Can a broken watch face be repaired
Apple Watch Service and Repair
Make an appointment at an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Store
Arrange to mail your product directly to Apple
Talk to an Apple Support Advisor
We can service the battery in your Apple Watch for a fee. Our warranty doesnt cover batteries that wear down from normal use.
Your product is eligible for battery service at no additional cost if you have AppleCare+ and your product's battery holds less than 80% of its original capacity.
If the glass on your Apple Watch gets damaged, we can service it for a fee. Accidental damage isn't covered by the Apple warranty.
Damaged glass is eligible for applicable coverage for accidental damage from handling with your AppleCare+ plan.
If you have Apple Watch Ultra and want to check that its depth gauge and seals are working properly, you can get a Depth and Water Seal Test from Apple for a fee.
Well charge the test fee if the device is not covered by the Limited Warranty or any applicable consumer protection laws or regulations.
Use our Get an Estimate tool to review potential costs if you get service directly from Apple. If you go to another service provider, they can set their own fees, so ask them for an estimate. For service covered by AppleCare+, your fee per incident will be the same regardless of which service provider you choose. We'll inspect your product when we receive it. If additional damage is found, you could pay an additional fee.
Hardware service may no longer be available for some older products.
See obsolete and vintage products
All fees are in US dollars and are subject to tax. A shipping fee will be added if we need to ship your Apple Watch.
Your country or region offers AppleCare+ for this product. All AppleCare+ plans include battery service coverage, which means your battery can be replaced at no charge if we test your product and its battery retains less than 80% of its original capacity.
AppleCare+ also provides coverage for accidental damage from handling, and each incident is subject to a service fee. Your AppleCare+ also offers Express Replacement Service.
The Apple Limited Warranty covers your Apple Watch and the Apple-branded accessories that come in the box with your product against manufacturing issues from the date you bought them. The warranty period varies by model. Apple-branded accessories purchased separately are covered by the Apple Limited Warranty for Accessories. This includes additional bands, chargers, or adapters. Our warranty is in addition to rights provided by consumer law.
Depending on the issue, you might have coverage with the applicable Apple warranty, AppleCare+, or consumer law.
If your situation isnt covered, youll pay a fee. If the issue with your Apple Watch is ineligible for service, you might pay the full replacement value.
We guarantee our service, including replacement parts, for 90 days or the remaining term of your Apple warranty or AppleCare plan, whichever is longer. This is in addition to your rights provided by consumer law.
Replacement equipment that Apple provides as part of the repair or replacement service may contain new or previously used genuine Apple parts that have been tested and pass Apple functional requirements.
How to repair or replace a broken Apple Watch
Apple Watches are sturdy but not invincible, and they have been (occasionally) getting broken almost since the wearable first launched. But cheer up: if your Apple Watch has got scratched, cracked, smashed or water-damaged, theres hope for getting it repaired or replaced. In this article we help you through that process.
Screen damage is probably the most common problem; other owners find the back plate comes off or complain about poor battery life. And for issues with unresponsive rather than physically damaged Apple Watches, you should read How to fix an Apple Watch thats not working.
If you eventually give up on getting a free repair and decide to just buy a replacement, make sure you first read our Apple Watch buying guide and our roundup of the best Apple Watch deals.
Apple Watch screen damage
The Apple Watchs screen shouldnt break easily because the glass is strengthened. Cheaper models (any with an aluminium case) have a watch face made of Ion-X glass, while the stainless steel models (plus any of the old Apple Watch Edition models made of gold or ceramic) feature a sapphire crystal front, which is supposed to be the hardest glass known to man.
Sure enough, the sapphire models seem to be coping better with the wear and tear of daily life as a high-end wearable, with slight scratching about the worst weve seen among normal usage scenarios. (That doesnt mean your Apple Watch Edition wont shatter tomorrow, of course, but the chances seem to be in your favour.) The Ion-X models, on the other hand, have been documented in quite a few cases as sustaining more visible damage: smashed glass and the like.
We mentioned normal usage scenarios just then, and you might be wondering what abnormal usage might look like. Well, how about the drop-tests run by TechRax on YouTube? They found that the Apple Watch will smash if you throw it face-down at the floor. Which answers that question if you were wondering.
Should you smash your Apple Watch screen, whether or not you were hurling it at the floor at the time, it seems in principle to be fairly easy to replace the screen very shortly after the launch iFixIt took the watch apart and found that the screen was easy to remove and replace. See below for more information about iFixIts tests.
Mind you, its possible that it may not be as easily scratched as some reports have suggested. In a video (embedded below) Consumer Reports was only able to scratch the Apple Watch Sport screen after some pretty extreme efforts, and the site claimed they couldnt scratch the sapphire screen on the stainless steel Apple Watch at all.
Interested in the best equipment for repairs? Read Best tools for repairing & upgrading Macs & iPhones.
If your watch has got damaged, you may wish to jump ahead to our section How to get Apple to replace a broken Apple Watch.
Strap damage
As well as damage to the all-important watch face, the stainless steel Milanese loop strap has been cited as a possible weak link: youll observe that it appears slightly scuffed up in the picture below.
This isnt all that surprising, because stainless steel can scratch quite easily. And at least the Apple Watchs straps are easily replaceable. (See our roundup of the best Apple Watch straps for advice on that front.)
