Apple Watch displays the Red or Green snakes as part of a charger animation to communicate that the charging mechanism isn’t working as expected and the battery is fully drained. This scenario usually occurs if the Apple watch is discharged for a long time and you are trying to get it back on again.
Users will usually see this snake when:
- The watch was just bought from an Apple store. It is possible that the watch was sitting on the shelf for too long which caused all of its charge to drain.
- You haven’t used your watch in a while and its reserve charge is also drained.
- The battery of the watch is worn out and needs replacement. This scenario occurs very rarely.
Red Charging Snake
The Red charging indication (or Red snake of death) gets displayed when there is no charge left on your Apple watch. It prompts the user to plug the watch back into the charger.
This indication also occurs when you are already encountering the green charging indication and you take out your charger. Simply put, this image prompts the user to put the watch back on charge and displays that the watch is not getting charged.
If you have your watch plugged in, make sure all the connectors and wires are connected.
Related: Apple Watch keeps asking for Apple ID Password
Green Charging Snake
The Green charging indication (or the Green snake of death) means that the Apple Watch is charging but there isn’t enough charge for it to turn on.
Many users keep facing this screen even when they have charged their watch for more than 24 hours. The charging capacity of the watch doesn’t increase and stays on this green charging screen.
The ‘green screen of death’ got its name from its behavior; it doesn’t go away once this screen occurs. In this article, we will go through all the different ways through which you can remedy this issue on your own.
How To Fix Green And Red Snake of Death
We researched community forums, YouTube, and every other source there is. We came up with the best solutions and explained them in great detail. If you follow the solutions below, rest assured you will not face this error again.
Using an Apple Outlet Charger
The easiest workaround that works in the majority of cases is to make use of an Apple outlet charger instead of plugging in the Watch USB to your computer or a USB extension wire. If we use the Apple outlet charger, we are making sure the watch is getting the correct amount of electricity to charge.
This isn’t the case with other “USB outlets”. They usually provide low power which isn’t enough to charge the watch completely or make it come out of the loop. This is why it keeps going on in a loop.
It might work if your watch is already charged but you will face the green snake of death if you are trying to revive a completely dead watch.
Make sure that you keep your watch plugged into an outlet charger for at least 6 hours.
Change the Charging Wire of the Apple Watch
Another thing that we can try before moving on to more tedious solutions is to change the charging wire of your Apple watch. There are numerous cases where the magnetic wireless charging mechanism of the wire doesn’t work as expected which in turn doesn’t charge the watch.
A faulty charger can keep charging the watch but in reality, it wouldn’t be charging the battery. Try charging your watch with a wall-outlet charger with a new charging wire. See if this fixes the problem.
Again, make sure that you charge your watch for at least 6 hours.
Completely Discharging your Apple Watch
Another workaround that we can try is completely discharging the watch. Once the watch is discharged, you can plug it back into an outlet charger and wait for it to charge completely. By discharging, we are making sure that the watch completely resets its charging mechanism.
If the previous solutions don’t work, it probably means that the battery is in an error state. The easiest way to discharge your Apple Watch is to leave it without a charger. Every now and then, click the button to see if the indication is still there. You would know that the battery is completely discharged when the indication vanishes and nothing is displayed on the screen.
Do note that this can take more than a week if your Apple Watch has juice in it but is displaying the error message because of internal errors.
After the watch is discharged, plug it back into an outlet charger and wait for it to come to life.
Hard-Resetting the Watch
Another thing to try is to hard reset your Apple watch. By hard resetting, the watch is forced to restart all of its components and then reboot properly. You can do this while the watch is connected to a wall outlet charger.
- Press and hold the Crown and the Power button on the Apple watch for at least 10 seconds.
Apple Watch Restarting - Then release both buttons and wait for the screen to go black before it turns back on.
Keep plugging the watch into a charger and see if this does the trick for you.
The Plug-in Plug-out Approach
When nothing seems to work, there are some alternative workarounds you can try. A user reported that the plug-in plug-out approach worked. The steps are listed below.
- Disconnect the Apple Watch adapter from the current wall outlet and relocate it to a different outlet, preferably on another floor or in a separate building.
- Carefully place your Apple Watch on the charger. Initially, you should observe a green indicator light resembling a snake.
- Wait for about half an hour and check the charging status by gently pressing the side button without removing the watch from the charger. If you encounter the red snake symbol again and the watch becomes excessively hot
- In that case, you have to repeat step 1.
- Eventually, the green snake indicator should persist on your Apple Watch without transforming into the red one. At this point, the watch should also start cooling down, indicating a gradual trickle charge. Refrain from touching it during this period.
- Allow the watch to remain untouched for 10 hours. During this time, it should transition into its normal mode and commence regular charging, which might take an extended duration for the first time.
- Once the watch is fully charged and operational, consider performing a complete reset through its menu. This step can help reduce the likelihood of encountering the same error in the future.
We also fixed: Apple Watch keeps asking for Passcode
Contacting Apple Support
If none of the methods work, it probably means that the battery of your Apple Watch is dead or damaged. We tried all possible workarounds which should bring the battery back to life.
This scenario is common even in new models of the Apple watch including Series 6 & 7. If you have Apple Care active, your device will be taken care of. Otherwise, if it is a manufacturing fault, you might be eligible for a replacement as well.
Contact Apple Support and be prepared to provide additional information including your Apple ID on which the watch was logged on. Here is an article from Apple Support that further demonstrates this problem.
Prevention Guidelines
This can happen again in the future, and the next time, you might not be able to fix it. Whenever these errors occur, your battery health decreases, which causes permanent damage to your watch. Luckily, we came up with prevention guidelines that will make sure this does not happen in the future.
- Keep your Apple Watch charged. The Green & Red Snake of Death is often caused by a completely drained battery. Try to keep your Apple Watch charged above 50% at all times.
- Use the official Apple Watch charger. Third-party chargers may not be compatible with your Apple Watch and could cause problems.
- Avoid extreme temperatures. Exposing your Apple Watch to extreme heat or cold can damage the internal components and lead to software errors.
- Update your Apple Watch software. Apple regularly releases software updates that include bug fixes and security improvements. Make sure to install the latest updates as soon as they are available.
