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Over the past several days, but really more the past several weeks, there\u2019s been an uptick of COROS watches dying (bricking) after being updated to the latest COROS watch firmware that was released in mid-May. For most users, the death isn\u2019t immediate, but rather seems to occur some amount of time later (days or weeks), often resulting in the watch failing to turn on. For whatever reason, this has come to a head in the last 7 days, primarily on Reddit. All of which has resulted in COROS\u2019s CEO posting numerous times on the platform to try and mitigate the growing fallout.<\/p>\n
I figured I\u2019d run through what\u2019s going on, separating a bit of reality from internet chatter (as best as possible), and then most critically what COROS has been (or not been) doing about it. I see this post mostly as a historical placeholder type post, similar to the one I wrote about when Garmin hosed all their watches a year ago<\/a>. However, for some users running into the issue, it might shine light on something they didn\u2019t realize was a bigger problem than just their own.<\/p>\n With that, let\u2019s get into it.<\/p>\n The Bricking Issue:<\/strong><\/p>\n According to those with impacted watches, watches will fail to start (called \u2018Bricking\u2019\/\u2018Bricked\u2019) at an undetermined time period after the May update. In some cases, that\u2019s immediately following the update, but in most cases it appears to be some days later, and sometimes seems vaguely tied to a massive drop in battery life. There seems to be a vague trend to the Digital Crown not working<\/a> just before death<\/a>, but not always. The watch tends to also perform erratically, and then basically just dies.<\/p>\n Then it comes to the model, it is varied, but COROS says it\u2019s primarily impacting models that are 2-4 years old, and the COROS Pace 3 seems to be most impacted. But they also noted that\u2019s somewhat of a numbers coincidence, because it\u2019s also the most popular watch they\u2019ve sold \u2013 thus will logically have more people report issues than a less popular model.<\/p>\n Basically, once your watch has bricked in this particular way, there\u2019s no undo button. No method to roll-back a firmware update, or even get the watch to a state to do such an operation if it were offered. The watch is useless.<\/p>\n While I\u2019ll get into the full COROS response in just a second, I figure this particular snippet is worthwhile including, from COROS:<\/p>\n \u201cFrom what our software and hardware engineers can tell, there is no single issue that is stemming from a firmware update that has lead to an increase in device failures.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I\u2019d translate this line as roughly one of two ways:<\/p>\n A) There are a few things in this update that are breaking watches But let\u2019s set the cause aside for a second and determine whether or not this is a widespread issue. Or, how widespread if so. COROS\u2019s official account noted in a Reddit thread the following<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cIn the past 72 hours, our customer service team has responded to over 100 customer support tickets reporting issues about their watch becoming defective after an update and offered replacements for any device failures on this topic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s in addition to a previous statement made by their CEO<\/a> a day or two prior stating:<\/p>\n \u201cMore than 99.9% of firmware updates are completed successfully. We have millions of devices in the field, and while we\u2019ve seen more discussion of hardware failures recently, the actual number of reported hardware defect cases remains consistent with historical trends.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This little tidbit sounds good at first glance (and by most industry standards, it is), but it ultimately gets to what people often refer to as the YouTube Experiment problem: 1% of a million is still a really big number. YouTube will often run variations\/tests of new features<\/a> on a \u2018small\u2019 portion of the population. It might be 0.1% or 2%, or such. Which at first sounds small, until you remember that 1% of ~3 billion users is\u2026checks notes\u202630 million people.<\/p>\n So, in the case of \u201cmillions\u201d of users as COROS notes, that\u2019d mean that (using 2 million), that 0.1% of 2 million is 2,000 people. Thus, in reality, the 100 customer support tickets is actually *smaller* than the number of potentially broken folks (some might have broken earlier, some the update failed for a minor\/unrelated reason, etc\u2026).<\/p>\n But flipped around, 100 people posting individual threads to Reddit about their watches dying quickly becomes a tsunami. However, even with that noted, looking through all the threads, we\u2019re talking low dozens of dead device threads in total on the COROS forum over the past 4 weeks (some of them quite seemingly related, some of them very much not).<\/p>\n So let\u2019s talk about what COROS\u2019s response has been.<\/p>\n The COROS Response:<\/strong><\/p>\n COROS did not get off to a good start here, to say the least. Part of the \u2018challenge\u2019 is that COROS relies very heavily on AI chatbots as the front-line of customer support interaction. And it seems those AI chatbots are anything but helpful in these situations, with countless customers reporting toilet-swirling interactions that led nowhere, with no resolution or help from a real human (or an AI bot \u00a0helping, for that matter).<\/p>\n Adding insult to injury, for the few that did eventually manage to battle their way through to a real human, COROS offered between a 10-20% discount on a new watch (in some cases, repair, if the country supported a repair program). So in effect, a person:<\/p>\n A) Had their perfectly functional watch die after the update As you can imagine, the internet was (rightfully) not happy about this.<\/p>\n To COROS\u2019s (minor) credit here, when people (over the last 4 weeks) did post to Reddit with tales of their lack of AI-chatbot assistance, COROS tended to request the ticket number, and seemed to solve it behind the scenes for folks (albeit, most times that was just giving them a 10%-20% discount).<\/p>\n Finally, though, earlier this week as the COROS Reddit forum became overwhelmed with discussions about this (of which I\u2019d note, the vast majority were not even people having issues with their own watch, just speculative threads), COROS\u2019s CEO finally stepped in with a post, saying<\/a>:<\/p>\n Hi everyone,<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n My name is Lewis, co-founder and CEO of COROS Wearables.