In any case, this YouTube video suggests that you can fix any scratches on the Milanese loop strap using a stainless steel polish you can pick up in a hardware store.
Is it possible to repair it yourself?
iFixit rapidly took the Apple Watch apart to see how easy it would be to fix if anything went wrong with it, and the news was mixed. While the screen is simple to remove and replace, repairs to other component parts may be distinctly problematic.
iFixit said: Despite rumours (and hopes) of an upgradable product, the difficulty of removing the S1 alone casts serious doubt on the idea of simply swapping out the internals.
As for whether the Apple Watch will be upgradable in the future, iFixit says: Stripping out the internals will be difficult and time-consuming not the sort of thing your local Genius is equipped to handle, but we suppose Apple could provide a mail-order option.
Overall, iFixit gives the Apple Watch a repairability score of 5 out of 10, noting that at least the watch band is easily removed and swapped for a replacement; the screen can be removed (which is good news for anyone who has already smashed theirs) and the battery can also be removed quite easily.
However, iFixit notes that removing components is essentially impossible as they are soldered onto the back of the S1 and this fully encased S1 system makes board-level repairs impossible.
If your watch has got damaged and you dont feel able to repair it, you may wish to jump ahead to our section How to get Apple to replace a broken Apple Watch.
Water damage
As we discuss in our article Is the Apple Watch waterproof?, the water-resistance of your device depends on which model youve got.
The Series 2, 3 and 4 have a water resistance rating of 50 metres under ISO standard 22810:2010. Its fine to wear them in the bath or shower, and for shallow-water swimming. The company does warn, however, that these models should not be used for scuba diving, waterskiing or other activities involving high-velocity water or submersion below shallow depth.
The first-gen Apple Watch and the Series 1 are a less clear-cut case. While Apple doesnt recommend submerging these devices in water, many owners have discovered that they are water-resistant to a certain extent. (The original Apple Watch actually has an IPX7 rating, which means it can withstand up to 30 minutes of submersion in up to a metre of water.)
What to do if your Apple Watch gets water-damaged
If you have problems with a water-damaged Apple Watch, the best thing to do would be to follow our tips for drying out a water-damaged iPhone.
In our tests with the iPhone we got the phone very wet and then used various methods to dry it out, from the famous Rice Trick to a slightly more scientific use of gel sachets. The uncooked rice should absorb the moisture effectively but may get dust or detritus into exposed ports, whereas silica gel packets the kind that come with some electronic components, particularly if theyve been shipped from a country with a humid climate, or with handbags do a fine job over a number of hours.
Give your watch a few days in its pile of rice or gel sachets for a few days and then see how it fares.
If these tricks dont succeed, you may wish to jump ahead to next section How to get Apple to replace a broken Apple Watch.
Getting it repaired or replaced
If there is a genuine fault with your Apple Watch perhaps the battery doesnt charge properly, or the screen glitches this will be covered by the warranty and Apple will replace the watch, as long as you can prove you havent tampered with it. Your watch will be covered by a warranty for one year. Contact Apple and theyll see you right.
Note that Apple may not replace your damaged Apple Watch with the same model and this is actually good news. The company announced, for example, that in some cases and some countries, its staff would replace first-gen Apple Watches with Series 1 models, a newer and more advanced device with a faster processor. Weve not heard of the offer being repeated for newer models a busted Series 2 being replaced by a Series 3, for instance but you never know your luck.
Even if the warranty has expired you may still be able to get Apple to help for free. If the back plate has separated from the body of a first-gen Apple Watch, for example this appears to be a known potential issue with that model then the company will repair the device free of charge up to three years after the initial purchase.
You dont get anything for nothing, though, so ordinarily we wouldnt expect Apple to replace a damaged Apple Watch that youve dropped just as nobody should expect Apple to replace their iPhone if they break the screen through their own carelessness. Read How to get a broken iPhone repaired for more advice.
Legal rights & precedents
What if a scratch or crack appears and youre sure you didnt drop the watch or do anything reckless? Will Apple believe you?
A court case offers some hope here. Mr Gareth Cross, a British man from Aberystwyth, took Apple to the small claims court after the company wouldnt replace or refund his cracked Apple Watch. (They said the damage wasnt covered under warranty.) The court found in his favour and required Apple to pay Mr Cross the cost of the watch plus court fees.
Whether you want to go through the same legal process is debatable: as Mr Cross himself acknowledged, the case became a little stressful and lasted six months. But its possible that the precedent this sets will make Apple more inclined to offer refunds and repairs in future. We shall see.
AppleCare
In any case, if youre particularly clumsy, you can buy insurance from Apple that will cover your Apple Watch if it does get damaged. We discuss AppleCare in this article: Is AppleCare worth it? To see what you legal rights are, read Is Apple mis-selling AppleCare to UK?
AppleCare+ cover for the Apple Watch starts at 59. The plan will extend the watch warranty to two years and grant you up to two accidental damage claims (although if you do damage your watch you will have to pay an excess).
In the US Apple also has three AppleCare+ plans thatll cover both your Watch and your iPhone, presuming your phone is less than six months old. Unfortunately such plans are not available in the UK.
