There’s no point in stealing a smartwatch if its password protected and you can’t get in. Not only does that make it so that you can’t access the personal information on the device, anyone you try to sell it to will know its stolen. That’s why it’s such a big deal that people have found a way to easily reset an Apple Watch to factory settings even without a password, as it makes an incredibly important piece of protection pretty much useless.
Hold on to your Apple Watch, because if you lose it, you may never see it again. With the introduction of iOS 7, Apple rolled out a new feature called Activation Lock to iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices that prevented a thief or malicious person (or a prankster) from wiping your device and resetting it back to factory condition. This one feature has been very effective in reducing iPhone and iPad thefts since most people won’t want to buy an iPhone or iPad that’s locked and clearly belongs to someone else. It has also made recovering a lost iOS device much easier since it also prevents anyone from disabling the Find My iPhone feature without knowing the user’s iCloud password. However, it turns out that the Apple Watch has no such protection mechanism, making it easy for anyone to wipe it and return it to factory condition, and then pass it off to an unsuspecting third-party. Here’s a video showing just how quick and easy this is to pull off.