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I recently created this Reddit account because I\u2019ve been spending more time reading discussions here, and I wanted to be more directly involved in conversations with the community.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n One thing I\u2019ve noticed over the past few weeks is that we\u2019ve seen a higher-than-normal number of support tickets involving issues reported after recent software updates. If you\u2019ve been affected, I completely understand the frustration. Software updates are supposed to improve your experience, not create new concerns. Please submit support tickets so our team can look into your cases.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Our team has been actively investigating every case. So far, we\u2019re seeing that these reports do not indicate a widespread software quality issue. If there were a systemic software defect, we would expect to see large numbers of users on the same model experiencing the same problem. Instead, what we\u2019re seeing are isolated cases. While every case matters, the number of affected users remains very small compared to our global user base of several million users.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We\u2019re reviewing each case individually to understand the root cause and determine the right solution. In many instances, software updates appear to expose or accelerate underlying hardware issues that may already exist, rather than creating entirely new problems. Regardless of the cause, we take every report seriously and are committed to finding the right resolution for affected users.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n More importantly, I wanted this account to be a place for open conversation. Whether you have questions about products, software, training features, company decisions, future plans, or things we could be doing better, feel free to ask below. I\u2019ll do my best to answer as many questions as I can.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I can\u2019t promise I\u2019ll have every answer, but I can promise I\u2019ll read all the posts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Umm, this post did not go over terribly well, with over 197 comments, many of which weren\u2019t super positive. Most people basically wanted to see some real numbers here, rather than a lot of hand-waving.<\/p>\n COROS did eventually respond again, which we\u2019ll get to in a second. But I\u2019ll point out two semi-conflicting things:<\/p>\n A) COROS seems to really struggle with how to deal with large-scale watch failures. This isn\u2019t the first time. There have been two different battery-related issues the company has had to deal with, and both times they\u2019ve been slow to respond. The same goes for the entire security fiasco exactly one year<\/a> ago next week.<\/p>\n B) Inversely, there\u2019s virtually no other large-scale sports tech firm where the CEO will get on Reddit and respond to customers individually, at all times of the day. Wahoo, probably, back in the day under founder Chip Hawkins, but definitely not anymore. So, credit where credit is due, even if the company as a whole has been slow to respond.<\/p>\n Anyway, fast forward four more days of beatings (\u2026\u2018The beatings will continue until morale improves\u2019), and COROS has posted a new thread again<\/a>, with a message that basically says \u201cif your watch is broken, we\u2019ll replace it\u201d:<\/p>\n Hey all!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We want to take some time to share updates and regarding the increase in defective watches reported in this sub recently and give a single thread where anyone can get immediate help.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n First and foremost, we want to reiterate our apology for any inconvenience this may have caused in everyday life, training, racing, or simply trust in the brand. As a brand and community, we always want to place emphasis on our users and your critical feedback, hence giving this subreddit the time it deserves, and occasionally that comes with issues popping up in the process.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For anyone who has written into support via the COROS app:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the past 72 hours, our customer service team has responded to over 100 customer support tickets reporting issues about their watch becoming defective after an update and offered replacements for any device failures on this topic.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For any of you who have recently written into COROS Support about your watch becoming unusable after a recent update, but were not contacted, please feel free to comment your ticket numbers here if you found the support offered by our team was unsatisfactory.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the future, if you are experiencing any critical hardware issue that prevents your watch from being functional, please reach out to COROS support with the keywords \u201ccritical hardware failure\u201d and our system will escalate it for you.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Again, we apologize for any lack of communication or confusion that arose on this topic. We are confident that any users experiencing issues with their device after a firmware update will receive the proper level of support and an immediate solution. As always, feel free to send us a Direct Message or comment with any questions or ticket numbers that can be managed by the appropriate team and thank you again!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I reconfirmed with COROS via e-mail thread that yes, if a device dies after this update, they will replace it. Here\u2019s the exact quote:<\/p>\n \u201cAlso correct \u2013 for anyone that reaches out and has had a device failure after a recent firmware update we are replacing those devices.\u201d \u2013 Darian Allberry, Head of Product Marketing and Support \u2013 June 17th, 2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n At this point, it\u2019s hard to argue with the end result of the situation, even if the path to get here was trying (at best). I\u2019d like to see COROS rely less on the AI chatbot, or, have more oversight into those conversations behind the scenes. Some companies have leveraged AI chatbots super well (for example my Oura experience last fall<\/a>), but most struggle to make it a good experience for customers. It seems the bar for success is \u201cDid it save the company money?