How to Change the Battery in Your Watch

This is a quick money saving tip that covers how to change the battery in your watch.  Why pay someone else to do this for you when you can learn how to change your watch battery yourself in less than five minutes?

Read on to learn just how easy it is to change your own watch battery.  This is a great money saving tip if you have more than two or three watches!

 Money Saving Breakdown – How to Change the Battery in Your Watch

• Difficulty (Super Easy/Easy/Medium/Hard/Expert): Medium
• Average Savings per Year ($/year): 25+
• Time Required (mins): 15
  
• Savings for your time ($/hr): 100

The Background on Changing Your Watch Battery

This is a pretty easy money saving tip in concept.  When your watch battery dies, you simply follow these steps to get your watch back up and running:

1. Remove the watch back (can be easier said than done)
2. Remove the old dead watch battery
3. Install a new watch battery of the same type
4. Close the watch back up
5. Set the watch to the current time

However, step number one can be a bit tricky depending on the watch back type you are work with (more on that below).  As you can see, if you have a couple of different watches in your watch collection, the savings really start adding up if you can learn to change your own watch battery yourself.

Details on How to Remove a Watch Back

So, you have read the above five steps and are excited to change your watch battery and save yourself a bundle?  Not so fast!  You need to understand that the hardest part of this whole process can actually be removing the watch back.  There are a couple of watch backs that I have run into, and some can be a complete nightmare to remove the watch back on.  Luckily for me, I have been able to figure out how to remove most of my watch backs for a simple watch battery change.

Below are the several types of watch backs that I have encountered.

Types of Watch Backs:

1. Small screws watch back (usually four)
2. Twist off watch back
3. Pry off watch back
4. Slotted watch back

Let’s go over how to remove the watch back on each of these types:

1. Small screws – for this type of watch back, you will just need a very small screw driver.  You can pick one of these up in a small glasses repair kit or find one in a simple watch repair kit (affiliate link).  This type of watch back is pretty easy to remove to change your watch battery if you have the proper tool.
2. Twist off watch back – this type of watch back has caused me more headache than any other kind!!  You need something to grab onto the watch with a great deal of friction to twist the watch back off.  Some videos I have run across suggest those little stress balls.  You just smash one against the watch back and twist.
3. Pry off watch back – for this  type of watch back, you need a small knife/blade to stick into the watch and pry the watch back off.  Most watch repair kits some with a small pry tool that won’t slice your hand off if it slips 🙂  These types of watch backs are pretty simple to remove.
4. Slotted watch back – this type of watch back is similar to the twist off watch back in number two above, but there are several little “square” slots around the perimeter of the watch back.  These allow you to insert a watch removal tool and twist off the watch back pretty effortlessly.  You really will need a watch repair kit to work with this sort of watch.

Video on How to Change the Battery in Your Watch with a Slotted Back

Check out the video I made below on: How to Change the Battery in Your Watch with Slots on the Watch Back.  I covers the tools you will need and how to get the watch back off all in less than five minutes!

How to Change the Battery in Your Watch – Final Thoughts

With just a little bit of work to learn how to do-it-yourself you can be changing the battery in your watches in minutes.  If you only have one watch, then it may not be worth your time to learn this skill and pickup a simple watch repair kit.  However, if you have four of five (or more) watches like I do, it will definitely be worth your time to learn how to change the battery in your watch and save yourself a ton of money!