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Apple Watch Ultra Wayfinder Face lights up in stages?

Z

Zubba

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 20, 2007
93
52
I'm coming from an Apple watch Series 4 that doesn't do this, but I noticed on my Apple watch ultra that when I have the Wayfinder face on with the white face, and "always on" turned off, that when I raise my arm to look at it in a dark room (or just a day-lit room) it turns on in stages. It turns on slightly, and then clicks to another brightness level after a moment. It's incredibly annoying. This normal?

Edit: To be clear, I'm not referencing how it goes from black to white when "always on" is turned on. "Always on" is turned off, and the face is a constant white, it has a staged reaction when the watch face is lifted in dark, or normally lit rooms that goes away in the sun. I'm wondering if it's a faulty brightness sensor or something.
 
Last edited:
Short clip showing the issue.

 
The same thing is happening with mine.

I too find it distracting - the two stage sequence for it to get up to the intended brightness. Coming from S5...

I do have my brightness set to the highest level - I haven't tried it with a lower setting...

See if anyone else chimes in.

I actually have a 2nd AWU still in sealed box I was going to just return, but I might open it just to see if it has the same issue before returning it - or this one...
 
Apple brags so much about smooth transitions on their phones, they should have just spent a little more time making this transition smooth as well. I also agree, annoying for an expensive piece of tech from a company like Apple.
 
Appears to only happen when the watch brightness is set to highest. Even in a dark room though where it does not get very bright it uses two stages to light up. And as noted by Op only the Wayfinder face.
 
I figured it out - or I should say I figured out how to make it happen - or not happen.

Went out for a hike today. Was using a 3rd party app for recording my activity.

AOD off as usual.

Got out of Jeep, and noticed the watch was NOT ramping up the display brightness in stages. ok.

A little later, it was again doing the 2 stage brightness - in my 3rd party app - or any app now.

Then it wasn't. Then it was.

It all depends on the ambient light. In direct sunlight it does not happen as the display just goes full brightness.

When I was in the trees where it was much darker - it goes in stages.

The first stage is AOD brightness - and then it goes 'on' to brighter.
\

If you use AOD you will not see this happen as your watch is already on that low brightness by default.

This behaviour is not on my S5 or S4.
 
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I can confirm exactly the same issue and there are other watchfaces with similar two step dim process like the world time face. But you need to have the screen at max brightness.
Other faces like mickey for example , whatever you do there is no two step dim
 
Same thing here…and also can confirm that it is annoying. I hope it‘s just a software glitch.
 
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