I usually wear my S5 Ceramic one a week, if I need/want to dress up, battery health is at 85% it, but having 2 is kind of pointless at the moment, I got the second one of impulse……maybe it’s time to sell the one and keep the other, still definitely my favorite Apple Watch.
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S5 Ceramic Owners
- Thread starter garethjs
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I have exactly the same. I keep one S5 Ceramic as a collectors items. It is my iPhone 1 if you like. Love wearing my opened S5 not he weekends and on holiday etc.
For those of you with close to 80% battery life, and hoping to get it sent in for service before Apple obsoletes the watch, perhaps upgrading to WatchOS 10 will do the trick. Mine was at 81% health...and after the upgrade, it dropped to 78% health, so I started a battery service this evening.
I had to enter my card info, and was charged $79 + shipping and tax. I have no issues with that; if I can get a refurb Ceramic S5 back with a new, healthy battery that's worth it to me.
Update: received my replacement S5 ceramic watch; promptly put it on the charger for a few hours, then attempted to pair it. Pairing succeeds, but promptly asks for a software update, then I receive an error message that the update failed because I am not connected to the internet.
I've spent 2 hours on the phone with Apple this morning, and finally they simply said I have to take the watch to an Apple store for an appointment. Apple chat support (and the two reps I talked to on the phone) were pretty worthless, frankly. One told me to just update the watch over wifi. When I asked how you are to update a watch that has never been paired, or even get it to join a wifi network if it has not been paired, he told me that he would have to check this out.
I'm guessing whatever version of watchOS on this is so old that there are some compatability issue with my phone (iOS 17, iPhone 13 Pro) and it just fails. I've read plenty of tips and things to try online (reset network settings on phone, have phone on a 2.4 wifi network, reboot phone, reboot watch, etc).
I've spent 2 hours on the phone with Apple this morning, and finally they simply said I have to take the watch to an Apple store for an appointment. Apple chat support (and the two reps I talked to on the phone) were pretty worthless, frankly. One told me to just update the watch over wifi. When I asked how you are to update a watch that has never been paired, or even get it to join a wifi network if it has not been paired, he told me that he would have to check this out.
I'm guessing whatever version of watchOS on this is so old that there are some compatability issue with my phone (iOS 17, iPhone 13 Pro) and it just fails. I've read plenty of tips and things to try online (reset network settings on phone, have phone on a 2.4 wifi network, reboot phone, reboot watch, etc).
Im down to 82% and counting lol. I purchased a 40mm for someone as a fun investment and they said they didn't like it too much. They are no longer my friend... LOL
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I have had this problem crop up, too, on watches that need Updating after being shipped from the repair center. Make sure there are no other network intensive processes running on the iPhone. No updates, no VPN, even see what other traffic is on your router (kids gaming) and attempt to minimize it. And here’s the trick. Once it identifies the update, wait ten minutes before selecting it to proceed. My sense is the handshaking that goes on with the watch in those first moments it is pairing suffocates the capacity of the watch to identify the available internet. These are just steps to simultaneously minimize that contention on the iPhone and the watch. Good luck!
Thanks, but I'm not getting any chance to even select an update. Within 10 seconds or so after telling the watch app on the phone to proceed with the update, I get the error message that I'm not connected to the internet.
No VPN on the phone; not using the built in Apple vpn in iCloud, no kids gaming here, fiber gig internet with 4 access points in the house, yada.
I wasn’t clear. My bad. After the option to choose the update appears, DON’T hit it immediately. Wait ten minutes.Grab a beer or a glass of wine. What you want to do is give it maximum time to do the handshaking of pairing. I said ten minutes, but it’s really as long as you can without the pairing resetting. Maddening stuff, I know. But I just got my S5 Ceramic 2 weeks ago and faced similar updating.
Update, again.
I took my wife's old iPhone 13, wiped it, set it up as new (running iOS 16 whatever) and tried. Nothing.
I then remembered an iPhone 8 around here that I had used as an iPod. Fired it up, and it was running iOS 15.7
Now, it has no sim card---I put it on my 2.4 wifi, launched the watch app...and success---it's installing watchos 6.3
Once that is done, I'll wipe the watch and see if having 6.3 on it will make a difference with my iPhone 13.
So, scorecard:
-3 different iphones; finally works on an 6 year old iPhone 8 running a 2 year old OS
-2 different wifi networks at two locations, both on 2.4
-2 hours spent with Apple support this morning (and a service visit scheduled for Sunday afternoon)
And we still don't know if it will pair and update on an iPhone running iOS 17. More to come.
