Am I an idiot or is backing up an Apple Watch weirdly confusing?

[Ghost31]

I got a blue series 6 in September. Decided nah I don’t like blue so I went and got a silver Nike again. When I went to set up my new new watch, it didn’t have a backup from anything newer than September? Why the heck is that? I always figured it was like iPhone and backs up nightly. But it said my last backup was in late September and if I wanted to restore from there. I didn’t because hell...I’ve made so many changes to my watch that it wouldn’t even be what I want now so I started as new.

how does Apple Watch back up work? Or am I just confused and misunderstanding something here?

 

[griss0r]

Back up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Learn how your Apple Watch data is backed up and what the backup includes.

support.apple.com

 

[Apple_Robert]

Since the watch backup is tied to your phone, make sure to make regular backups of your phone.

 

[axantas]

Out of my experience, you only get a "full" backup if you remove a watch from the phone.
Sometimes this is not working either. I have already gone trough several watches, the only backup I get on connecting a new watch is about 3 years old from a Series 3.

I honestly have given up that backup-thing. You get all data back (except the individual settings and the watchfaces), if you just set it up as new.

So: The idiot is not you, but the proces itself is idiot...

 

[Apple_Robert]

Out of my experience, you only get a "full" backup if you remove a watch from the phone.
Sometimes this is not working either. I have already gone trough several watches, the only backup I get on connecting a new watch is about 3 years old from a Series 3.

I honestly have given up that backup-thing. You get all data back (except the individual settings and the watchfaces), if you just set it up as new.

So: The idiot is not you, but the proces itself is idiot...

The process is definitely not intuitive or consistent. Apple should separate the watch backup process from the phone and allow users to create a separate iCloud backup From the watch.

 

[Klschmann]

The confusing part I found about this process is that you have to make sure any new watches have the same WatchOS as the device you are grabbing the back up from. For some reason during the set up process it does not prompt you to update your device (like it does with pretty much all other Apple devices). So you have to set up the watch, update, then set up from backup (unless there's something I'm missing here?) I found this out the hard way back in October when I set my new watch up multiple times looking for a back up that only showed up once they both were on the same version.

Not sure if that's the case here, but it may be!

 

[axantas]

The confusing part I found about this process is that you have to make sure any new watches have the same WatchOS as the device you are grabbing the back up from. For some reason during the set up process it does not prompt you to update your device (like it does with pretty much all other Apple devices). So you have to set up the watch, update, then set up from backup (unless there's something I'm missing here?) I found this out the hard way back in October when I set my new watch up multiple times looking for a back up that only showed up once they both were on the same version.

Not sure if that's the case here, but it may be!

...which is one more element in the inconsitency: Why do I see a usable backup from my old series 3 from 2018 and no backup of the recently de-connected series 5 with updated OS?