caution: watchOS 4 bricked my 1st gen

[jtkboston]

I attempted to update my Apple Watch Sport (1st Gen) last night, via my iPhone 7 (VZW). I started the process and let them run mostly unobserved.

After a bunch of work including some progress indicators and a restart, the net result was the red exclamation point, failed update, nonfunctioning watch, and a referral to www.apple.com/help/watch

Made an appointment for them to call me for service, the technician had me try a few things to get it working and to find clues to a root cause, but nothing got the watch back working again. Unpairing failed, data likely lost, but that's not a huge deal for me thankfully.

I had to take the watch into a store. They've sent it out to their off-site location for servicing/inspection.

 

[fischersd]

I know it sucks to be without your watch, but don't sweat it - in this circumstance (even though you may be out of warranty) Apple should be good about getting you fixed up at no charge.

There's always a bunch of people that hit an interesting "corner case" with each release and brick their watches. Not your fault.

 

[jtkboston]

I know it sucks to be without your watch, but don't sweat it - in this circumstance (even though you may be out of warranty) Apple should be good about getting you fixed up at no charge.

Yes, they did agree to service it free of charge outside of warranty. Annoying and frustrating first world problem not having it. Funny story, I almost missed my turn in the stand-by line for the Genius Bar because I didn't have my watch tapping me and it was so loud in the store that I couldn't hear the phone sound.

Anybody know how widespread this update failure might be?

 

[fischersd]

Yes, they did agree to service it free of charge outside of warranty. Annoying and frustrating first world problem not having it. Funny story, I almost missed my turn in the stand-by line for the Genius Bar because I didn't have my watch tapping me and it was so loud in the store that I couldn't hear the phone sound.

Anybody know how widespread this update failure might be?

Heh...it better be pretty damn rare. The beta's are supposed to catch cases like this. It could have been a number of things that caused it. Hopefully there's decent logs on the watch so they can determine root cause and effect a fix in an upcoming release.

 

[MPclk2006]

Yes, they did agree to service it free of charge outside of warranty. Annoying and frustrating first world problem not having it. Funny story, I almost missed my turn in the stand-by line for the Genius Bar because I didn't have my watch tapping me and it was so loud in the store that I couldn't hear the phone sound.

Anybody know how widespread this update failure might be?

Just happened to my watch yesterday too. Waiting for package to send in for repairs.

 

[Otflyer]

Just happened to my watch yesterday too. Waiting for package to send in for repairs.

Is you watch a 1st gen?