Several Apple Watch Series 4 Wearers Complain About Screen Defects And Uneven Brightness

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Many Apple Watch Series 4 users complained about a defect regarding the uneven brightness levels on their Apple Watch. This consists of the screen getting unusually darker or lighter in some areas, fading and the screen being darker than usual. This only happens on 1 in every 10 Apple Watches distributed to the market and it is a fairly common defect.

OLED display defects on the Apple Watch Series 4 OLED involves the display to malfunction, causing unusual changes to the screen when viewing your watch in a dark environment, for example, a dark room or in an overpass. The symptoms of the defect include the brightness being lower than usual (even on the brightest setting), dark, faded spots on the screen, light bleeding and the display fading to black. Apple Watch brightness issues affect 1 in every 10 watches, which are mostly the aluminum 40mm and 44mm models that have an Ion-X Glass display. On the other hand, this issue only arises when the screen is improperly connected in the manufacturing process or by the handling/shipping conditions of the Apple Watch.

If your Apple Watch Series 4 is affected with this display defect, don’t freak out. We have the solutions and tips to resolve and prevent this problem from happening again.

Set The Brightness Of Your Apple Watch To The Lowest Setting 

Has your Apple Watch ever showed the screen bleeding lighter color on the edges and they disrupt you from talking to Siri? The only software trick to this defect is setting the brightness levels to the lowest setting on your Apple Watch’s display. This allows the abnormal OLED pixels to settle down and turn themselves off in the display, enabling a clearer image on the screen. Although this feature may only reduce the bright spots when brighter colored full-screen watch faces are in use, such as the Nike Apple Watch faces. This solution also has greater benefits of preserving the battery life of your Apple Watch as well. If you don’t like setting the brightness levels down, then you are in for a screen replacement.

Take Your Apple Watch to Your Local Apple Store

This defect is a common hardware problem in the Apple Watch Series 4, so it is recommended to take your Apple Watch to the Genius Bar at your local Apple Store for further evaluation. The Genius will check out your watch, then recommend you for repair and mail your watch to a separate, local Apple Repair Centre for replacement. This repair service is free of charge as long the warranty period isn’t over.

You can start the repair process by getting a Genius Bar appointment scheduled online, in person at your nearby Apple Store, upon referral by an AppleCare advisor or calling your local Apple Store. Make sure to back up your watch and unpair it from your iPhone before you hand it over to the Genius and check in when you arrive at the store. You may be required to take your Apple Watch charger, AppleCare coverage statement and/or invoice for your Apple Watch for proof of purchase.

Conclusion 

The defects of the OLED displays on the Apple Watch Series 4 models affects in a ratio of 1:10 users, which most of the users are owning aluminum models. Stainless steel Series 4 users have not yet experienced this issue as the sapphire crystal screen is clearer than its Ion-X Glass counterparts. Thus, the issue affects from improper placement of the screen in the manufacture process and conditions in shipping, manufacturing, and handling. These solutions will resolve this problem and lessen the severity of the defect. We hope Apple will launch a repair program for Apple Watch Series 4 displays once the cases have been further evaluated by the users affected by this defect.