Apple Watches can survive immersion in even salt water, up to certain depths.
A YouTuber who lost his Apple Watch while swimming and diving in the summer of 2022 has had it returned to him, thanks to the Find My feature.
Jared Brick of Brick House Media made a video in which he shared both the return of his Apple Watch and the backstory behind the recovery. He bought Apple Watches for himself and his son to stay in touch during a family trip to celebrate his son's 11th birthday.
The family traveled to the British Virgin Islands to do some scuba diving. Jared was using the watch to check time and track dives, including some going over 100 feet deep.
The Apple Watch is rated for underwater use for up to 50 meters, or 164 feet. The Watch performed as expected.
On the last day, Brick was swimming in an area called The Baths on Virgin Gorda, jumping off the boulders into the relatively shallow waters. Although a friend was recording the swim, it wasn't until some time later that he noticed he no longer had the Apple Watch on his wrist.
The Recovery
"I didnt realize it at the time, [I was] so distracted by the true beauty of that place," Brick said in his documentary video. Once he realized the loss, Brick got to another Apple device, and using Find My reported the Apple Watch as lost.
"The image of the beach map shows exactly where the watch was lost," Brick said. No longer being in the area, he gave up on going back to recover it. "I figured, well that's gone."
Eighteen months later, in December of 2023, Brick received a call from a local resident of the Virgin Gorda area. "Not only was the watch found at the same beach," Brick said, "but after charging it, the lost message popped up with my phone number, [so the man who found it] calls me and sends me the photo."
The man, named Jonathan, mailed the Watch back to Brick, who lives in Felton, California — not far from Apple's headquarters. After its time underwater in the ocean, it also survived the 3,600-mile return mail journey to its owner.
The Apple Watch arrived back to Brick in late April of 2024 — 22 months after he lost it. The video shows him opening the envelope and finding it in good working order.
"So big thank you to Jonathan in the Caribbean for finding it, contacting me, shipping it back to me ... and for Apple for making amazing technology that works," said Brick.