\u201d, rather than \u201cDid it save the consumer time?\u201d. Companies might be surprised you can pull off both at once\u2026sometimes.<\/p>\n COROS\u2019s response in the last day has finally shifted towards one of acceptance and offering clear-cut solutions to impacted users. But one thing that has stood out throughout this is the seemingly off-ratio number of comments, relative to supposed actual number of impacted users. One of the challenges with the internet, of course, is bad actors. And in the case of product related bits, companies that engage in bots and bot-like paid troll behavior. These companies will essentially spun up (and buy in bulk) hundreds to thousands of accounts, and sprinkle comments across the internet with negative points about their competitors.<\/p>\n As one whose job it is to sift through these comments every day (primarily on YouTube and here on the site), I\u2019ve regrettably become pretty good at figuring out real person\/comment, from \u2018fake\u2019 comment. The days of simply having an existing profile account that spans a few years doesn\u2019t mean much (these are just purchased en mass, trivially). And inversely, simply complaining about a product doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a fake comment. Instead, you tend to see specific patterns in exactly what the issue is.<\/p>\n For example, you often see identical or nearly identical comments (a couple words changed), but from multiple accounts\/profiles. But that\u2019s the easiest form to pick out (easy for me, but hard for other users to see). You tend to see heavy usage of LLM\u2019s (AI) in these comments, and wording that often doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense. There\u2019s a core difference between someone simply translating into English (from another language), and using an LLM to generate a wordy comment.<\/p>\n In looking at a silly number of Reddit posts the last few days, it\u2019s clear *a portion* of that is coming from fake accounts. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the majority however, but it\u2019s clearly a portion (I would guess 10-15%). I\u2019d almost certainly guess the source of these comments is another watch company from China, as that\u2019d fit the bill for what I see across my channels. I\u2019ve not seen any evidence that Garmin\/Suunto\/Polar\/Apple\/etc are paying for this type of activity. One has to remember that in China, from a business perspective, this type of behavior is entirely normal and accepted as part of \u201cjust doing business\u201d. A conversation point I\u2019ve had numerous times with companies from China, which they will readily admit to. They simply see it as just another part of their marketing (even if most other companies see it as smear campaigns).<\/p>\n And remember that post-stirring is a *key* part of this strategy. Meaning, fake accounts often will insert unrelated negative issues, simply to increase the total comment count, even if it doesn\u2019t have anything to do with the issue at hand.<\/p>\n Finally, I will note that so-called fanboyism comments tend to be distinctly different from fake account comments, specifically in that 90% of the time when you reply to a fanboyism comment, the fanboy will engage in debate (often stupid debate, but debate nonetheless). Whereas approximately 0% of the time when you engage with fake accounts, will they reply. The scale is just not worth it for automated and managed accounts to reply to discussions.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have a solution here for this, there really is none (short of requiring ID or credit cards to post on the internet, which I don\u2019t think anyone really wants). Otherwise, just note that it exists here in smartwatches, as it does in any other portion of the internet.<\/p>\n Wrap-Up:<\/strong><\/p>\n With COROS now saying they\u2019ll swap out watches that die due to the update, I don\u2019t see any reason not to update your watch. I\u2019ve gone around and updated every COROS each I have in my \u2018COROS Watch\u2019 bin<\/a>, and none have died yet. Though admittedly, it\u2019d probably take a number of days, and on top of that, it\u2019d require me to be part of the sub-0.1% crowd that gets sideswiped. I think most of us would take the 99.9% odds that the device will be fine, versus not.<\/p>\n Plus, like it or not, watches do indeed die for all sorts of unrelated reasons all the time. That\u2019s just a fact of life for any product, obviously, the symptoms here for at least a set portion of the population did seem pretty similar (Digital Crown dying, erratic behavior, high battery burn, then failure to turn on).<\/p>\n With that, thanks for reading, I\u2019m off to go ride my bike and swim. Have a good weekend!<\/p>\n FOUND THIS POST USEFUL? SUPPORT THE SITE!<\/p>\n Hopefully, you found this post useful. The website is really a labor of love, so please consider becoming a DC RAINMAKER Supporter<\/a>. This gets you an ad-free experience, and access to our (mostly) bi-monthly behind-the-scenes video series of \u201cShed Talkin\u2019<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Support DCRainMaker – Shop\u00a0on\u00a0Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n Otherwise, perhaps consider using the below link if shopping on Amazon<\/a>. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn\u2019t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. It could simply be buying toilet paper<\/a>, or this pizza oven<\/a> we use and love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past several days, but really more the past several weeks, there\u2019s been an uptick of COROS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[258],"tags":[59573,18,282,19,17,82],"class_list":["post-541535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-coros","tag-eire","tag-gadgets","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116770981863837725","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/COROSPace3HR.jpg\" "\\"COROSPace3HR.jpg\\"")
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B) We have no idea why this update is breaking watches this way<\/p>\n\n
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B) Spent a dumb amount of time battling with an AI bot
C) Eventually was told to buy a COROS watch for a near-negligible discount (especially notable when you consider Amazon\u2019s Prime Day sales next week will offer huge discounts on lots of watches)<\/p>\n\n
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