Your Apple Watch Won’t Turn On? 10 Quick And Easy Fixes!

No matter how impressive and useful your Apple Watch is, it is a piece of technology that is bound to give you headaches. From an unexpected battery drain to the frequent crashing of apps, the list of issues Apple Watch users are subjected to regularly can’t be summarized. In the worst of cases, there have been considerable instances when the Apple Watch won’t turn on!

If you too find yourself in such uncertain situations when pressing the side button won’t wake up your Apple Watch, you have landed in the right place. This comprehensive article will help you escape from such a situation. 

Read on as we discuss some of the best tried & tested fixes by which you can turn on your Apple Watch without having to visit the Apple store in the first place. But before jumping to the fixes, it is important to know the reason why your Apple Watch won’t turn on in the first place. So, let’s start with that first. 

5 Reasons Why Your Apple Watch Won’t Turn On Easily

There can be several reasons behind your Apple Watch not turning on smoothly as it should be, but the following are some of the most common reasons. 

1. Your Apple Watch is short of charge 

The first and most common reason behind the problem can be that the Watch is out of battery. Without enough juice, the Watch won’t turn on at any cost. Therefore, check your device if it is charged or not. If not, plug it into the charging outlet and recheck it after it gets charged enough.  

2. Your Watch has undergone water damage 

Although AppleCare covers several damages caused to their device, till now, it does not cover damages induced due to water. Surely some parts of your Apple Watch are water-resistant, but not all. Therefore, keep your device out of reach of the water as it can also cause your precious watch to refuse to wake up. 

3. Your charger or charging cable isn’t working properly

As mentioned in the beginning, not having enough juice is the most common reason why your Apple Watch won’t turn on. But what leads to this situation? It is a faulty charger and/or a different charging cable! Sometimes, it is the charging accessories that are the culprit behind no to nil charge in the Watch 

Thus, evaluate your charger and charging cable for any external damage or internal malfunctioning. Furthermore, it is recommended to avoid using ordinary chargers or non-Apple certified charging accessories to power up your Apple products. 

4. Your Apple Watch is frozen

Due to some glitch or outdated version of the operating system, your Watch might just freeze. You will see a black screen with no button working. This is another common reason why your Apple Watch won’t turn on.

5. Your Apple Watch is in Power Reserve or Theater Mode 

This also might be the case why your Watch isn’t coming to life. When you set your Apple Watch in Power Reserve mode or Theater mode, features cannot be used beyond the time. Your device seems to be off. The simple solution to get out of this is to press the side button and you are good to go.

Therefore, these were the common reasons why your Apple Watch simply won’t turn on. Surprisingly, no technical support is required to fix the above issues. You can fix all these at home, in the case of a charger, you might need to change it. 

Note: If there are any other reasons besides these, then, you might need the help of professionals. 

10 Quick Ways To Fix An Apple Watch That Won’t Turn On

Below are all the simple and useful fixes to turn on your Apple Watch. 

1. Charge your Apple Watch battery
2. Check your Apple charger and charging outlet
3. Check the charging cable 
4. Force restart your Apple Watch
5. Disable Power Reserve
6. Disable Theater Mode
7. Turn off Screen Curtain
8. Turn off VoiceOver
9. Erase Your Apple Watch and pair it with your iPhone Again
10. Contact Apple Watch Service and Repair

Let’s discuss each of these fixes in detail below. 

1. Charge your Apple Watch battery

As mentioned above, the most common reason is low battery. You can always try to charge your battery and check if the device is working now. You can check after 40 minutes of plugging as till then it must be charged enough to turn on. But after checking, you should keep it in charge for the next 90 minutes for a full charge.

2. Check your Apple charger and charging outlet

If you suspect your Watch is not charging at all, you should first inspect your charger. Check if the light of charging is appearing on the Watch or not. Also, along with this, there is a possibility that your charger might be perfect but there is an issue with the outlet you have plugged it into. It can be checked with the help of other chargers, if both (the Watch’s charger and other chargers) are not working, you need to switch to another electrical outlet. 

