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

I will also be returning the watch. Which is sad as I actually love everything else about the watch. But I can’t afford to have spent 800 on a device that is a brick half of the time.

I have exhausted every avenue I know of. I am convinced no fix is coming

If you look at the marketing Apple is rather proud of the 1 NIT display. It’s in the ad. Clearly if they think that this is a good thing they are not going to fix it anytime soon.

derderdaist wrote:

same here, series 9 latest watchOS, unreadable at night.

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.

This is a issue that shows up on forums and blogs all over internet, it seems if Apple would add a on off toggle to the watch control center we could have a easy fix. Relying on "auto" adjust can't take into consideration all lighting situations, or an individuals eyesight.

A quick update on my scenario. I noticed about two or three days after I had my watch that it was less dim in the evening. In fact, it's bright enough now that I can use it all the time. The only change that I made was under display and brightness, I turned "always on" off. Other than that I have not changed anything. I have not updated any software. The odd thing is that even after changing the setting, I did not see any more brightness until about 2 to 3 days later. Seems odd, and hopefully some of you will also experience that maybe after time it just starts to work? It's good to see that everyone is keeping the pressure on Apple to release a formal fix that we can all depend on sustainably.

Seems likely that an optimization or new feature is getting worked that inadvertently messed this up. This is not just a WatchOS QA failure. There were a chain of people involved in the release process that “chose very poorly” on this impact.

In the pantheon of notable Apple software bugs over the last 10 or 12 years, this one is well inside the top 1%.

• we had a 6.2 earthquake a few days ago before the sun came up, shook enough to crack and audibly grind the concrete walls in my apartment. I had my Watch Ultra 2 on, with the default of max brightness. The display was so **** dim I couldn’t see anything on the Watch face, and “Siri set brightness to max” was blocked - no access. Thank God that “Siri turn on the flashlight” worked, although I will note that it took three seconds after the flashlight came on for the brightness to switch from “lame af” to a usable max.
• While riding a bike through the city on my way home tonight, I couldn’t see the route details on the watch face.
• When I got home to an only partially lit house tonight, at “maximum user-controlled brightness” the control panel on my watch ultra 2 was dim I couldn’t tell which button was which to locate/ring my iPhone.

Like everybody else who has faced this issue over the last couple weeks, I tried manually adjusting brightness, hunting through accessibility menus to figure out if there was some setting that inadvertently got flipped on, turned the flashlight mode on and off. No dice. Controlling the brightness on my watch is out of my hands, which is a UX felony offense.

After installing and using Lunar to overrride the brightness settings on my MBPs + XDR Pros at work and home, i’m calling out the watchOS team here to provide that same level of access to watchOS developers.

I have no sympathy for the watchOS team on his one. It’s fall in the northern hemisphere, coming up on winter. For probably 80%+ of watch owners the days are getting shorter and darker. Not the time to be darkening “user-accessible max display brightness” when it’s dark, guys.

This is NOT a hardware issue. WatchOS 10 single-handedly rendered my Ultra 1 unreadably dark as well. And frankly the Ultra 1 was still in meed of a constant hack of pulling up the phone dialer, which brightened the screen…and would atay bright if you pushed the button to return to the dial. Watch OS 10 killed that work-around AND made it way dimmer. Not quite as dim as the Ultra 2…bit suddenly FAR WORSE than it was.

So… Apple managed to kill BOTH Ultra 2 AND Ultra 1’s low light usability.

My next step will be to try and get Apple to return my Ultra 1 back to version 9.

Ridiculous.

The problem has nothing to do with the ability to write code and improve the brightness in dim environments. The problem for Apple Watch is and has been battery life (or lack of). How can Apple find a way to market to those out in rugged environments for days on end if the battery only lasts 36 hours??? Or regular users who can get multiple day battery with competing products? So the engineers had to solve that problem and the code which allows the watch to dim the screen (save battery) is the solution. Now they can say 72 hours battery life. So the solution has become the problem.

they can’t say… 72 hours if you don’t want to be able to view the watch in dim environments but 36 hours if you want to actually see the watch. That’s even worse. So here we are. They say it works fine. Enjoy the battery and get reading classes you old fart.

i returned my watch. Thousands of others have as well. But that is likely a small percentage compared to those that are “just dealing with it” and “loving the battery life” Otherwise they would make it brighter and kill the battery.

SilverSurfer111 wrote:

I bought my Ultra 2 on the day they arrived and have been following this discussion ever since, and it’s getting incredibly frustrating that there’s not been any interjection by Apple on this issue and we don’t know where we stand.

Apple where are you?

Apple will not reply here. Very likely Apple won't even see this thread, although since it's been reported numerous times, they may be aware.

Please file feedback:

Apple Watch Feedback

I just got off the phone with Apple again and spoke with a senior engineer. I told him that my new Express Replacement (series 9) has the same issue as the last new watch. He ran through the usual required diagnostics, which all came back fine. He also said that he is seeing that other customers have complained about the issue. He thanked me for reporting it, and said that the more customers that call in and report it, the faster it can be resolved. I don't think filling out surveys and forms is enough. We need to be calling them and speaking to a live person. He had me take screenshots of the settings and a video of the watch in a dark room, which I took beside my very bright Series 4 watch. So, please...call them!

FWIW, I just opened a case using the Support.app on my iPhone. The tech said they had heard of this, and I sent him the URL for this discussion.

I cannot return my Ultra2 until I get off of the beta, but he assured me that it's in the system and he upvoted it to help as well.

Please all, while they might be aware of this thread, it's important to file feedback - as useless as you might think it is, it's our only way forward.

You might also want to do what I did above - only takes a few minutes. Also show them this thread.

 Apple Watch Feedback

Better, meaning actually readable in the dark compared to what I deemed totally unreadable prior. Not sure how to compare, but I wouldn't return it now. I find it acceptable, short of actually having better user control. It is NOT at full daylight brightness by any means, but it's "ok" finally. I suggest trying the update (now or when released) if you can't wait it out.

(others see similar results on their U2's, so I don't think it is a placebo effect)

Regrettably I had to return my Ultra 2 as it was impossible to read in dim light - I tried the update and every other adjustment possible - NO GO! I have waited till this version to take the plunge - Not a good experience. Hopefully the return goes smoothly! This is a huge oversight by Apple - guess they are trying to save battery life but this should be up to the consumer! I won't be buying another one. I have been working on The Mac since the very beginning - I have 4 Macs running at this very moment. Too bad I really wanted to like this product.

My return went very smoothly. They really didn’t care why I was returning it. I’d recommend that everyone return theirs and maybe they’ll actually do something about it. They certainly aren’t very concerned about it given this has been a problem since September. They could have easily done a quick small update only addressing this one issue. Totally irresponsible to be selling these with this major current flaw with no public recognition of the problem.