Apple Watch Ultra 2 VERY dim inside and dark enviroments..

That is a severe bug of WatchOS 10 (does Apple not have a quality control any more? It is so obvious ...).

The same occurs on my Watch 6: Just fine with WatchOS 9, hardly readable in the dark with WatchOS 10.

Therefore, there is hope that Apple will fix this in WatchOS 10.1.

We should flood Apple with bug reports to ensure that this is taken care of.

The official word from Apple support is "the Ultra 2 watch is performing as expected." My continued contacts with Apple support and all of my cases (5 so far with this issue) are being passed on from senior advisors to the engineering department.

I would assume that the Apple support team have shared our many concerns (and those who utilize the Apple Product feedback link) with engineers. All we can do is hope that they will adjust future watchOS updates accordingly to solve this major issue that many users agree limits the use of the Ultra 2 watch in dark environments (night, dark/dim lit rooms, etc.). It's not a hardware issue, so swapping the brand new watch for a new brand new Ultra 2 watch just takes time away from you and Apple, is super inconvenient, and solves nothing.

shifflav wrote:

Does anyone have any media contacts? I really think the media would find this quite interesting. It would make for some great headlines! It's clearly a software issue, since some have reported their older watches becoming dimmer after the latest iOS update. So, it would be a simple fix on Apple's part to retain, and not lose, thousands of customers over this.

One person said that they posted on an Apple-related site and it got nuked. MacRumors or AppleInsider? One of those I think.

Sad. But, as I've said before, please file feedback. It might get ignored, but it's all we got.

Apple Watch Feedback

I also have the problem with my Watch Series 9. I just spoke to Apple Support about the problem and may have found a solution. It's stupid but somehow it really seems to work: Turn off your iPhone's automatic brightness. Somehow the Apple Watch seems to react to this. Since I deactivated the automatic brightness on my iPhone, my watch no longer gets so incredibly dark. Please try this and let us know if it helped you too.

The way I “fixed” this, is to turn raise to wake, on. Now it will show full bright even in dark conditions.

As a note…I use theater mode at night while sleeping, so not much battery loss throughout the night.

Strange (but thankful). After downloading 10.3 this week. Night brightness for me fixed. Odd, but again thankful

I suspect we are dealing with several issues

For those of us with a brand new Ultra2 we are dealing with defective watches

I compared my watch to two other Ultra2 watches. The other two DID NOT HAVE THE PROBLEM

I then went to the store and compared mine to the store samples. Completely different

I have a new watch. I would still like a brighter display but this one is usable whereas my first watch was a disaster

If you are in the two week window of purchase I suggest you get yourselves new watches

I returned my Ultra2 yesterday and tried another.

The tech at Apple called it a software issue, and his Ultra 1 was also dim.

I believe the cause is very simple:

—Apple made a new claim about battery life with Ultra 2…an improvement of 60 hours on U1, to 72 on Ultra 2.

In order to “prove” this claim… They are screwing all of us…with unusably-dim displays in dark conditions…in order to say the 72 hour claim is true.

I can tell you that NONE of the updates have helped AT ALL.

This is NOT a hardware issue.

It is a CHOICE by Apple…proven by the fact that WatchOS 10 also rendered my Ultra 1 suddenly DIM as well, post update to 10 or above.

This is unacceptable.

If this is not remedied in my new 14 day window with this second Ultra 2…I’ll be returning this one as well.

I’ve been having dimming issues on my new Ultra 2 as well. I don’t leave the always on function on, but when I raised my wrist to wake it I would see the screen bright, then it would quickly dim and bounce back like it was trying to determine the light level. However this morning I noticed that when I disabled the auto Night Mode that it seemed to stop it. I know the auto Night Mode is a new feature and I hope they implement a fix for this quickly.

I am in the same boat. I probably will have to return this one, guess they didn't target the over 50 crowd :-) based on my conversation with Support this morning, this is unknown issue, but there is no plan to rectify it. Their position is that it's operating as it was designed.

