Apple Watch No Longer "Pairs" with iPhone after setting up new iPhone

[dave3x]

Just got my iPhone 11 Pro a few hours ago and did an iCloud and iTunes backup of my old phone, Xs Max. I also unpaired my S4 Apple Watch, since I thought that was the correct way to go about it, so I could re-pair with the new phone. Once I got everything setup, when I am looking in the Health app on my iPhone under devices, I see "this apple watch is no longer paired with this iphone". I see what I guess is my "old" watch, which isn't really an old watch, I guess it's the backup or something that carried over from the iCloud backup.. anyhow, the device that says "this apple watch is no longer paired with this iphone" seems
to be the one that is tracking activity, the other one isn't tracking anything now.

I had this same issue when I was running the WatchOS and iOS Betas, and chalked it up to it being that -- I ended up using another watch, which had 5.x whatever on it with iOS 13 and it paired and showed just fine, meaning it didn't show the "this apple watch is no longer paired with this iphone" message. I've found some old threads on Apple's forums but none seem to help.

I've unpaired and re-paired the watch and it still shows the "this apple watch is no longer paired with this iphone". Any ideas how to fix this? I am posting to both the iOS 13 forum and WatchOS for maximum exposure, since I'm not sure which OS is the cause, if either. If anyone can help me figure it out I'd appreciate it. Thanks. BTW I am running stock iOS 13.0, not the 13.1 beta.

 

[Shirasaki]

Whatever you see is actually caused by design: every time you pair your “not old” Apple Watch again to your phone, all data recorded before pairing is stored but the device is no longer the same from Health app perspective. I think it has something to do with device identifier, which gets a refresh every time you reset your watch. It’s true, it looks very clunky and messy, but it does not matter other functionality too much.

If you tap the “Apple Watch” or the name of your Apple Watch, you will eventually find one that does not have that error message.

This image will give you an idea how it works.

 

[dave3x]

Whatever you see is actually caused by design: every time you pair your “not old” Apple Watch again to your phone, all data recorded before pairing is stored but the device is no longer the same from Health app perspective. I think it has something to do with device identifier, which gets a refresh every time you reset your watch. It’s true, it looks very clunky and messy, but it does not matter other functionality too much.

If you tap the “Apple Watch” or the name of your Apple Watch, you will eventually find one that does not have that error message.

This image will give you an idea how it works.

All I have/had was the one watch, and it never showed the "not paired" message, it did show previous activity, etc, but no longer recorded any moving forward, only the "this watch is no longer paired" watch would continue/start to track activity, etc. The one that doesn't have that error message is the only other one, and that one is no longer tracking activity, etc, *only* the one that says it's no longer paired is the one that's now tracking activity. I've deleted both from the Health app as well to test, and once the health app starts getting data from the watch it re-creates the one that says that it's no longer paired, and that's the only one that tracks activity now.

 

[Shirasaki]

All I have/had was the one watch, and it never showed the "not paired" message, it did show previous activity, etc, but no longer recorded any moving forward, only the "this watch is no longer paired" watch would continue/start to track activity, etc.

ok, if you go back to device list, and keep tapping each Apple Watch, you should eventually find one that does not have this error message and shows the latest activity data. Unless your watch no longer records any activity data, in which case, there is something wrong.

Could you see your latest data when he king the summary page of health app?

 

[dave3x]

ok, if you go back to device list, and keep tapping each Apple Watch, you should eventually find one that does not have this error message and shows the latest activity data. Unless your watch no longer records any activity data, in which case, there is something wrong.

Could you see your latest data when he king the summary page of health app?

Two devices showed before I removed them in the health app, both the same name, etc. One had no error messages, or otherwise, and also had "no data", the 2nd one did have data, as it had tracked my steps, heart rate, etc. for the 5 minutes prior, and it was/is the one that says "this watch is no longer paired with this iPhone". The one with no error message is no longer tracking anything, only the one that says its no longer paired. The few threads I've found of others having this same exact issue, have pretty much never gotten any responses, so I was hoping maybe posting here would garner some help.

 

[Shirasaki]

Two devices showed before I removed them in the health app, both the same name, etc. One had no error messages, or otherwise, and also had "no data", the 2nd one did have data, as it had tracked my steps, heart rate, etc. for the 5 minutes prior, and it was/is the one that says "this watch is no longer paired with this iPhone". The one with no error message is no longer tracking anything, only the one that says its no longer paired. The few threads I've found of others having this same exact issue, have pretty much never gotten any responses, so I was hoping maybe posting here would garner some help.

Interesting. Maybe this is an iOS and watchOS issue that might get fixed in the future. Idk.

Sorry that I can’t help much.
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Two devices showed before I removed them in the health app, both the same name, etc. One had no error messages, or otherwise, and also had "no data", the 2nd one did have data, as it had tracked my steps, heart rate, etc. for the 5 minutes prior, and it was/is the one that says "this watch is no longer paired with this iPhone". The one with no error message is no longer tracking anything, only the one that says its no longer paired. The few threads I've found of others having this same exact issue, have pretty much never gotten any responses, so I was hoping maybe posting here would garner some help.

Interesting. Maybe this is an iOS and watchOS issue that might get fixed in the future. Idk.

Sorry that I can’t help much.

 

[rmoliv]

Same here and no one seems to know how to fix this, even Apple Support. I’m totally mad at them! Hopefully iOS 13.1 will sort this out. What a mess they have made!

 

[lance link]

I don't think this is the exact same problem as yours but I'll give it a shot as it's blue tooth related...

tldr; a factory reset on my watch fixed mine. Done by pressing in the crown and twisting it. Then select "factory reset"

I upgraded my iPhone X to iOS 13 yesterday which then forced me to upgrade my watch to WatchOS 6. I cancelled out of the upgrade process a few times because it was taking forever. Eventually I got into a state where the watch and phone would not pair via bluetooth. After verifying that my phone's BT worked and that other phones could also not pair with my watch, I assumed it the watch's BT. I restarted the watch several times but that didn't help. I also deleted the watch from Find My iPhone per instructions from Apple Support. Thats didn't help me but might help you. Finally, while researching what all my hardware options were with the watch, I came across the instructions for the factory reset. As soon as it rebooted, the phone could see it and the upgrade process completed normally.