Is anyone else experiencing extreme laggyness on the apple watch ultra 3 with voiceover?

By Edis, 20 June, 2026

Forum
watchOS and Apple Watch Apps

Hi guys,

2 days ago, I bought a brand new apple watch ultra 3.
I have now been using it for 2 days, and I am baffled by the extreme laggyness of the apple watch ultra 3.
I mean, when i turn the digital crown, it takes a second or so for voiceover to wake up.
When I swipe in the fitness app, it is just extremely slow an unresponsive.
Generally, the watch is very very sluggish.
Is anyone else experiencing this, or can it be a defect?

The watch is updated to the latest version.
i delete all non-essential apps that I don't need.
I turned off many background processes.

Sincerely,
Edis

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Comments

By Geovanni Bahena on Saturday, June 20, 2026 - 18:07

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Just curious, what voice are you using? I own an altra 3 and can't say I've experienced this.

By Edis on Saturday, June 20, 2026 - 18:54

As the comment says, I am using the male Siri voice.
I haven't tried switching, but maybe I should.
Which one do you use?

By Lielle Ben simon on Sunday, June 21, 2026 - 02:15

Hi, I've experienced it also with Apple Watch 8.
I boght an Apple Watch Series 11 and have no delay at all.

By Edis on Sunday, June 21, 2026 - 06:15

This apparently fixed it.
i don't know, but the start up process with this new apple watch hasn't been as smoothe as I could have hoped for.
And even still, I am now unsure about whether what I have now is normal for the ultra 3, or if it really is a problem with the watch and if I should try getting an exchange.

By Maldalain on Sunday, June 21, 2026 - 06:53

No issues on mine although it is all scratches and probably no longer supported by updates.

By mr grieves on Sunday, June 21, 2026 - 12:11

I think the voice can make a big difference - the decent quality voices may need more resources than the watch has. I've tried good quality Siri voices and premium voices and always had to revert and go back to something else. This is on the original Ultra though.

My watch has been all over the place recently - yesterday I tried switching Kate Enhanced for Stephanie enhanced and so far it is responding a lot better for some reason.

By Missy Hoppe on Sunday, June 21, 2026 - 23:41

Overall, I'm satisfied with my Apple Watch ultra 3, although it's got some issues I never had to deal with when I had the original AppleWatch ultra. The least serious, but most frustrating problem I have is that my watch refuses to use the same Siri American voice 4 that my iPhone 16 does. I remember my old watch being able to use the voice, but this watch has always used an older, lower quality version of the voice. For a while, I was trying to work with Apple support to get the issue resolved, but nothing we tried fixed it. I'd try resetting the watch to factory defaults and setting it up again, but I'm not sure what impact that would have on my e-sim with Cricket.
The only other issue I deal with more than I'd like is that for the last few software versions, my watch has just randomly started yelling notification center over and over, although that's been significantly reduced since I changed the wake time from 70 seconds to 15 seconds. The battery life has been very impressive. Vocalizer Nathan is the voice of my watch, and for the most part, I haven't noticed any significant lag.