Has anyone seen this behaviour with the Apple Watch charger?

[pullman]

Greetings and salutations

I charge my AW4 with an original Apple charger cable. Recently I bought a new fast charger – a Ugreen Nexode 100W with 4 USB C and 1 USB A ports – and have noticed an odd behaviour with the watch.

What happens is that the watch, when on the charger, will light up and ping approximately every 20 seconds and continue to do so for, well, ever. It doesn't happen all the time however, see below.

I've been trying to troubleshoot this behaviour, and have three theories:

1. It is due to the Power Delivery specification which, as I understand it, renegotiates each active port's wattage when another device is attached,
2. It is due to a problem with the Nexode itself, or
3. It is due to a problem with the Apple charger cable.

Option 1 seems unlikely. As this video shows it also happens when the AW is the only device attached.

Strangely enough, however, the light-up/ping happens also when another device is attached, see this video, where I attached a small power bank which was at 34%. The AW then kept lighting up and pinging. But when the power bank was almost fully charged the AW did not light up/ping (apologies for the initial blurriness and the washing machine in the background...):

Option 2 seems a likely candidate. But when I attached an old iPhone 8 with a USB A-Lightning cable the AW did not behave badly at all, either when the iPhone was almost empty or when it was almost full.

So, unless I am missing something, this leaves option 3 as the likely reason and hence my question here. Does anyone recognise this behaviour with the AW charger cable connected to a powerful charging brick?

Thank you kindly in advance for your help.
Philip

 

[jz0309]

Greetings and salutations

I charge my AW4 with an original Apple charger cable. Recently I bought a new fast charger – a Ugreen Nexode 100W with 4 USB C and 1 USB A ports – and have noticed an odd behaviour with the watch.

What happens is that the watch, when on the charger, will light up and ping approximately every 20 seconds and continue to do so for, well, ever. It doesn't happen all the time however, see below.

I've been trying to troubleshoot this behaviour, and have three theories:

1. It is due to the Power Delivery specification which, as I understand it, renegotiates each active port's wattage when another device is attached,
2. It is due to a problem with the Nexode itself, or
3. It is due to a problem with the Apple charger cable.

Option 1 seems unlikely. As this video shows it also happens when the AW is the only device attached.

View attachment 2528902

Strangely enough, however, the light-up/ping happens also when another device is attached, see this video, where I attached a small power bank which was at 34%. The AW then kept lighting up and pinging. But when the power bank was almost fully charged the AW did not light up/ping (apologies for the initial blurriness and the washing machine in the background...):

View attachment 2528903

Option 2 seems a likely candidate. But when I attached an old iPhone 8 with a USB A-Lightning cable the AW did not behave badly at all, either when the iPhone was almost empty or when it was almost full.

So, unless I am missing something, this leaves option 3 as the likely reason and hence my question here. Does anyone recognise this behaviour with the AW charger cable connected to a powerful charging brick?

Thank you kindly in advance for your help.
Philip

you're not saying if the watch is actually charging or not?
you can rule a faulty cable out by just plugging it into a USB A charger like eg the old style Apple 5W brick.

If I were to guess, it's your new charger.

There have been many posts in the past (older watch models) when people were using non-Apple bricks and cables, resorting to Apple equipment resolved the issues many times.

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much for replying. I should have pointed it out as it wasn't perhaps so clear from the videos. But yes, the AW is actually at 100% in both videos so is not charging.

I used a 65W Aukey charger before, which has a USB C port and a USB A port. I used the C port for my iPhone 16 Pro and the A for the watch. Often I would also charge my power banks on the C port while the watch was connected. The watch never exhibited this behaviour with that charger, which was also a power delivery GaN charger.

you're not saying if the watch is actually charging or not?
you can rule a faulty cable out by just plugging it into a USB A charger like eg the old style Apple 5W brick.

If I were to guess, it's your new charger.

There have been many posts in the past (older watch models) when people were using non-Apple bricks and cables, resorting to Apple equipment resolved the issues many times.

