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Apple watch owners upgrading to a 7. How to do it?

jonfarr

jonfarr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 29, 2012
716
136
Portland
So, no one has talked about this as far as I have been able to tell. Do we need to unfair our watches from our iPhones tonight so they back up to the phone and then have the phone back up as well? I will be trading in my iPhone 6+ as part of the IUP tomorrow and won't be able to do this after the fact.

It is my understanding that if you forget to unpair the watch and have the backup saved then you will lose all the data on the watch? Or am I way off on this?
 
According to Apple's support documents the Watch is backed up when ever your iPhone is backed up. But if you want to make sure that you don't lose any data, unpair the watch and turn it off until you have your new iPhone. And when you backup your iPhone make sure you either backup to iCloud or to an encrypted iTunes backup. If you backup to non-encrypted iTunes backup you will lose all your health and activity related data that is stored on your iPhone and your watch.
 
I will let you know in 18 hours... I will definitely un-pair first, because that forces a backup of the watch to the phone. Then I will backup the phone. Then I will restore to my new phone. Finally, I will pair the watch back to the new phone.
 
exxxviii said:
I will let you know in 18 hours... I will definitely un-pair first, because that forces a backup of the watch to the phone. Then I will backup the phone. Then I will restore to my new phone. Finally, I will pair the watch back to the new phone.
Click to expand...
Thats my plan too. I back up to iCloud so I shouldn't have to worry about the encryption aspect for health data, correct?
 
jonfarr said:
Thats my plan too. I back up to iCloud so I shouldn't have to worry about the encryption aspect for health data, correct?
Click to expand...

This is my question, too. I was under the impression that the only way to save health data is by doing the encrypted backup via iTunes. I would so love to be wrong!
 
I've done this before. When you unpair a watch, a backup is made.....so

1) I'll unpair my watch
2) I'll backup my iphone to iTunes (my phone is on 10.0.1)
3) I'll activate new phone, apply any OTA updates (the 7 ships with an OS lower in rev number to 10.0.1)
4) I'll restore my backup to the iphone7
5) I'll repair my watch
 
ssls6 said:
I've done this before. When you unpair a watch, a backup is made.....so

1) I'll unpair my watch
2) I'll backup my iphone to iTunes (my phone is on 10.0.1)
3) I'll activate new phone, apply any OTA updates (the 7 ships with an OS lower in rev number to 10.0.1)
4) I'll restore my backup to the iphone7
5) I'll repair my watch
Click to expand...
These are indeed the steps. I did it last year when I got the 6s.

teidon said:
According to Apple's support documents the Watch is backed up when ever your iPhone is backed up.
Click to expand...
That is not true. The watch only backs up periodically. The only way to force a backup is to unpair or reset the watch while it is close to/connected to the phone.
 
jonfarr said:
Thats my plan too. I back up to iCloud so I shouldn't have to worry about the encryption aspect for health data, correct?
Click to expand...
iCloud backup is encrypted so you are good to go.

HopefulHumanist said:
That is not true. The watch only backs up periodically. The only way to force a backup is to unpair or reset the watch while it is close to/connected to the phone.
Click to expand...
Good to know. So the best way to force a backup would be to unpair the watch using the Watch app.
 
If I forgot to unfair my watch.... what do I do?

i don't want to lose my info. can i turn my old phone back on, unfair, then pair to the new one?
 
caligurl said:
If I forgot to unfair my watch.... what do I do?

i don't want to lose my info. can i turn my old phone back on, unfair, then pair to the new one?
Click to expand...
You can reset the watch from the settings app on the watch. App home screen --> settings --> general --> reset

You'll lose whatever activity data was gained after your last iPhone backup and whatever watch settings you changed since last watch backup. Shouldn't be too bad though.
 
stonefeet said:
It's insanely faster to just use iTunes to do the backup and restore that way.
We did it last year with out 6s and saved tons of time

But others above highlighted the correct process
Click to expand...
I totally agree. It was telling me like an hour for iCloud restore but only took 5 min for iTunes.
 
teidon said:
iCloud backup is encrypted so you are good to go.
Click to expand...

I've only ever recovered my sensitive data restoring from a password encrypted iTunes backup.
[doublepost=1474058080][/doublepost]
caligurl said:
If I forgot to unfair my watch.... what do I do?

i don't want to lose my info. can i turn my old phone back on, unfair, then pair to the new one?
Click to expand...

"Unfair" isn't a thing in this context except that's it's unfair to lose your data maybe.
 
If you want the phone to remember your passwords for all your accounts, backup and restore using an iTunes encrypted backup. It's also faster.
 
frumpy16 said:
"Unfair" isn't a thing in this context except that's it's unfair to lose your data maybe.
Click to expand...

well anyone who knows anything about the watch can figure out it was a typo (actual the forum autocorrected it to that, because it just did it again while i was typing it here) that was supposed to be unPair.

and I got it all figured out.. both watches are re-paired to my brand new phone....
 
caligurl said:
well anyone who knows anything about the watch can figure out it was a typo (actual the forum autocorrected it to that, because it just did it again while i was typing it here) that was supposed to be unPair.

and I got it all figured out.. both watches are re-paired to my brand new phone....
Click to expand...
That's fair.

...Ill see myself out.
 
HopefulHumanist said:
You can reset the watch from the settings app on the watch. App home screen --> settings --> general --> reset

You'll lose whatever activity data was gained after your last iPhone backup and whatever watch settings you changed since last watch backup. Shouldn't be too bad though.
Click to expand...

So I set up my new 7 plus and never un paired my Apple Watch. I'm looking for the quickest way to set it up to my new phone without unpairing to my old device and doing a new restore.

Can reset my watch then pair it with my 7 plus knowing I'll only lose 1 days worth of data? Will it retain health and activity data?
 
mr99 said:
So I set up my new 7 plus and never un paired my Apple Watch. I'm looking for the quickest way to set it up to my new phone without unpairing to my old device and doing a new restore.

Can reset my watch then pair it with my 7 plus knowing I'll only lose 1 days worth of data? Will it retain health and activity data?
Click to expand...
The steps I outlined will do just that.
 
fanchee said:
This is my question, too. I was under the impression that the only way to save health data is by doing the encrypted backup via iTunes. I would so love to be wrong!
Click to expand...

iCloud backups should bring everything back as they are encrypted.

BUT, I prefer using iTunes as it is much faster. I use iCloud daily for backups, automatically, but once a week I use iTunes and back up to my computer.
 
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