Apple Watch User Guide
- Welcome
- What’s new in watchOS 27
- Apple Watch For Your Kids
- Run with Apple Watch
-
- Important safety information
- Important handling information
- Find more resources for software and service
- Unauthorized modification of watchOS
- Band care information
- FCC compliance statement
- ISED Canada compliance statement
- Ultra Wideband information
- Disposal and recycling information
- Apple and the environment
- Copyright and trademarks
Use the Compass app on Apple Watch
The Compass app shows the direction your Apple Watch is facing, as well as your current location and elevation. You can create waypoints and then find the distance and direction between them, be alerted when you’ve exceeded a particular elevation, see an estimate of the point where your Apple Watch was last able to establish a cellular connection or make an SOS call, use Backtrack to retrace your steps, and more.
Note: Your coordinates and elevation may not be available in certain countries or regions. If you remove the Compass app from your iPhone, itʼs also removed from Apple Watch.
View your bearing, elevation, and coordinates
Go to the Compass app
on your Apple Watch.
See your bearing in the center and your elevation at the bottom.
Do any of the following:
See your heading: Turn the Digital Crown up.
See the latitude and longitude: Tap
.
Set a bearing and target elevation alert
Go to the Compass app
on your Apple Watch.
Tap
Set any of the following:
Bearing: Tap Bearing, turn the Digital Crown to the intended bearing, then tap
.
Target elevation alert: Tap Set Target Alert, turn the Digital Crown to the target elevation, then tap
Use true north
To use true north rather than magnetic north, do the following:
Go to the Settings app
on your Apple Watch.
Tap Compass, then turn on Use True North.
You can also choose a grid system—DMS, decimal degrees, MGRS/USNG, or UTM—on the Compass settings screen.
If you see a red spinning radar screen
If a red spinning radar screen appears when you open the Compass app, it may be caused by any of the following:
Apple Watch may be in a poor magnetic environment: Compass can be affected by magnetic materials in some watch bands. See the Apple Support article About the accuracy and performance of the Compass app on Apple Watch.
Location Services is turned off: To turn Location Services on or off, go to the Settings app
Compass Calibration is disabled: To turn Compass Calibration on or off, go to the Settings app on your iPhone, go to Privacy & Security > Location Services, then tap System Services.