Abstract:
Apple’s new generation Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 have only been on the market for a few days, and some users have reported random restart issues on their devices. Users described that the watch would suddenly display the Apple logo and restart during normal use, and some devices would even restart when they were idle. At least four users have shared complete system crash diagnostic logs, which show that the problem appears to be related to a timeout in the Apple Neural Engine.
The trigger scenarios reported by users are very diverse, including using Siri AI, editing watch faces, opening maps or App Store, making calls, and recording sports, etc. In some cases, users just operate the watch normally, and the device suddenly goes black and restarts. Some people say that they do nothing and the watch still restarts on its own.
The most noteworthy thing at present is the "panic-full" system diagnostic log provided by some users. At least 4 logs show highly similar Apple Neural Engine timeout records. According to these logs, the neural engine seems to be stuck for about two seconds during operation. Then the firmware watchdog mechanism determines that there is an exception in the system and triggers a kernel panic (kernel panic), eventually forcing the Apple Watch to restart.
This means that the problem may not be a common app crash, but involves the watch's underlying system. Apple Neural Engine is a dedicated hardware unit in Apple chips responsible for machine learning and AI calculations, and the new generation S11 chip equipped with Series 12 and Ultra 4 further enhances the device's AI processing capabilities. The new Apple Watch has also added more features that rely on machine learning and neural network calculations, so neural engine anomalies are particularly worthy of attention.
The devices currently experiencing problems include watches running the original watchOS 27.0 version, as well as devices after users downloaded and installed the first-day update during the first-time setup process. Therefore, simply installing the software update provided on the day of launch does not currently appear to completely prevent random reboots.
What's more noteworthy is that some users have tried to erase and reset the watch as a brand new device instead of restoring a backup from the old watch, but random reboots still occur. This reduces the likelihood that the problem is caused by backing up or migrating data from an old device.
An Apple Watch Series 12 user even said that he got a replacement device after problems with his original device, but the replacement device also suffered from the same Neural Engine panic. This also makes some users suspect that the problem may be related to the system software or hardware platform itself, rather than an occasional failure of a certain batch of individual devices.
So far, about 30 users have reported random restart issues in related threads on the MacRumors forum. At the same time, similar feedback also appeared on Reddit and Apple Community Support Forum, indicating that this phenomenon is not experienced by only a handful of users. However, due to the lack of official statistics, it is not possible to determine how many devices are actually affected by the problem, nor to determine the failure rate.
Some forum users also began to try to find specific triggering conditions. Some users suspect that the new Siri Modular watch face may be related to random restarts, because some users who are experiencing problems are using this watch face. However, other users have also restarted when using different watch faces, so there is currently not enough evidence to prove that a certain watch face is the source of the problem.
Judging from user feedback, exercise recording does not seem to be a clear trigger. Some users did not restart during exercise, but suddenly encountered problems during daily use; others crashed at completely random times. Therefore, it seems that the problem does not have a single usage scenario that has been identified.
It is worth noting that Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 are the new generation of smart watches launched by Apple this year. Both products use the S11 chip and introduce a new health sensing system, higher frequency heart rate and heart rate variability monitoring, more accurate step tracking, and new AI-related functions. Series 12 starts at $399, and Ultra 4 starts at $799, and will be officially launched on September 18.
This random restart issue occurred in the first few days after the new product was launched, so it is still unclear whether it is a software bug in watchOS 27, or whether it is related to the specific combination between the S11 chip and the neural engine hardware. If it is ultimately confirmed to be a system software problem, Apple can theoretically solve it through subsequent watchOS updates; if the underlying hardware is involved, further investigation into the device itself may be required.
As of now, Apple has not publicly acknowledged that Apple Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4 has this random restart problem, nor has it announced an official solution. Since multiple system diagnostic logs pointing to the same Neural Engine timeout have appeared, whether Apple will fix this problem through watchOS 27.1 or other updates will become the focus of users' attention.
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