The screen on your Apple watch telling you to turn the Digital Crown to unlock and eject water, then you’ve probably wondered why the feature exists. Well, it’s called water lock, and it’s exclusive to the Apple watch since it’s designed to be used while swimming and showering, but there are some issues with constantly submerging electronic device under water, first, touch screens don’t behave as expected when wet, since water dissipates the electrical conduction of your finger, plus the touchscreen has a hard time differentiating between water droplets in your finger so in order to prevent usability issues issues while wet, the Apple Watch automatically lock the display when it detects moisture.
But there’s another issue caused by water and it has to do with the speakers, since they’re the only opening in the Apple Watch’s exterior, water can easily accumulate and cause damage especially if the watch is being submerged on a daily basis. So to prevent any long-term issues, Apple created the water eject feature which plays a deep oscillating tone through the speakers to force out any remaining water, it does this when you rotate the Digital Crown, telling the watch that you finished swimming or showering. Now, water lock usually turns on automatically so you don’t even know to think about it, and you can tell when it’s on by the small water drop icon at the top of the display. But in some cases you may want to enable it manually, which you can do by going to Control Center and tapping the water drop button. Now even though the Apple Watch is water-resistant, it isn’t waterproof, so you want to avoid soaking it in water that’s been combined with powerful soaps or solutions. Like dishwashing liquid or car washing soap. These powerful chemicals can deteriorate the Apple watches seals overtime, possibly leading to water damage all those swimming in chlorine and wearing it during a quick shower is okay.
This article is inspired by a video in Apple Explained YouTube channel.
