The Apple Watch supports a wide range of apps, from comprehensive health and fitness tracking to convenient contactless payments. What you may not realize is that the wearable has its fair share of useful driving apps. They can provide quick access to vital vehicle information and help you manage some of the less exciting parts of car ownership. If you can think it, there’s probably an app for it.
To save you the trouble of scouring through the App Store, we’ve rounded up the best Apple Watch apps that will upgrade your daily drive. They’ll help with tasks from finding where you last parked your car to keeping tabs on vehicle maintenance to comparing nearby fuel prices.
Before going through the list, there are a few things you should keep in mind. Every single entry requires a compatible iPhone to function, and certain features are locked behind a paid subscription. It’s worth pointing out that there are manufacturer-specific apps available, like HondaLink and MyNISSAN, with useful features, such as vehicle location tracking and remote engine starting. However, we decided it was best to keep the list as brand-neutral as possible, highlighting apps that every car owner can enjoy. If your car’s manufacturer offers one of these apps, you can download it on your Apple Watch.
ParkingPin helps you find your car
Forgetting where you parked your car is something most drivers will experience at some point. It’s easy to mess up when you’re in an unfamiliar place or a big parking lot where everything looks the same. Here’s ParkingPin to the rescue. Using a combination of motion detection and a Bluetooth connection to your car, ParkingPin will automatically save your vehicle’s location. No need to manually drop a pin.
When it’s time to return, ParkingPin can display a live compass showing the direction and distance to your car, alongside a walking route onscreen. The app also has several other features. For example, if you want to remember the details of your spot, you can record a short voice note or set a parking-meter timer with the Live Activity tool. You’ll receive a reminder when the parking meter is about to expire.
Your parking history is stored directly on the device. It is not uploaded to Apple’s cloud, though you can synchronize your data across all your devices. Other notable tools include the ability to save information on multiple vehicles and favorite parking spots.
PayByPhone helps you manage parking
Next is PayByPhone, an app that makes it convenient to manage paid parking without needing to walk all the way back to your vehicle. It lets you start and extend parking times remotely, but the software does so much more than that. You’ll be able to see active parking sessions through onscreen widgets, use the maps tools to find nearby spaces, plus pin the car’s location in a similar fashion to ParkingPin. It’s a good tool to have when you’re out shopping or attending a concert, and aren’t sure you’ll be able to make it back to your car. On top of all this, users can elect to receive text messages when time is about to expire as well as receipts via email to keep track of expenses.
Support for PayByPhone is rather limited. Although it is available in over 1,300 cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe, the service’s availability is restricted to certain locations within those cities. If you’d like to know more, PayByPhone has a Locations tool on its official website that tells people which cities and parking lots support the app.
WrenchTime tracks car maintenance
Keeping up with vehicle maintenance can be a little annoying. You need to remember when you last changed the oil, rotated your tires, and replaced the brake pads. WrenchTime makes the whole process easier by acting as a digital logbook for your vehicles. On just the Apple Watch, you’re able to log the last time you filled up your car, the last time you charged your EV at a local station, the number of miles on your odometer, and where you last parked. Additionally, the app supports five Apple Watch complications, allowing users to pin key information on the device’s screen.
To get the most out of WrenchTime, you will need to incorporate your iPhone to utilize all features. For example, if you don’t want to manually write down a fill-up at the gas station, you can snap a photograph of the pump or receipt on your mobile device and have the AI do all the heavy lifting.
There is a catch to all this: WrenchTime on Apple Watch is not free. You’ll need to subscribe to WrenchTime Pro to gain access. The subscription service is $3 a month or $15 for the annual subscription. If you want a permanent purchase, you can pay $35 once, and WrenchTime Pro is yours forever.
Refil helps you compare fuel prices
Fuel prices can vary considerably between gas stations, even when they’re a short distance apart. That’s why comparing prices before filling up is worth doing. Refil helps drivers find affordable places to refuel by displaying nearby gas stations and their reported prices per gallon. You could scroll through the app to find the best prices, or you could use the watch-face complication instead, which displays the lowest price directly on your wrist. Refil will also show nearby charging stations for electric vehicles, allowing those drivers to compare prices as well. Every time you confirm a fill-up, the service will log your price and compare it to the area average.
One thing to keep in mind is that Refil’s fuel price information works differently in the United States. In European countries such as France and Germany, the app retrieves fuel prices from official government data sources. The United States doesn’t have this, so pricing information comes from the community. Like WrenchTime, the app is free, but there’s an optional Refil Pro subscription that unlocks additional features, including the ability to search for gas stations within a 30-mile radius and price-hike alerts.
