Some Apple Watch owners are experiencing charging problems after installing Apple’s newest watchOS 8.3 update.
The bug mostly appears to affect Apple Watch Series 7 and third-party charging accessories from a range of brands. However, some users have reported similar problems with older Apple Watch models. There is a temporary fix if you need it.
Apple Watch won’t charge with watchOS 8.3
Sadly, feature-breaking bugs are something we’ve come to expect from Apple’s software in recent years. It seems Cupertino rarely rolls out an update for any of its device that doesn’t introduce some kind of frustrating problem.
The latest affects Apple Watch, and prevents users from charging on a range of third-party chargers after updating to watchOS 8.3. It seems that while charging starts for most of those affected, it soon stops, leaving them with little juice.
“Updated my Watch last night to 8.3, set it on my 3rd party charger this morning, came back after an hour and it had gained maybe 2%,” one Reddit user wrote. “Put them on the official charger, zoom, done charging in no time.”
“My wife and I are having the exact same problem,” wrote another. “Bought 3-in-1 chargers that worked fine prior to the latest update.”
“I’m having this issue, too, with a 3-in-1 charger I ordered from Amazon,” said another. “I even contacted the seller and they (quickly) sent me a replacement … but the second one does the same thing.”
A quick but temporary fix
Some users speculate that this may be an intentional move from Apple to try to block more affordable third-party charging accessories, given that many are immune to the problem when using chargers from bigger brands like Belkin.
However, that seems highly unlikely. This is almost certainly a bug that will hopefully be fixed in the next watchOS update. In the meantime, there is a temporary fix for those affected that should keep you going for now.
Many users report that restarting their Apple Watch when experiencing this problem eliminates the charging issue so that they can top-up to 100%. However, it does return, so you may need to restart each time you charge.
It’s not ideal, but it’s better than a dead Apple Watch.
Not the first time
This isn’t the first time a watchOS update has been needed to eliminate charging problems on Apple Watch. A small fix, watchOS 8.1.1, had to be issues last month when Series 7 owners were unable to charge their devices.
