My Apple SE doesn’t have an always on setting. Very annoying to have to keep manually turn on.

The SE does not support Always On. That is one of the reasons why it is a cheaper model…it does not support all of the features. Unfortunately if that is an important feature for you then you would need to go with the regular Apple Watch series or Ultra.

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Sorry they gave you incorrect info. Was it an actual Apple agent or did you trade in via your service provider or an authorized retailer? It seems odd that an Apple agent wouldn't know that the SE is an abbreviated version of the Watch and wouldn’t have all of the features of most watches series 5 and up including Always On. If you are still within the return/exchange period you could exchange it for one of the watches that does have Always On but you would have to pay the price difference of course.

There is a workaround I found before upgrading to the series 9; Go to settings>Acssesiblity>AssesiveTouch and turn it on, then scroll down untli you see "Sleep on Wrist Down" and turn it on. Then Go to Settings>Display & Brightness scroll down until you see "Wake Duration" and set that to 70 Seconds. Exit out of settings and Put your wrist down, And BOOM you now have a sorta Always on Display feuture for 70 secons at a time. This worked really well for me personally, Hope it helps!

Very sad to inform but the Always On feature isn’t available on the Apple Watch SE, for some reason.

I feel like it would be especially nice to be able to see the time by simply double-pinching your fingers, as the SE already has an accessibility shortcut for using hand gestures like double-pinch, fist-clench, etc etc. to interact with your Apple Watch, even if it is an SE.

either way I assure you that the lack of AoD should be satisfactory for most people and likely you too, it takes a while to get used to it.

Can Apple please make an update including always on with Apple Watch SE?

Sorry I meant to turn the Sleep on Wrist down off