I am 100% sure that no one else on Earth or anywhere else gives even the slightest shit about my AppleWatch struggles, but here I am writing about it again because this is my page and what I say goes, dig?

Pardon my paraphrasing Fonzie.

I wasn’t really aware of it at the time, but my heroic Series 5 has been becoming more and more difficult to charge over the last few weeks. It was only over the last few days that jiggling the charger cable stopped being the fix for the issue. The real problem became when I would see it start to charge, stop looking at it, go back to it an hour later and see that it didn’t charge at all. Looking more closely at it on Saturday it became clear that it was just screwing with me. It said it was charging but it would then stop charging within seconds of connecting. Well that sucks.

Yesterday before work I was unable to get it to connect at all. The battery was below 20% and I gave up. My plan was to wait for my vaccine shots and then take it to the Apple store. 0.68 seconds later I was opening a chat window with Apple Tech Support. I unpaired it from my iPhone during that chat so that they could open up a ticket and send me a box to ship it back to them. That was about 8:30AM or so yesterday. FedEx just dropped off the box. Thanks!

It was during the unpairing process, while pondering an indefinite amount of time without my watch, that I started thinking of alternatives. I actually took a cheap pocket watch that I bought at the souvenir shop at Kennedy Space Center out of my desk but the battery was dead and I can’t figure out how to pop it open to replace it. Then I thought to myself… where did my old AppleWatch go? It went into my bureau, that’s where. It was stone dead, of course, so I threw it on the charger. After a while my phone started asking to pair with it. Done! Well, eventually. The pairing process takes a while. When that was done I checked for OS updates and started the loooong process of installing over a year’s worth of updates. That was further delayed by having to wait until the battery was over 50% before it would load. I think the whole process took more than three hours.

It’s all done now, and my Series 3 is on my wrist as I type this. Some things that I noticed… The text is a lot smaller. The watch face template I’ve been using for a year or so isn’t an option. Weirdest of all, the Covid-19 inspired hand washing sensor isn’t available either. Oh! I just realized the DB meter isn’t there either.

Tonight, after work, I have to go to my parent’s house to pick up a load of laundry. While I’m out I will drop my Series 5 into a FedEx drop box and get that process rolling along. How long will I be living in the past with my Series 3? Unknown. Will I get my watch back or will they replace it? Unknown.

Does it matter?

No, don’t be stupid. It’s just a watch!

(insert Robert in a fetal position, shivering, longing for the safe return of his dumb watch here. Friggin Apple fanboy)

Addendum: I keep saying that I’ve had the Series 5 for over a year, but I think it might have only been 10 months. I’m not sure. I could look it up but… lazy.