Hey guys, I just had a lenghty call (1h+) with apple support in germany. They are aware of this and it's escalated to engineering.

Nevertheless when or even if they fix it is up in the sky.

A statistical game. Getting enough complaints they fix it soon.

So go and contact support, maybe they can help which i doubt but at least another complaint is filed.

I will go to the apple store next week and return my watch any maybe get a Series 8 if it behaves differently.

Best!!

Branta_uk wrote:

I also have a new Series 9, and I wouldn't call it unreadable at night. Some users may prefer to adjust the display brightness, but in dark conditions I find the default brightness as it installed for me (minimum level) is acceptable and close to my preferred level to avoid nuisance when I drive at night.

I have tried a few tests, and so far it looks like the problem is the auto dimming when the user has the watch display and ambient light sensors facing a dark background (behind the user), but there is a brighter level infant of the user (beyond the watch). The user's eyes adjust to the brighter area in-view but the watch is still looking the other way, at a darker area so the display level remains at minimum.

In this condition the watch is dimming correctly in response to a low level of incident light on the watch face sensors, but the user's pupils will close down in response to brighter light behind the watch as it is viewed (may be some distance away like a sun-lit window across the room).

I don't see an easy way to resolve this with the current design of sensing ambient light. The watch has no way to know how the user's eyes have adapted to external light conditions and the watch would need sensors looking through the wearer's arm to see bright interfering light beyond the watch.

I think this is spot on to what I am seeing. Well said. If this is the way it's supposed to work, I wish there were a way to adjust that setting. My old eyes just can't read the really dim screen at night.

(Disclaimer - I'm using Apple Watch Series 9, and the Ultra may have slightly different behavior).

What I have seen so far is (reported) very similar behaviour between Ultra 2 and Series 9. In an evenly illuminated environment (whether bright light or total darkness with eyes adapted to the dark) my S9 behaves well, and the display levels seem about right.

The problems seem to appear when the ambient light levels are not even. For example taking the case where I raise the watch in front of my face with the display vertical. The dimming sensor is in the watch face display. If I have bright light behind me and low light as I look past the raised watch (the dim sensor sees bright) the display is near full brightness. If I turn 180˚ so the dark area is behind me and the bright area is visible in the background behind the watch (watch sees darkness) my eyes adjust to the bright background and the dimming is too low.

Now the real test. I stood in my dark hallway, facing into the kitchen (also dark) and let my eyes adjust to the dark conditions. Raising my arm the dimming level was low, which seemed correct for the almost zero ambient light. Now the test... I kept the watch raised, and turned on the light in the kitchen ahead of me. The watch display did not seem to change, but my eyes adjusted to the now bright light ahead (beyond the watch) and the watch suddenly appeared very dim and almost unreadable against the bright background.

After this kind of testing I'm not sure of the best practical solution. The watch would ideally be able to include background illumination in the dimming calculation. but for many cases that would need a sensor looking through the wearer's arm, or embedded in the underside of the watch band. Neither is exactly practical. Otherwise it might need a tweak to the dimming curve which sets the relationship between ambient light and dimming, but there is no 'one size fits all' for different user preferences. Fortunately we are not the product architects and we don't have to find the solution!

Update: Support reached back out after I had sent all the diagnostic logs and indicated “the watch was functioning as designed”. I told her about the variance of experiences trying to resolve this issue with Support reps and how some folks have been told an update is in the works and Apple knows about the product. She reiterated they do not have a fix on the way. Quote “ I can see all of the recognized issues on my computer engineers are working on an update for. I do not see an update planned for dimming. The watch is designed to brighten or dim in bright or low light situations.” I got off of the phone and received the service email basically closing my case thereafter. The support rep was understanding however and said she was trying her best to be an advocate for the customer, but in her case hit a brick wall with support engineering.

Can you try the following: face your AW down so the Always On display gets triggered -> turn the flashlight on your iPhone on and point it at your watch. The display brightness should now increase, at least that is what is does on my Ultra 2 and didn’t do before installing WatchOS 10.1