Sticky Digital Crown

Yes, I just noticed mine doing something similar today. If I haven't used the digital crown for a while, it will have resistance when first trying to turn it. After that, it works perfectly fine until it sits idle again. I'm not sure if it's bothersome enough to contact support yet, I just hope it doesn't get worse.

Well started experiencing same issue with my sport. Bad enough that double clicking was almost impossible. Took in today to Genius and three diff people came over and tested. All said was not normal. But I decided to send back now. Will be interesting test to see how much I miss it. Bigger concern is why and perhaps the sport vs ss and possibility of it keeps happening.

Ps. We compared to four diff demo units and all had same tactile feel except mine.

I'm the same.

I noticed this morning. When I first started using it i just had to lightly touch the crown and it would scroll smoothly. Now I have to apply some pressure and even then it doesn't scroll smoothly.

Has anyone had this problem resolved yet?

I spoke to Apple Support, they did the usual check to make sure I hadn't dropped it, made sure that there was no debris blocking it.

They've made an appointment for a Genius to see it so I'll post here when I go see them.

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)