Sticky Digital Crown

Just noticed the same thing with my watch this morning after sitting idle overnight. I went on a 6 mile run with mine yesterday and all was fine afterwards. I'm wondering if something got in those internal mechanics of the digital crown and caused it to freeze up overnight while sitting?

The problem is definitely worse after it sits for awhile. I can work the crown back and forth for awhile and it becomes a little easier but returns to "stuck" shortly after I stop this.

Genius bar apt. scheduled for this evening. I'm wondering if they'll have any to replace on spot or if they'll have to do a send and return. iPhones always replaced on the spot so I'm not sure.

more to come... 🙂

Add me to the list. 42mm sport.

I noticed when I took it out of the box, that the first click of the crown was quite soft, and not very positive. It was fine after that, but after it sits for a while, it does it again. The crown isn't particularly stiff to turn, but does have a little more resistance on the first turn if it hasn't been used for a while.

I tried this morning to turn the crown before the first click. It seemed to make a difference, and the first click was then very positive.

Have the same problem as you guys... Have my watch since staurday afternoon, no problem until this morning. No workout/shock or anything...

Apparently when you put some small amount of water it "dissolve" what is blocking the crown.

42mm Sport

Sounds good. I, against better judgement, placed a few drops of water purposefully in the space between the crown and the watch housing and turned it for a little bit in hopes of dissolving anything that may have dried overnight from my workout yesterday. Seems to be better now but we'll see how it is in a little bit when it has time to dry out again.

The commonalities here seem to be exercise and sport models.

Mine is a 42mm sport model and I did a crossfit session last night, now this morning it has seized up.

Is it maybe an issue with sweat getting into the crown?

That's what I'm thinking at this point. It didn't look like sweat had made it in there but I wasn't paying close attention during my longer run last night. Sitting overnight, sweat would have had time to dry and crystalize though. I'd expect things to lock up if this were the case.

Things seem better since I did the water thing a little bit ago. I have been playing with it quite a bit so it may not have had a chance to freeze back up if it is going to.

Seems bad that a model designed and aimed at the sports/exercising crowd would have issues such as this after only a handful of workouts...may be returned and I'll pony up more $ for the SS version (and wait until June to get it)....ugh!

All of you trying the water trick are a lot braver than me! I might give it a try, but not until after my genius bar appointment. For the record, I also have a sport, and it started happening the day after a gym session.

first time I've seen anyone report the issue with SS. On MacRumors all cases have been Sport models. There are some definite differences between internal structures that some are correlating with the issue. Apparently Sport vs SS doesn't matter as some initially thought.

Given that it's water resistant (and people have went swimming with then without issue) I didn't see the problem with a drop of water in that part of the watch. definitely a risk, but hey, that's why I purchased AppleCare 😝

I 100% agree. but if I can at least do that in the meantime while Apple gets through this initial process it may be faster to get replaced in the future. (sounds like they have to send them out for repair/replacement unlike instant swap of iphones-IDK if this is SOP now or if they'll eventually carry onsite for instant swaps [hopefully] ).

It shouldn't happen period and especially not after only 4-5 "sweating" workouts... I've got a week+ to put it through it's paces and if it is still bad I'll take it back and wait for them to 1) address the issue 2) release gen 2 (hope it doesn't come to that)

Yeah, I haven't figure out my game plan yet at this point I guess. Don't really want to return it unless it gets worse or stop responding to being cleaned out with some water. Will return next Thursday if it does get worse. Not going to bother with a replacement unless I see evidence here in these or other forums as to it being a manufacturing defect/mechanical issue. I plan to go to my Genius Apt and call Apple to at least make the issue known. If it's sweat related, a replacement watch will do me no good except give me a few workouts of "like-ew" performance before it locks up again.

I have been to my local AS, no appointment before the 8th of May or 1:30 of wait.

I will wait and see what happens. I feel really disgusted about this launch, after the shipping debacle, now this. Oh Apple...

I got an appointment yesterday on this. Sent mine back for repair. A few comments for everyones benefit:

1) He said all watches have to be sent to central depot for repair/review since they will not be carrying replacements in store for a few months. Said likely case with majority stores.

2) Standard ship out/back time is 5-7 business days. Could be faster.

3) Up to depot if its a "repair" or a replace

4) Especially early on, they need to heavily document all potential issues (likely in case there is a major hardware defect they didnt find)

5) Issues like this would be covered under initial warranty so even if you are outside your 14-day period, you can get it fixed -- especially if its same issue. Obviously you cannot return it for full refund if that is what you want to do.

I find it very hard to believe that this kind of an issue would not have been caught as all their testers (like CTB) were heavily using this for activity. And while i don't think its a problem to splash the wash or drop water in the crown area (it has been tested and to pass those certifications is very strict so while it may seem counter-intuitive, i think its a non event) if that fixes it, it would be odd to me that Apple hadn't already been exposed to this issue and figure out a better way to prevent it.

Lets see what happens when it comes back end of this week/early next week and the explanation.

Awesome insight! Thanks dhy8386 🙂

I figured it would be a standard warranty/applecare+ issue and I don't really want to return it for a refund as I love the watch so far. just a small hiccup at this point.

I figure I'll deal with it for now, report through the propper channels and continue to use the water method in the meantime. Once I know replacements are readily available at the store I may opt to go that route. I don't have high hopes that another one won't do the same thing at this point though. If I hear there is some batch/manufacturing issue though that would make me feel better about a replacement taking care of the issue.

Mine was not smooth or that's what I thought.

It was turning smooth and then it seemed to hang up.

I went end tried to turn it with my thumb & finger, like winding a watch. It was smooth as glass everytime.

What was happening was that I wasn't applying really any pressure to the digital crown and my finger was sliding over the crown.

It wasn't catching the serrations on the digital crown. I just applied slight down pressure and at a slight angle and it works perfect.

Maybe try this...