Parent Hack: Automate Apple Watch Theater Mode for Bedtime

This is a small but impactful one. My Apple Watch turned into a land mine during bedtime—lighting up at the worst possible moments and distracting my daughter just as she was winding down. I never knew when it would light up and catch her attention—pulling her out of sleep mode and right back into play mode.

By that point it was too late to turn on theater mode to keep the watch from lighting up at all when I lift my wrist. Theater mode is a mode where your Apple Watch wont light up when you raise your arm to look at the watch. After this happened night after night, I finally realized it was a solvable problem. My daughter goes to sleep at the same time every night, so it’s a pretty clear case for automation.

The Solution

I’m a relative newbie to apple shortcuts and automations, so I dont pretend to think that this is the most elegant solution, but it works.

Theater mode Bedtime Shortcut

First I made one apple shortcut that turns theater mode on, and another that turns theater mode off. I did that by opening the shortcuts app, creating a new shortcut, selecting Set Theater mode, and then chose “on”. Then I created another one where I selected Set Theater mode, but chose “off”.

Apple Watch Bedtime Automation

Then I created an automation that would trigger at a certain time, and fire the appropriate Theater Mode shortcut. I created one that turns on the “theater mode on” shortcut at 6:30pm. And then I create another one that triggers the “theater mode off” shortcut at 6:30am.

How it works

I’ve been running it for a few weeks now and it’s generally been pretty good. The only hiccup that I’ve found is that the automation will fail if you are not on the same WiFi or in the same spot as your watch.

So if you leave your watch charging and head out, the automation will still trigger, but it won't be able to find the watch to execute the action. It will fire, but then it won’t be able to find the watch. It’s not a huge deal, but your watch might still be in the previous state it was in. This can be adjusted by manually setting the theater mode you want, and then the next time the automation happens, hopefully your phone is near your watch.

Summary

This isn’t life-changing, but it’s one less thing to worry about during the bedtime routine. It lets me focus on picking the right book, making sure she’s wearing socks, or remembering to brush her teeth. I’ll probably set up a similar automation for my phone next, just to make sure it doesn’t ring or light up during bedtime and blow up the whole routine.