Some owners of the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 say their devices are unexpectedly restarting during normal use. Several diagnostic logs shared by users point to a possible Apple Neural Engine timeout that causes the watch to crash and reboot.

Reports have appeared across Reddit and Apple Community Support since the latest models became available. Users describe seeing the Apple logo appear without warning while using Siri, changing watch faces, opening Maps or the App Store, starting phone calls, and recording workouts. Some owners say their watches also restarted while they appeared to be idle.

Diagnostic logs point to Neural Engine timeouts

At least four owners have shared “panic-full” diagnostic logs showing what appears to be the same failure pattern. In those logs, the Apple Neural Engine reportedly stops responding for about two seconds. A firmware watchdog then triggers a kernel panic, forcing the watch to restart.

The reports suggest the issue may involve the software or firmware used by both new watch models rather than a problem limited to a single unit. However, diagnostic logs shared by users do not establish the full cause, and Apple has not confirmed that the Neural Engine is responsible.

Reboots continue after setup and replacement attempts

Owners have described the restarts on both the original watchOS 27.0 software and the update installed during initial device setup. Some users say the problem continued after erasing the watch and configuring it as a new device, which makes a corrupted backup a less likely explanation in those cases.

One Apple Watch Series 12 owner also reported that a replacement unit experienced the same type of Neural Engine-related panic. That account does not prove replacement devices are broadly affected, but it indicates that swapping hardware has not resolved every reported case.

What affected owners can do

Users experiencing repeated restarts can preserve the diagnostic reports generated by their watches and share them with Apple Support. Keeping the watch and paired iPhone updated may also be useful if Apple releases a software fix, although no fix has been announced in the available information.

Reports have also been posted on Reddit and Apple Community Support, suggesting the problem is not isolated to a single user. The number and circumstances of the incidents remain difficult to verify independently, and Apple has not publicly acknowledged the issue.

For now, owners should note what they were doing when a reboot occurred and whether the watch restarted during idle periods. Those details, along with the panic logs, could help determine whether the failures share a common software trigger.