@gruber What do you think about the situation with Apple Watch battery repairs? My Apple Watch Series 7 is now at 87% health and starting to show deteriorating battery life. I looked into a battery replacement, and it's $99, which seems fair given the complexity of getting into the device. But then I found out two things: 1) They send you a refurb Apple Watch, not your original. 2) The refurb (because it's imported) has 02 saturation disabled.
This doesn't sit well with me. The part regarding a refurb is maybe my idiosyncrasies but I feel this is my watch that I've taken good care of, even if another happened to look identical it isn't the same piece of hardware I've owned for a couple of years now. I feel for $99 it's enough to actually do the work of tinkering with it to take the battery out and replace it rather than mass ship them all off to China for them to be refurbed en masse and to send me back a random one that sat on someone else's wrist for years—plus doing the repair on your own device avoids the 02 disablement issue.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from swingerofbirch@c.im
@swingerofbirch I feel the same way you do.
(a) I never by refurb products. It's arguably a mental block I should overcome, but I prefer brand-new.
(b) I too develop an affection for my own well-worn products. I would pay more to get my Series 7 battery replaced than I would to have it swapped for a refurb, even though I know Apple polishes and cleans refurbs to pristine appearance.
(c) Losing the O2 sensor, even if just temporarily while waiting for Apple to settle the lawsuit, sucks.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from gruber@mastodon.social
@swingerofbirch Are you sure though that the O2 sensor is disabled on refurb units that are swapped for repairs? I was under the impression that while the sensor is disabled for all newly-purchased watches, it's not true for repair swaps if the original had the sensor enabled. I'm going to check with Apple on this.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from gruber@mastodon.social
@gruber According to Reddit forums, if you're under AppleCare and get a battery replacement, they leave the 02 sensor activated, and if you pay for an out of warranty battery replacement, it's deactivated. I am not sure the reason for that. It seems to be consistently reported that way by users who have had replacements.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from swingerofbirch@c.im
@swingerofbirch I suspect you're right. Will let you know if I get confirmation.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from gruber@mastodon.social
@gruber I wonder if they have legal obligations under the original warranty and AppleCare to not reduce functionality and they brought enough refurbs stateside before the ban to handle repairs? And then outside of warranty/AppleCare it's more of a courtesy where they can set new terms that don't include not removing functionality. Would be my guess. A lot of work on their part if so to avoid paying a licensing fee. The way they've dragged this out, I have a feeling they're going to introduce their own new algorithm (maybe with watchOS 11?) rather than license, and I have concerns it might not be as good. Masimo is pretty much the gold standard in oximetry, and you might have to come up with something convoluted to work around whatever tech they've established. Anyhow, thanks for following up with Apple—neat that you're able to do that.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from swingerofbirch@c.im
@swingerofbirch OK, I sent a question to Apple PR asking about this. I know that if a watch that originally had the blood oxygen feature enabled goes in for service while still under warranty (or AppleCare+), the replacement unit will have the blood oxygen sensor enabled too.
I'm not sure about out-of-warranty replacements like with your and my Series 7 devices.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from gruber@mastodon.social This content has been proxied by September (ba2dc).Proxy Information
text/gemini