Hi everyone,
I just received my new Apple Watch Ultra 4 today, and this is my first day using it. I’ve only had the watch for a few hours, but I’m already experiencing several issues. I’m trying to work out whether these are normal software/watchOS bugs affecting new watches or whether I may have a defective unit.
Siri has crashed/restarted the entire watch.
This is the issue I’m most concerned about.
When activating Siri, I’ve had several different things happen:
- Siri appears and then suddenly disappears without answering, almost as though I manually cancelled it.
- Siri starts listening and I can see some of my words appearing on the screen, but then the entire watch suddenly goes black.
- After going black, the Apple Watch completely restarts.
This has already happened within only a few hours of owning the watch.
Double Tap/gesture navigation stops working properly
I’ve also noticed an issue when navigating widgets using the hand gestures.
I can initially use the tapping gestures to cycle through widgets and select/open one. However, after I open a widget, exit it, and return to the widget list, I sometimes can no longer cycle to the next widget using the same gesture.
The watch still gives me the haptic/vibration feedback indicating that it detected my gesture, but nothing actually moves on the screen.
It therefore seems like the gesture itself is being recognized, but the interface stops responding to it correctly after entering and exiting a widget.
Touchscreen occasionally doesn't respond
The display also occasionally seems unresponsive to touch.
There have been times where I tap something and absolutely nothing happens, and I have to tap again before it registers.
I understand an Apple Watch is a smaller device than an iPhone, but on a brand-new flagship Apple Watch I would still expect basic touchscreen interactions to feel consistently responsive.
Raise to Speak for Siri is extremely inconsistent
Raise to Speak has also been very difficult to activate.
Sometimes I have to raise my wrist toward my face extremely quickly or make a very exaggerated movement before Siri detects that I’m trying to use Raise to Speak.
I would ideally like to use this feature regularly because I work in a lab and sometimes need genuinely hands-free access to Siri. Having to rapidly swing my wrist toward my face several times just to activate it makes the feature difficult to use in practice.
I’ve already arranged an in-person Apple Support/repair appointment because I’m concerned that I may have received a defective watch.
However, before that appointment, I wanted to ask whether other Ultra 4 or Series 12 owners are experiencing similar problems, particularly the Siri crashes/restarts, gesture navigation bug, touchscreen responsiveness, and Raise to Speak issues.
I’ve seen some reports online of people experiencing crashes with their new watches/watchOS 12, which makes me wonder whether this could be software-related rather than faulty hardware.
Since the watch is brand new and these problems have appeared within the first few hours, I’d much rather request a replacement if this sounds like a hardware problem instead of keeping a potentially defective unit.
Display dims very quickly after Raise to Wake
When I raise my wrist and the watch face wakes up, the display seems to dim again after only around 5–6 seconds.
Is this normal behavior?
I know there is a setting under Wake Duration that lets you choose between 15 seconds and 70 seconds, so I’m a little confused about why the screen dims so quickly after using Raise to Wake. If this is simply how the Always-On Display is designed to work, then this part isn’t a problem—I’d just like to confirm that it’s normal.
Has anyone else experienced any of these issues on a new Apple Watch Ultra 4 or Series 12?
Thanks!