I took my wife's old iPhone 13, wiped it, set it up as new (running iOS 16 whatever) and tried. Nothing.
I then remembered an iPhone 8 around here that I had used as an iPod. Fired it up, and it was running iOS 15.7
Now, it has no sim card---I put it on my 2.4 wifi, launched the watch app...and success---it's installing watchos 6.3
Once that is done, I'll wipe the watch and see if having 6.3 on it will make a difference with my iPhone 13.
So, scorecard:
-3 different iphones; finally works on an 6 year old iPhone 8 running a 2 year old OS
-2 different wifi networks at two locations, both on 2.4
-2 hours spent with Apple support this morning (and a service visit scheduled for Sunday afternoon)
And we still don't know if it will pair and update on an iPhone running iOS 17. More to come.
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At last.
Picking up from last night; the watch paired to the iPhone 8, and updated to watchOS 6.3. The watch then promptly asked for an update to watchOS 8.8.1, so I let that go. I have no idea when it finally copied over to the watch, as I went to bed with it showing 6 hours remaining.
This morning, I told the old phone to go ahead with the install, which it did. So, the watch is now on 8.8.1.
I brought it with me to work, laid it on a charger, and took out my iPhone 13. The phone detected the watch, paired, and prompted me to install watchOS 10.0.1, so I let it do its thing. Took around 2 hours to download the 2.2 GB (!) file to the watch, then the install.
After the install, pairing continued....and here we are. It only took 3 different iPhones, 2 hours on the phone, and I can now cancel the store appointment for this Sunday.
Oh, observation; the wifi network here at work is a 2.4/5 ghz network. One of the caveats from a suggestion on this thread and elsewhere was to ensure the phone was on a 2.4 only network in order to pair and update successfully. Interestingly, the watch had no issues going from 8.8.1 to 10.0.1 on this network; however the watch would not update at all prior to last night with my iPhone 13 no matter what kind of wifi I was on.
Also, I don't know the age of this battery in the replacement watch, but the health was 100%
Carry on everyone.
Picking up from last night; the watch paired to the iPhone 8, and updated to watchOS 6.3. The watch then promptly asked for an update to watchOS 8.8.1, so I let that go. I have no idea when it finally copied over to the watch, as I went to bed with it showing 6 hours remaining.
This morning, I told the old phone to go ahead with the install, which it did. So, the watch is now on 8.8.1.
I brought it with me to work, laid it on a charger, and took out my iPhone 13. The phone detected the watch, paired, and prompted me to install watchOS 10.0.1, so I let it do its thing. Took around 2 hours to download the 2.2 GB (!) file to the watch, then the install.
After the install, pairing continued....and here we are. It only took 3 different iPhones, 2 hours on the phone, and I can now cancel the store appointment for this Sunday.
Oh, observation; the wifi network here at work is a 2.4/5 ghz network. One of the caveats from a suggestion on this thread and elsewhere was to ensure the phone was on a 2.4 only network in order to pair and update successfully. Interestingly, the watch had no issues going from 8.8.1 to 10.0.1 on this network; however the watch would not update at all prior to last night with my iPhone 13 no matter what kind of wifi I was on.
Also, I don't know the age of this battery in the replacement watch, but the health was 100%
Carry on everyone.
I have no problem wearing my S5 Ceramic from time to time.
It‘s just a bit slower and the battery life is subpar in comparison to the newer models, even though it‘s still at 100% capacity (but that’s a thing of all S5 models). The smaller display is also a bit old school by now but the look of the white case makes up for all that easily.
Hard to say how long it will get OS updates of course.
I usually wear my Ceramic in the evenings just to wear it, also if I go out and want to dress up, still my favorite watch, thankfully Apple only allows 5 watches, any more than that would be hard to rotate between all of them.
I wish they would allow 10. I have a beater alu S4 for yard work, a black stainless S6 and a blue S7 that I can't wear because I'm at the limit of 5 now.
Yeah, I have a problem.
A S5 Ceramic is a collector. As mentioned, it is technically a bit behind the newest models, the screen isn't as nice, but the pure beauty of its case makes up for it. It's a joy to behold and a joy to wear, but you have to be really into Apple Watches to want to own one (on top of your regular AW that is). The Ceramic might set you back as much as a much newer aluminum AW but it will bring you another kind of joy.
.... and yes, I definitely have a watch (and band!) problem 😅🤣
I surely am into Apple Watches, got like 30 og bands 🫣 I bought a S5 ceramic on ebay for 450$, looks like its in mint condition, apart from the battery, which will be another 100$ i think. I‘ll keep you updated - I am very excited to have a completely white work attire🤩