3. Check the charging cable 

If the charger and power outlet is working fine but still the green snake of death is not moving, the charging cable might not be performing its duty. To check if it is the cable at fault here, you can try charging your Apple Watch through another cable. If that works for you, immediately replace the charging cable you were using till now with a new one. 

4. Force restart your Apple Watch

This is the ultimate hack if you suspect your Apple Watch is frozen or not working properly. You can hard reset your Apple Watch by pressing the Digital Crown and side button simultaneously for 10-15 seconds.

Hold the buttons and release them when the Apple logo appears on the screen. The Watch will turn on again in a few seconds with the same Apple Logo on screen. 

Bonus Tip: You might need to press and hold the circular Digital Crown and side button for as long as 20 seconds if anything less does not work for you. 

5. Disable Power Reserve

The Power Reserve mode of Apple is another culprit behind your Watch not turning on. When enabled, you cannot use your Watch’s other features except for viewing the time.

Therefore, make sure this feature is disabled in your Apple Watch. To turn it off, you need to press the side button and hold it till you see the Apple logo on the screen. Once the logo is visible, it’s recommended to plug the Watch to charge. 

Note: If your Apple Watch’s battery level drops to 10%, you’ll be alerted about the same and asked if you’d want to use Power Reserve. If your Apple Watch’s battery level drops further, the Watch will automatically enter the Power Reserve mode. 

You’ll see a low battery icon ( ) appear next to the time. 

6. Disable Theater Mode

The Theater Mode of your Apple Watch also restricts a few features of the Watch. These include turning off audio alerts, disabling the raise to wake screen feature, and making your Walkie-Talkie status unavailable. Except for these, your Watch will function normally. 

If the Theater mode is preventing your device from turning on, you better disable it. To disable the Theater mode, touch and hold the bottom of the screen, swipe up to land on the Control Panel, and select the Theater mode option to disable it. Now, you can use all the features that this device has to offer.

7. Turn off Screen Curtain

There is a feature in the Apple Watch called Screen Curtain which when enabled, turns off the Apple Watch screen. It does not matter if the device is on or off. You can only use VoiceOver to navigate your Apple Watch. 

To turn this off, you need to open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Then, select General, choose Accessibility, and then, go to the VoiceOver option. In this, you’ll see the Screen Curtain feature. Tap on the toggle to turn that off.

8. Turn off VoiceOver

The above steps will only turn off the Screen Curtain feature which can again turn on due to the VoiceOver option. This is because the Screen Curtain turns on when the latter is turned on. Thus, we suggest turning off VoiceOver as well. 

To turn VoiceOver, follow these steps.

• Launch the Apple Watch app on your iPhone
• Go to General
• Under Accessibility, look for VoiceOver
• Tap on its toggle to turn it off

Now, check if you’re able to turn on your Watch. If the problem persists, try the next fix. 

9. Erase Your Apple Watch and pair it with your iPhone Again

In case there is some bug in your device, you can try erasing your Apple Watch data and pair it again with your iPhone. This hack will resolve any possible bug present in the software and make the Watch run smoothly like brand new. 

You can do this by following these simple steps. 

• Launch the Apple Watch App on your iPhone 
• Tap on the General option
• Scroll down to the bottom and select the Reset option
• Find the Erase all content and settings and tap on it 

And you are done. Once this process is done, you can again pair it with your iPhone.

10. Contact Apple Watch Service and Repair

This is the ultimate fix that can be used if none of the above fixes work. You can always contact Apple Watch Service and Repair and tell them your issue. They will help you out with the situation.

In most cases; you might not need to visit the center. But in exceptional cases, you might need to take your device to the center to get it fixed.

Bottom Line

So, here you go. The Apple Watch, just like other Apple products, is one of the most expensive things you can own. Thus, you would not like it to behave abnormally or worse, refuse to turn on.

Though it is common for an Apple Watch to not turn on, you should remember that it is equally straightforward to fix it. And this should have become clearer by now.

While trying the above hacks, don’t do any major harm to the Watch as it might worsen the situation. If even by using all these fixes, you can’t get your Watch to turn on, the last fix is the best go. You need to contact the Apple Watch Repair Center as soon as possible. It might cost you a little bit extra but it might be all worth it. 

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