 

[jz0309]

Thank you very much for replying. I should have pointed it out as it wasn't perhaps so clear from the videos. But yes, the AW is actually at 100% in both videos so is not charging.

I used a 65W Aukey charger before, which has a USB C port and a USB A port. I used the C port for my iPhone 16 Pro and the A for the watch. Often I would also charge my power banks on the C port while the watch was connected. The watch never exhibited this behaviour with that charger, which was also a power delivery GaN charger.

so the only thing that changed is your new charger - that is the culprit then.

As I've said above, the older watch models seem to have been more sensitive to 3rd part chargers/cables, I haven't really seen many posts related to this in the probably past couple years or so.

 

[tcuprof]

I have had the same experience. Replacing the Apple watch cable fixed it.

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much for replying. Did it happen with a fast charger as well?

Cheers
Philip

I have had the same experience. Replacing the Apple watch cable fixed it.

 

[tcuprof]

Thank you very much for replying. Did it happen with a fast charger as well?

Cheers
Philip

Yes. It happened with a standard 5w adapter and with a fast charger.

 

[PPCmike]

I have a charger with 8 ports and it kinda sometimes does this if I'm charging 3 tablets plus my watch it will ding over and over.. or my tablet will do it or both.. I know it's the charger and I will be replacing it as soon as possible.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I've experienced that behavior with a 3rd party charger. It'd flash all night, cycling perhaps every 30 seconds. But it charged up by morning so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I didn't replace it for about a year (it was a combo charger for iPhone and watch) - didn't seem to harm the watch at all.

 

[Jackbequickly]

I am still using the my original Apple Watch charger and charging cube from my S1.

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much for your replies. I did some testing by attaching an old iPhone to the USB A port. That didn't exhibit the strange on-off behaviour. I think probably the AW charger is faulty. In any event the AW charges normally when connected via a USB C adapter so I have that as a fallback. The Ugreen charger is otherwise fantastic btw.

 

[Ruggy]

You said it could be power delivery where it renegotiates power distribution.
It's probably that. As it renegotiates, there's a tiny interruption of power and it seems the watch is very sensitive to that.
Even when something is fully charged it is still minutely trickle charging and it's perhaps sensitive to that too.
Does it do it when it's the only thing on the charger?
If not then it's definitely something to do with that.

I do find the watch is a bit more sensitive especially using the USB-A
I've bought a watch - (what's it called the round bit? Is it a sort of magsaafe). I've bought one of the round bits that you put against the watch which has a USB-C port in it and no cable. That gives better results than the charger that comes with the USB-A
Another thing that might occur is if the watch is very discharged- and that can happen on a long day. Then a lot of chargers won't pick it up at all- it's below their threshold. Then you need a good old fashioned Apple charger which will see it and charge it up again.
Frankly for the watch, a dumb 5W charger overnight is all you really need.

 

[pullman]

Thank you for replying, it happens when the AW USB A charger is the only device connected. But it has also happened when another device is connected (like the little power bank in the video above) which worries me a bit.

You said it could be power delivery where it renegotiates power distribution.
It's probably that. As it renegotiates, there's a tiny interruption of power and it seems the watch is very sensitive to that.
Even when something is fully charged it is still minutely trickle charging and it's perhaps sensitive to that too.
Does it do it when it's the only thing on the charger?
If not then it's definitely something to do with that.

I do find the watch is a bit more sensitive especially using the USB-A
I've bought a watch - (what's it called the round bit? Is it a sort of magsaafe). I've bought one of the round bits that you put against the watch which has a USB-C port in it and no cable. That gives better results than the charger that comes with the USB-A
Another thing that might occur is if the watch is very discharged- and that can happen on a long day. Then a lot of chargers won't pick it up at all- it's below their threshold. Then you need a good old fashioned Apple charger which will see it and charge it up again.
Frankly for the watch, a dumb 5W charger overnight is all you really need.