My Apple Watch 9 is acting weird - Is this a bug?

Mine just started doing this! Trying a force restart because it wouldn’t let me turn it off. Screen is jumping all over the place and the watch is not responding at all. Just bought it in November. Had my previous own for years with ZERO issues so I’m not pleased.

This happened to me also last night — Feb 1. My timer kept restarting itself and password keep trying to unlock watch. Got locked out many times.

finally took it off then put it on charger. Seems to be working fine now. And yes, it seemed like it was having a seizure!

I have the same problem. My Apple Watch Ultra II suddenly went nuts. It started with many message on my iPhone for keyboard input, like when you type your password on Apple TV. Then it was like somebody took over my Watch screen. I saw constant random input of text. After a while the watch got time locked, because of the wrong unlock code. Now I have to wait for 3 hours! before next attempt to unlock. I put the Watch on the charger for now and hope the error is over by next morning.

The exact same thing happen to my series 9. (1-31-24) Had to hold both buttons down until the apple logo came up. Restarted back to normal. Like stated above you wound see it go to enter your password and the screen with emergency contact and shut down. It would also zoom in then back out. Luckily mine didn't call 911.

I just had my 9 go crazy, launch apps, had the siren, then the emergency operator. I have 10.4 installed. The bug is NOT fixed.

MY Apple watch 9 same problem early this morning, the calling 911 alarm (SOS alarm?) woke me up, fortunately pressing crown enough times stopped it. Then there was a flash of apps popping up it seemed to stick on the music app apparently playing Kinks songs from the iPhone. Trying to stop that it called 911 again, which I was able to stop. I took the watch off and that seemed to stop the apps from popping up. Did the reset, put the watch back on, and half way down the hallway the 911 alarm started again. Took off the watch and went to apple support chat. My firmware was 10.2 with 10.3 waiting in the wings. Updated the firmware and the problem seems to have stopped. So watch seems to working now.

Bottom line, yes this is a problem.

Same problem- Apple Watch out of control. Erratic scrolling. All numbers flashing on password screen. Unable to stop or reset the watch. Continually changing apps. Not responding at all.

It looks like this is finally fixed in the watchOS 10.4 update.

watchOS 10.4 includes new features, improvements, and bug fixes, including:

• Tap to Show Full Notification setting now allows you to double tap to expand the notification
• Using Apple Pay with Confirm with AssistiveTouch will require a passcode for additional security and will not support double clicking the side button
• Resolves an issue that causes some users to experience false touches on the display
• Fixes an issue that prevents contacts from syncing to Apple Watch for some users

I had exact same issue last night (February 4th), freaked me out. I did a chat with Apple today, they ran a diagnostic test and found it was fine. The only thing I could do was unpair it then re-pair it. The really crazy thing, same exact thing started happening to my iPhone 13 Pro! Phone much easier to reboot than the watch. I really hope Apple gets this fixed! Everyone with this issue NEEDS to contact Apple ASAP!

Apple Watch newbie here - for beginners, how do I unpair it from my phone? 🤦🏻‍♀️ Can’t find anything on the watch app on my phone.

I tried the hard restart and am now locked out of the watch for an hour.

Ugh.

My watch sorted itself out after two things occurred. I put the watch on the charger and while it was there I checked and my phone had an update available so I did that one. Watch charged up and acted normally. I checked for watch update and watchOS 10.1.1 said preparing. It has now been at least 12 hours and the update still says preparing. Just to double check I verified charge greater than 50% and put watch back on charger to see if the update would proceed. It did not.

I strongly recommend contacting Apple, I did a chat today to let them know, same exact experience. Everyone with this issue NEEDS to let them know so we don’t have the same problem again.

Mine did this yesterday out of the blue. First it triggered ‘find my’ on my phone, and it gave the alert sound. That’s what when I noticed the screen on my watch was going crazy, almost like someone had control over apps. It was opening and closing random apps. It ended up calling 911, the siren sound went off I’m guessing for fall detection. Unfortunately couldn’t stop the call, but luckily 911 operators were nice about it.

Put the watch on the charger as it wouldn’t allow a restart. Eventually after it sat I was able to restart it and get the new update. I’m hoping that works because I’m terrified to wear this watch now. This is obviously an issue since it’s not just me it’s happened to, hoping Apple addresses it.

This happened to my S9 (ios 10.2) watch yesterday (2/6/2024). It was as if someone was physically pressing the buttons as well as the touch screen. It turned on airplane mode, set timers, opened menus, and even changed settings. When I tried to power it off, it tried to call 911. I finally took it off my wrist which caused it to enter an incorrect passcode enough to lock itself for a min. While on the "locked for 1 minute" screen I was able to force a hard restart on it. Upon turning it back on, I had to wait the 1 minute to enter my passcode - but then everything was fine. I had to change back everything that was changed before (turn off water lock, turn off airplane mode, etc). But just now, it opened up a menu that I did not press a button for... but stopped after that. I know I have an update waiting (ios 10.3), but sounds like folks on 10.3 are having this issue too....