Apple Watch Series 10: Reports of speaker failures
In various forums, users are reporting difficulties with the Apple Watch sounder, which has actually become louder. Calls can hardly be understood anymore.
Apple Watch Series 10 on a person's arm.
(Image: Apple)
One of the new features of the Apple Watch Series 10, which was unveiled in September 2024, is a better speaker. This can now "officially" also be used to listen to music – and despite its small size, it produces a lot of sound (in moderation). However, this is not (or no longer) the case for individual users who are currently complaining in various Apple forums: Apparently there is a software or hardware problem with the new computer clock speakers. This is reported by MacRumors.
Sudden attack of dullness
According to the report, the speaker output can suddenly become very quiet and/or very muffled – to the point of being unintelligible. This means that phone calls or music playback are no longer possible. The problem probably has nothing to do with a previous visit to the swimming pool: Those affected carried out the water ejection integrated by Apple in the watchOS operating system several times, so the watch was dry. It is not yet possible to say how widespread the error is. There are several threads in the Apple Support Forum and on Reddit.
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"My Watch is loud enough, but it crackles and the sound is distorted. For the first few weeks the sound was great, but after that the sound quality started to deteriorate and even the beeps sound thin and distorted," writes one user. Sometimes the sound is so bad that notifications are not even heard – Fortunately, the vibration function helps here. Another affected person wrote that they previously had an Apple Watch Series 4 and it was about "six times louder". Some users have already returned their device.
Speaker can play media
Apple has not yet commented on the problem. It is also not yet possible to say whether it is a hardware or software problem. The technical specifications of the watch state that the speaker is explicitly intended for media playback. If these are not audible, this is of course not what the inventor intended.
Affected users should first set the watch to swim mode and activate the water lock (via the Control Center). Then press and hold the digital crown to deactivate the mode and start the water ejection. This should at least remove any liquid from the speaker and can be repeated several times. You should also restart the watch. If the problem does not go away, the only option is to contact Apple support.
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