Apple Watches suddenly acting strange

Hi,

this morning I noticed unusual activity on my watches when they were out of my wrist. A watches tried unlock by itself!! First time I was only watching the tries - one number, pause, sleep mode, wake up, 3 numbers of 4 - ok, I turned them off immediately. After then I improved safety on my other devices and changed PIN on watches too, including turn off short PIN unlock. But after that, I was witness of same strange activity like a first time + faster self typing numbers, OK BUTTON INCLUDED!!! Turned them off again. Now I'm waiting on Apple support if they can help me with this. I have a suspicion that it was attempted hacker attack.

[Edited by Moderator]

Apple Watch Series 7, watchOS 9

Posted on May 27, 2023 12:52 AM

Top-ranking reply

MrHoffman

Community+ 2025

Level 10

145,109 points

Posted on May 28, 2023 2:18 PM

Very unlikely, but possible: a device compromise. Unlikely, per available information, as most of us are just not worth targeting. And this would be an unusually overt hack, too. You know your own particular risks best, though. Factory reset (un-pair and re-pair) would be one option.

Unlikely, but possible: problems caused by a protective film or by a protective case, so remove any of that in use here, and then clean the display per this: How to clean your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Far more likely: the display or the digitizer or related hardware has probably failed. “Ghost touches” is another name for this sort of failure. Get the hardware looked at.

Multiple cases of this same error might mean an issue with a charger, or cable, or a power glitch. Or maybe a common environmental exposure of some sort. Odd gunk on the display. The “assistance” of somebody with physical access causing damage. Other lesser possibilities exist, such as exposure to a very strong magnetic field.

But somebody is going to need to look at these.

View in context

Apple Watches suddenly acting strange

Similar questions