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One thing I really look forward to each year (or two) is upgrading my iPhone to Apple’s latest model! I love checking out all the new features and capabilities of the latest model. But one thing I don’t look forward to is trying to get my older model Apple Watch paired with the new iPhone. Sometimes the process of transferring my Apple Watch from my old iPhone to my new one is seamless, but other times, it’s not! This article focuses on problems you might encounter when you experience issues pairing your older Apple Watch when upgrading to a new iPhone model. Related reading
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Before you start, the key is whether you still have your old iPhone or not. You need to follow a different series of steps if you don’t have your old iPhone with you versus if you do still have your old iPhone. Before you start, make sure of the following:
We assume you are starting with a new, fresh from the factory iPhone that you have not set up. If you see the “Hello” screen when you turn on your new iPhone, then it’s in its factory setting. If you already set up your new iPhone and you cannot pair it to your old Apple Watch, we suggest you factory reset your iPhone and go through these steps again. Upgrading to a new iPhone? Use Apple’s Prepare for new iPhone featureIf your old iPhone uses iOS15+, there’s an awesome checklist feature for iCloud called Prepare for New iPhone that automatically walks you through the steps of making sure everything is ready for when you get your new iPhone, including getting all your app data ready for transferring and checking your trade-in status. Plus, it works even if you don’t have a paid iCloud subscription or enough iCloud storage to back up all your important data! This feature gives you free and temporary access (about 2-3 weeks) to enough iCloud storage to seamlessly back up and transfer your old iPhone’s data to your new iPhone. This new feature makes switching from an old model to a new model even easier! Find Prepare for New iPhone in your iPhone’s Settings app
How to pair your Apple Watch with your new iPhone if you still have your old phone
Once this setup process completes, your Apple Watch should work with your new iPhone. Quick Start didn’t ask if you want to use your Apple Watch during setup?Open the Watch app on your iPhone with your Apple Watch and iPhone close together and still on their chargers.
During the pairing process, restore your Apple Watch from its recent backup. Or, if you want to start fresh, set it up as new. Is your Apple Watch not showing up on the new iPhone?If your watch isn’t showing up as paired to your new iPhone, check your old iPhone to see if it remains paired there. When it shows as still paired to your old phone, unpair the watch from the old iPhoneand manually pair it with your new iPhone using the Watch app. If that still doesn’t work, factory reset your Apple Watch via the watch’s Settings app > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. Then, unpair the watch from the old iPhone. This process erases all your watch’s data so you won’t have a recent backup. But you should be able to pair it with your new iPhone. If you continue to have problems with pairing to your new iPhone, it’s likely that the Apple Watch still has Apple’s Activation Lock turned on. In that case, try to turn off your watch’s Activation Lock remotely. Unfortunately, you must erase your Apple Watch to remove its activation lock.
How to pair your Apple Watch with your new iPhone if you don’t have your old phoneFirst, the good news: if you forgot or didn’t unpair your Watch from your old iPhone and no longer have the old iPhone or erased it back to factory settings, you can still get your Apple Watch paired and working with your new iPhone! Now the bad news: you need to erase your Apple Watch and won’t retain any of its data unless you have a backup already available. That includes your health and activity data.
Can’t pair with your Apple Watch on the new iPhone?If you erase your Apple Watch but cannot get it to pair with your new iPhone, or it doesn’t show up, it’s likely that the watch is still tied to your old iPhone and has Apple’s activation lock enabled. So we need to remove your watch’s Activation Lock remotely using Apple’s iCloud website.
Wrap upHopefully, you successfully paired your Apple Watch with your new iPhone using these troubleshooting tips. If things still aren’t working for you or if something else did the job, please let us know in our comments section. We love hearing from you and sharing what works with our readers. |