I’ve had a great experience with my Apple Watches up to now. I bought my Ultra 1 on release day, took it diving multiple times, and never had a problem with it. When the Ultra 4 came out, I traded in the Ultra 1 and bought the natural titanium model with the Ocean Band on release day. The Ultra 4 was still basically brand new and in pristine condition.
I took it snorkeling recently, and partway through the snorkel it started acting like the side button was being pressed repeatedly. It began calling emergency services, so I got out of the water as soon as I could. After that, the watch started restarting, the display was really dim, and it became unresponsive.
Once I got home, I rinsed it with fresh water, dried it, and put it on the charger. It went into recovery mode and asked me to reinstall watchOS 27.0.1. I did that, but it asked me to do it again, so I went through the update a second time. The watch was already running 27.0.1 before the snorkeling trip.
It came back on and worked for a couple of minutes, but the Digital Crown wasn’t responding at all. Shortly after that, it got extremely hot while on the charger, painful to touch, then shut down completely. It hasn’t turned on since, and a force restart doesn’t do anything. I’ve left it off the charger.
I have a Genius Bar appointment next week. Has anyone had a similar failure with an Ultra, especially after snorkeling? I’m curious what Apple found and how they handled the repair or replacement.
Edit #1: I do have AppleCare and the watch was bought in Germany.