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Old charger with Series 4

M

MEJHarrison

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 2, 2009
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I brought my new watch into work yesterday and put it on the charger I keep here, but it seemed to charge very slowly. Took it home and put it on a different charger and noticed the same thing. In fact, on that charger, it was even worse. Barely charging, if at all. Moved the charger to a different plug and in an hour it actually went from 40% to 35%. It was also noticeably warmer.

Finally, I dug the new charger out of the box, hooked it up and it starting charging fairly quickly like my old Series 3 did.

I did some searching this morning and found some people claiming the curvature changed slightly even though Apple doesn't have a specific Series 4 charger. Has anyone else noticed issues with older chargers?
 
MEJHarrison said:
I brought my new watch into work yesterday and put it on the charger I keep here, but it seemed to charge very slowly. Took it home and put it on a different charger and noticed the same thing. In fact, on that charger, it was even worse. Barely charging, if at all. Moved the charger to a different plug and in an hour it actually went from 40% to 35%. It was also noticeably warmer.

Finally, I dug the new charger out of the box, hooked it up and it starting charging fairly quickly like my old Series 3 did.

I did some searching this morning and found some people claiming the curvature changed slightly even though Apple doesn't have a specific Series 4 charger. Has anyone else noticed issues with older chargers?
Click to expand...

Been using my old one for my Series 4. No issues.
 
Perhaps I should contact Apple. Because I've tried two chargers and I'm not getting the same experience I get with the out-of-the-box charger. In fact in one case, it actually lost power while charging. That isn't right.

PS, I can't imagine it matters, but I'm on the Nike version.
 
Newtons Apple said:
Are you using the Apple charging block?
Click to expand...

At first the charger was just plugged into a USB hub device. When I noticed that was dog slow, I moved the cord to a Samsung block actually plugged into an outlet. That was when the power dropped 5% even though the watch said it was charging. Then I got the new charging cable and plugged it into the same Samsung block and then it charged fast.

I've also had very slow charging with a completely separate cord here at work. And all the chargers are Apple chargers, not third-party.

Like I said, I did find a conversation on the Apple forums where someone is claiming the curve is slightly different on the back. That matches with what I've noticed. Especially with the watch and charger warming up last night. That's what would happen if it's making a connection, but not a great one. On the other hand, if the curve is different, and things aren't charging as well, I'm quite sure Apple would have released a v2 cord and made us all buy new ones again. So I'm a little lost.
 
I would stick to all Apple including the charging block just to make sure. The slight difference in the curvature of the AW4 watch back does not seem to make a difference for me.
 
Well fortunately, my roommate just picked up a gold Series 4 last night. So now I'll have another series 4 around to compare to. Hopefully we can run some tests this weekend and get to the bottom of this.
 
MEJHarrison said:
Well fortunately, my roommate just picked up a gold Series 4 last night. So now I'll have another series 4 around to compare to. Hopefully we can run some tests this weekend and get to the bottom of this.
Click to expand...

FWIW Here is my experience. I use an Orzly stand with an apple charging cable to charge my watch overnight. I had an S0 but recently bought an S4. My habit has been to remove the band and put the naked watch on the stand for charging. As long as I do this the watch charges perfectly. Last night I put the watch on the stand without removing the band first, and this morning it had only charged up to 62%. I suspect leaving the band on puts a slight torque on the watch as it sits upright in the stand. This may pull the watch back away from the charging puck just enough to mess up the charging, and the shape of the S4 may exacerbate this. I realize that removing the band every night is not convenient for most people, but if you plan on doing experiments, you might consider throwing this into the mix.
 
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GeekyGrannie said:
FWIW Here is my experience.
Click to expand...

Very interesting. I'm doing an experiment here at work right now. Rather than charging in 'Nightstand Mode' (watch in an upright position), I'm laying the watch flat on top of the charger. That seems to be working much better. So I suspect you might be on to something.
 
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