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Announced September 9th, 2014, this device is Apple's first foray into smart wearables. iFixit's repair manuals are applicable to Apple Watch (steel) and Apple Watch Sport (aluminum).

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Replacement Digitizer not working

Hi - I have an apple Watch 42mm with glass that is cracked all the way round the display. I have separated the Apple Watch display (LED / OLED) from the digitizer and glass, cleaned and all works well. However When I use a new Glass and digitizer it does not work. If i put the original cracked (Apple OEM) glass and digitizer back on it works fine. I thought it was a faulty digitizer so I ordered another one but the same thing happens. Any suggestions?

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Yes i would like to know how you seperated and also if these digitizer replacemnets will work? how did you join the digitizer back to the LCD?

in my experience in ipad repairs, when the digitizer does not work properly, its a damaged ribbon cable. You may be damaging the ribbon cable or you may need to ground the digitizer some how like how you put kapton tape around the edge of the ipad

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Hello! We have the same problem. We try connect about 10 digitizers from different suppliers. They all none work. When we connect original glass it work fine. Did you find some decision of this problem? Did you try to restore firmware after replace digitizer? Thank you!

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Hello,

Same problem with i tied about 5 digitizers none of them worked !

were you able to find out whats the issue . . . ?

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Hello,

I was also able to seperate the LCD and digitizer from my cracked apple watch.

After replacing the digitizer which i ordered from ebay, the watch didn't responding to any touch gestures.

I ordered and tried another digitizer, same result no response to the touch.

I did a lot of reading and concluded that the chip AD7166 which is present on the flex cable is a programmable chip. The chip which is soldered on the digitizers sold on ebay or other websites are not programmed.

Hence they don't work.

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So all aftermarket digitizers are useless? Will trying a complete digitizer and LCD unit even work?

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Hello all - I posted the original question and have to say I did not find a way to get it working. In the end the customer wanted the watch back and listed it on ebay as faulty with one of the new screens / digitizers fitted, meaning it looked nice but didn't work. I like the sound of the thought that the chip is not programmed on the replacements, I wonder if it's possible to transfer the chip over.. I'll have a look at the digitizer I bought and see if the chip can be transplanted. and update you.

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Thanks for the update. I've been trying to repair a Apple Watch for several weeks now and am very disappointed in the results. I ordered many screens from different vendors that swear they were "tested" and guaranteed to work but in the end the only digitizer that works in the watch is the old broken one. I'm thinking the only way is to swap over the entire flex cable, but doing that would require a special machine and even then it is hard to do.

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Separated the LCD from the broken digitizer no problem using heat and a thin card. LCD is stronger than you would think, you can then clean up the leftover adhesive on the LCD with rubbing alcohol .... alas though ive run into the same problem! Watch is working as normal but will not respond to touch from the new digitizer so is therefore useless. I wanted to do a factory reset to see if that would effect the hardware but of course unable to do so with no touch screen .... i am at a dead end!

It doesn't look as though the chip can be removed from the old one to be transplanted onto the new one but if anyone has success with that please keep us updated ... as will I!

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You have to restore it with a tool that connects to the diagnostic port of the Apple watch. You need the tool and firmware to do that.

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Where do you get those parts from?

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Hi i have the same problem with 2 new digitizers, BUT... one of them seems to be working as long as it doesn't touch the screen, once it's pushed into the screen display goes off and touch doesn't respond anymore. So this looks more like a digitizer ribbon problem.

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