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Apple Watch 3 doesn’t like hospital visits

Some Apple Watch 3 owners are reporting their device has a tendency to randomly reboot when inside a hospital. This is a particular problem for those who work in such environments. A few have even gone as far as replacing their device thinking it was an issue with the Watch itself.

Apple Support Forums are littered with complaints from frustrated users asking how to resolve the problem. It seems the issue is only affecting last generation of the smartwatch (both the cellular and non-cellular version), and mostly when in vicinity of a ICU (Intensive Care Unit). One can only assume that its internal smarts are interfering with hospital equipment.

Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets 

Rebooting the phone and the watch and installing the latest firmware update does not resolve the issue. Nor does switching the device to Airplane mode, although it does seem to help. That stops the Apple Watch from receiving alerts, though.

The Cupertino outfit notes the following safety information in its Apple Watch User Guide.

Medical device interference  Apple Watch contains components and radios that emit electromagnetic fields. Apple Watch, some of the bands, the Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Cable, the Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Case, and the Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Dock contain magnets. These electromagnetic fields and magnets may interfere with pacemakers, defibrillators, or other medical devices…”

The Guide mentions nothing about random reboots, however.

It’s strange that the issue appears only on Apple Watch 3, and not its predecessors. Apple has not issued a comment yet, but we are guessing the problem will be resolved via a forthcoming software update.

Source: 9to5Mac

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Ivan Jovin

Ivan has been a tech journalist for over 7 years now, covering all kinds of technology issues. He is the guy who gets to dive deep into the latest wearable tech news.

One thought on “Apple Watch 3 doesn’t like hospital visits

  • I am also facing the same issue which is very annoying whenever I go inside hospitals it starts rebooting then Apple Tech Support to know why it is happening then they told about some technical issue and gave the suggestion to update the version to solve the problem and yes after updating this issue got solved.

    Reply

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