There has been a lot of progress in the quickly-growing domain of wearables in the recent past, specially the smartwatches. A number of competing devices were announced this year from LG, Motorola and Samsung, with Google’s Android Wear platform at their core.
LG’s pricey offering for the category—the G Watch—was announced in March and was made available for public in July, but the early adopters faced a peculiar problem with the models they received. It was reported that the charging pins at the bottom of the watch started to corrode as they came in contact with the skin, most likely due to sweaty wrists. Unfortunately it did not stop there, and some wearers even reported, alongside the obvious irritation and discomfort, some minor rashes and burns. When some of such users complained to LG customer service, the reps reportedly did not take any action, calling the issue non-serious and very rare.
But now, it seems that LG is ready to send out a software fix. How a software fix could solve a hardware problem seems a little dubious but a likely explanation has been provided by LG who were able to pinpoint the problem’s cause. According to the company, the charging pins of G Watch corroded when they came in contact with sweat because there is certain amount of current being provided to them even when the device is not charging, hence grime accumulated over the conducting pins as a result of reaction. LG’s software fix will stop that current flow through the conducting pins when the device is unplugged, as noted by an LG official:
“Recently it has come to our attention that a small number of G Watch devices have been reported to have developed discoloration and residue buildup on the terminal pins located on the back. While completely safe and unlikely to affect charging, LG will be rolling out a maintenance release over the next few days that will disable the current when the G Watch is not in the charging dock. The maintenance release will be rolled out automatically over-the-air to all G Watch owners. We thank G Watch users for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
While it all adds up on paper, we hope that it works for G Watch users in real-life as well!
–Sources: Ariel Ruff, Android Police
