I've been wearing an Apple Watch for 10 years – these are the 5 settings I change right out of the box

(Image credit: Future)

Whether you've just bought the best Apple Watch on the market, like the Apple Watch Ultra 2, or you've got your hands on the budget Apple Watch SE 2 model, opening your Apple Watch and putting it on for the first time is a pretty great experience.

You might have an idea of what your Apple Watch can do, or how you want to use it, but what about some of the settings and tweaks you can use to truly personalize your Apple Watch experience?

For as long as I've been a tech user I've been enthralled by customizing gadgets, whether it's the theme on Windows XP or the color of the menus on my Sony Ericsson K850i.

1. Your Apple Watch face

If you're new to Apple Watch, the very first thing you should do on your new one is change the watch face. You won't find third-party options like you might on Wear OS or Garmin, but there are plenty of great Apple options to choose from and they're very customizable.

To change your watch face simply long press on the center of your Apple Watch display until it vibrates. Then simply swipe through the options until you see one you like.

If you tap Edit you can tweak aspects of the face including colors, and the Complications (small nuggets of glanceable information) that show up.

2. Silent mode

Your Apple Watch is designed to sit pretty discreetly on your wrist, and one of the joys of using one is that you can get notifications without too much disturbance, either for yourself or others.

Obviously, if you have accessibility needs, you might want to leave the Apple Watch notification sounds on. For me, however, this is the first toggle I switch off. The watch gently vibrates whenever I get a notification (if I have them turned on at all), and I definitely don't need that piercing ding telling everyone in the vicinity that I've just got a notification.

Simply press your Apple Watch's side button and select the bell icon on the left to silence your Apple Watch.

3. Return to clock

Apple Watch Ultra 2 on wrist showing a timer — (Image credit: Future)

Apple Watch is pretty easy to navigate, and moving between apps and the watch face is fairly straightforward. However, another setting I like to tweak is the Return to Clock setting. This takes your Apple Watch back to that smashing watch face you've just customized automatically once you put your wrist down.

By default, it's set to a two-minute delay, but I like to select Always, so that I can drop my wrist at any time and know my Apple Watch is displaying the time, rather than sensitive information or an app where I might accidentally pause a workout or change something unknowingly.

Simply press the Digital Crown, scroll to Settings, select General, and then Return to Clock to toggle this.

4. Siri

Siri isn't particularly helpful these days, and lags behind rival virtual assistants from the likes of Google and Android, not to mention more advanced AI offerings that overshadow the delayed Apple Intelligence upgrade it badly needs.

To that end, I always turn Siri off on my Apple Watch to some degree. In the Siri section of the Settings app on your Apple Watch, you can tweak how and when Siri responds to your inputs.

I actually prefer to select Listen for to "Hey Siri," that way it's much more difficult to trigger accidentally. I also tend to leave Raise to Speak on, and turn off Press Digital Crown.

I can't count the amount of times I used to accidentally activate Siri during workouts by pressing the Digital Crown, so this works well for me. I can access Siri by very deliberately raising my wrist, but never trigger it accidentally with a button press.

However, you might want to consider the opposite, leaving the Crown on and turning off Raise to Speak. Or you can turn Siri off on your Watch altogether to avoid it getting in your way.

5. Screenshots

A more recent addition to my Settings repertoire is screenshots. You can take a screenshot on Apple Watch just like iPhone, by pressing both buttons on the side at the same time.

I can't think of any scenario whereby taking a screenshot on the Apple Watch would be necessary. However, as with Siri on the Digital Crown, it's very easy to do accidentally, especially during workouts. As such, I turn screenshots off in the General section of Settings, to avoid my Photos library getting clocked up with random snaps of my watch face.