Apple Tells How to Unstick a Sticky Digital Crown on an Apple Watch

Apple Tells How to Unstick a Sticky Digital Crown on an Apple Watch

Is your Digital Crown on your Apple Watch, um, sticky? Don’t worry, there’s a fix for that. Apple has posted a support document to aid in remedying growing complaints of Apple Watches with Digital Crowns becoming stuck, or offering more resistance than usual.

Apple Tells How to Unstick a Sticky Digital Crown on an Apple Watch

Apple points to dirt or debris, such as lotion or dust as the culprit for the Apple Watch “sticky wickets” that are being reported to them.

Here’s Apple’s remedy, and it looks to be a simple as 1, 2, 3. (And 4 and 5.)

If the Digital Crown gets stuck or won’t move, it might be because of dirt or debris. If you find substances like dust or lotion around the Digital Crown, follow these steps to clean, and repeat as needed:

  1. Turn off your Apple Watch and remove it from the charger.
  2. If you have a leather band, remove it from your Apple Watch.
  3. Hold the Digital Crown under lightly running, warm, fresh water from a faucet for 10 to 15 seconds. Soaps and other cleaning products shouldn’t be used.
  4. Continuously turn and press the Digital Crown as water runs over the small gap between the crown and the housing.
  5. Dry your Apple Watch with a non-abrasive, lint-free cleaning cloth.

If you’re one of those users who can rotate and press-in just fine on the Digital Crown, but your Watch isn’t responding, Apple recommends a restart or a force restart. You can find out how to do that in our handy article from last week, found here.