature that makes it easy for you to do things quickly like check your battery, set your smartwatch to silent or airplane mode, and turn on the flashlight function, among other things. It even has a couple of underutilized functions that not many Apple Watch owners may know about.
Some of these seemingly hidden Apple Watch functionalities include the ability to take screenshots, which is arguably a niche feature for the general public but could be deemed beneficial by certain power users. Another is using the smartwatch to ping a paired iPhone when the person who owns both devices is having trouble locating the latter.
If you have the time, it's definitely worth going through your watch's Control Center and tinker with the menus you aren't familiar with. One that's largely unknown to basic Apple Watch users is something called Theater Mode.
What does Apple Watch's Theater Mode do?
By default, Apple Watch users can wake up their smartwatch display by either tapping the screen, pressing the Digital Crown or turning it upward, or raising their wrist. The latter method is normally a convenient feature to leave enabled, but when you are in a public setting that requires devices (and their respective screens) to be switched off — such as a movie, concert, show, or solemn gathering, to name a few examples — accidentally triggering the Apple Watch's Wake on Wrist Raise setting can be distracting, annoying, or both.
What Theater Mode essentially does is it temporarily disables the Apple Watch's Wake on Wrist Raise feature without needing to manually turn it on and off every time there's a need to. In addition, when the feature is enabled, it also puts your Apple Watch in silent mode — which limits the appearance of notifications on your smartwatch — and momentarily makes your Walkie-Talkie status unavailable.
To turn on Theater Mode, do the following:
- Press the Apple Watch side button once.
- Tap the theater masks icon. You may see a feature explainer if it's your first time hitting the menu button.
- Select Theater Mode.
The theater masks icon on your Apple Watch's Control Center will then turn orange, signifying that your device is now on Theater Mode. While this feature is turned on, you should be able to still receive haptic notifications. If you need to wake up your Apple Watch while Theater Mode is enabled, you'll need to tap the smartwatch display, press the Digital Crown or side button, or turn the Digital Crown. To turn off Theater Mode, follow the same instructions above until the theater masks icon is no longer orange. Doing this should also fully reactivate the Wake on Wrist Raise feature.