The Apple Watch Series 10 has a bit of a speaker problem. A quick look at the Apple Support Community or the Apple Watch subreddit will show a lot of posts from users, some as far back as four months ago, stating that the speaker is too quiet. Affected users can hear neither phone calls nor music from the speaker after repeated use.
Apple hasn’t given an official statement regarding the problem, and it’s not clear how many people are affected. There are dozens of posts on forums about the problem, however, so it clearly isn’t limited to just a handful of people. Several posters reported buying a new Apple Watch 10, only for the same staticky, muffled sound to return within a week.
Several Apple Watch 10 wearers thought to use the Water Lock feature to remove any moisture from the device, thinking a few wayward drops were to blame. Other people suggested the cause could be hand lotions and other cosmetics as a result of the colder weather. Despite attempts at clearing the speaker, however, no users reported an improvement to the issue.
This isn’t the first time an Apple device has been hit by a widespread bug, and the company typically launches a service program to repair the issue. That’s only if the bug is hardware related, though. If this is a software problem, then Apple could theoretically correct it by releasing an update to watchOS. However, given user reports on the issue, it sounds like the root cause is somewhere in the hardware of the smartwatch itself.
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If you’re experiencing this problem, one solution that does seem to work is playing music and calls through AirPods or another Bluetooth device rather than relying on the onboard speaker.