The red lightning bolt on your Apple Watch signifies a charging issue. When your watch can’t maintain a charge or charge up to a minimum level, it displays this icon.
Why Your Apple Watch Is Displaying a Red Lighting Bolt
Several factors might lead to this issue:
- Battery Depletion: If the watch hasn’t been charged for a long time, the battery might have depleted to a point where it needs a substantial initial charge to power up.
- Charging Equipment: Faulty or incompatible charging cables, bricks, or connections could hinder proper charging.
- New Watch or Storage Period: A brand-new Apple Watch or one that has been stored for an extended duration might have a completely drained battery.
How To Fix Apple Watch Not Charging Red Lightning Bolt
If you encounter the red lightning bolt issue with your Apple Watch, try these troubleshooting steps.
1. Forced Reboot
- Press and hold both the Digital Crown and the side button for about 10 seconds until the Apple logo appears. This often resolves the issue.
2. Try Different Charger
- Use an alternate charging cable and brick to rule out issues with the equipment. We recommend this Magnetic Fast Charging Cable.
3. Charging Techniques
- Charge your Apple Watch for an extended period—overnight or for several hours—to allow the battery to reach a sufficient charge level.
- Ensure you’re using a full, compatible charger rather than, for example, a MacBook charger.
4. Replace Faulty Equipment
- If changing the charging cable or brick helps, consider replacing faulty equipment.
5. Disable Power Reserve Mode
To preserve battery life, Apple Watch offers Power Reserve mode that lets users view time while disabling other features.
How to turn off Power Reserve mode:
- Press and hold the side button. Keep holding until you see the Apple Logo.
- Wait for your Apple Watch to restart.
In summary, the red lightning bolt icon on your Apple Watch is not a cause for concern. It simply indicates that the device needs to be charged or that it is in Power Reserve mode.
I just got my Apple Watch I can’t get t to charge
My Apple Watch won’t charge either no green light It is two days old
My Apple Watch show the time and red lightning bolt, I try doing the reset but it isn’t responding to anything.
How can I fix this problem?
My red lightning bolt and time would show when pressing side button, but no charging would occur on charger. Would stay red. Finally, I thought “maybe my charger doesn’t work.” So I used a new one and boom, immediately back to working, turned green and charged. Your charger is probably broken! Trust me! Good luck!
Easy just put your watch on charge, when its charged a bit all will be back to normal!
I have had my watch for a couple months and today when I went to put it on the charger I got the red lightning bolt and green time. I put the watch on the charger and tried looking up the issue. As I had no results with charging,I have reset the watch. The phone indicated that the watch isn’t connected to it and the watch has been charging for several hours.
Put on charger. The bolt went from red to green and off. Is it chargeing?
My apple watch is showing a red apple, it also blinking off and on. It will not charge also. I went on the apple website and their instructions didn’t help either.
My apple watch shows time and red lightning bolt tried to reset it but it won’t respond what seems to be the issue I even tried to swipe up on the Apple watch but it will not even let me swipe so I can open up the control.
Apple Watch is showing a red lightning bolt and won’t respond to anything and it beeps
Make sure you are charging your watch, if it’s charging it will have a green lighting bolt. It will restart after it’s fully charged.
Nobody answered these questions is probably broken
I had the same issue with red lightening bolt and time. Had it on charge and still no go. Then realised as so many on here said, the charger was not fully in. Lightening bolt went green and watch restarted after a few minutes