How to fix a bricked Apple Watch whose hardware is fine.

[battlefury]

Hi there,

Recently, I was upgrading my Apple Watch (S4), and I accidentally restart my iPhone while the Watch is in progress wheel (or circle). The restart is my fault. Now the Apple Watch is bricked, and it can show only the Apple logo.

The hardware should be fine. At this point, it can still charge (even after I drained all the battery), and the apple logo will show up every time I touch the display.

I've tried common methods like force restart, and unpair from the phone, etc. None of them worked.
I went to an Apple Store, and they told me that they cannot reflash or reinstall the OS on the Watch, and the Watch has to be sent back to a "factory" for a fix, which would cost more than $350. With this much money, you can already buy one (S4), so I declined.

Anyone has similar experience? Have you find a cheaper option to restore the watch? Like a local repair shop or some custom repair tool?

I didn't expect the Watch to be this fragile and this costly to fix.
Please excuse me if this post is not in the right place.

Thanks!

 

[Apple_Robert]

I suggest you talk with Apple again via Apple support chat via iMessage and inform them of the problem. It shouldn't cost $350 to have Apple restore the watch to the proper OS. That process only takes a few minutes. Whoever told you that was wrong, in my opinion. I have had to make ue of that service before and Apple didn't charge me.

 

[perezr10]

Hi there,

Recently, I was upgrading my Apple Watch (S4), and I accidentally restart my iPhone while the Watch is in progress wheel (or circle). The restart is my fault. Now the Apple Watch is bricked, and it can show only the Apple logo.

The hardware should be fine. At this point, it can still charge (even after I drained all the battery), and the apple logo will show up every time I touch the display.

I've tried common methods like force restart, and unpair from the phone, etc. None of them worked.
I went to an Apple Store, and they told me that they cannot reflash or reinstall the OS on the Watch, and the Watch has to be sent back to a "factory" for a fix, which would cost more than $350. With this much money, you can already buy one (S4), so I declined.

Anyone has similar experience? Have you find a cheaper option to restore the watch? Like a local repair shop or some custom repair tool?

I didn't expect the Watch to be this fragile and this costly to fix.
Please excuse me if this post is not in the right place.

Thanks!

When you say you tried a force restart do you mean you held BOTH the crown and power button down simultaneously? Or did you only press the power button?

 

[battlefury]

I suggest you talk with Apple again via Apple support chat via iMessage and inform them of the problem. It shouldn't cost $350 to have Apple restore the watch to the proper OS. That process only takes a few minutes. Whoever told you that was wrong, in my opinion. I have had to make ue of that service before and Apple didn't charge me.

Thanks. I will try again. I suspect they will provide such service to only some users.
1) within warranty, or 2) bricked by some beta OS program, or 3) some known software issue that has affected many users, and they set up a repair program.
But I will try again.

 

[battlefury]

When you say you tried a force restart do you mean you held BOTH the crown and power button down simultaneously? Or did you only press the power button?

BOTH the crown and power button for a force restart.

 

[firedept]

I second going back to Apple. You may have got a genius who was new or even having an off day. Most cases they can put the OS back on the watch. I really don’t see why they couldn’t.

 

[nicho]

Thanks. I will try again. I suspect they will provide such service to only some users.
1) within warranty, or 2) bricked by some beta OS program, or 3) some known software issue that has affected many users, and they set up a repair program.
But I will try again.

You could always enrol in the WatchOS public beta and claim that it failed during that upgrade.

 

[chrisdrymon]

I just had a similar problem today except mine was a Series 3. I got the red exclamation mark, and a force reset just brings the red exclamation back after the reset. We took it to the Apple Store and they said there was nothing they could do except send it in for $229. It sounds like there's essentially a flat charge no matter what the problem/fix is. He said they used to be able to do a little work on them there at the store, but after a certain update they no longer could. He also said he's been seeing this problem increase lately and wondered if a large-scale free fix might be in the future.

 

[justywusty]

My S4 also recently red exclamation marked. At least now I had a reason to get an S7 ?