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Apple Watch Randomly Disconnecting from iPhone 7?

Dino F

Dino F

Suspended
Original poster
Sep 16, 2010
4,515
3,405
Croydon, South London, UK
My Space Grey 42mm Apple Watch (which I bought from Apple, around 6 months ago) seems to randomly disconnect from my iPhone 7 (both have latest iOS and Watch OS updates), and then it will reconnect again?!? :confused:

As an example, this morning, I stood and watched my watch, for about 5 minutes, whilst it went through, all by itself, disconnecting from my phone, and then reconnecting!?!?! Like I said, it must have been doing this cycle for around 5 minutes - constantly disconnecting and then reconnecting?? I was stood outside at the time so no other devices could have been effecting this.

Its not the first time its happened either?! Its done this before.

Is my only option to unpair my watch and set it up all over again? Is this a possible bug with my watch?
 
You don't mention where your phone was at the time (distance and walls will degrade the connection which I am sure you must know).
 
Disconnects from my SE from time to time too. Not sure why. Doesn't happen too often however.
 
Are you sure it is the watch and not the phone?

I have been noticing a chronic iPhone Bluetooth crashing problem on the phone this year. Initially, I thought it was just the watch or another device losing BT, but then I realized it was BT on the phone crashing and restarting. I confirmed this was a phone thing, because several times I had multiple devices connected via BT and interacting with the phone, and they all lost connection at the same time as the watch. It took a minute or two to reconnect, so I assumed that this was an internal restart of the BT stack.

It was pretty regular with my 6s, but since going to iOS 10 and my iPhone 7, it still happens, but less frequently... though, the combo is so new that I have not had many opportunities to catch it.
 
exxxviii said:
Are you sure it is the watch and not the phone?

I have been noticing a chronic iPhone Bluetooth crashing problem on the phone this year. Initially, I thought it was just the watch or another device losing BT, but then I realized it was BT on the phone crashing and restarting. I confirmed this was a phone thing, because several times I had multiple devices connected via BT and interacting with the phone, and they all lost connection at the same time as the watch. It took a minute or two to reconnect, so I assumed that this was an internal restart of the BT stack.

It was pretty regular with my 6s, but since going to iOS 10 and my iPhone 7, it still happens, but less frequently... though, the combo is so new that I have not had many opportunities to catch it.
Click to expand...



....actually, you may have a point there. I just assumed it was the watch but as you rightly say, it could very well be my iPhone 7 instead.

I don't actually have any other devices connected to it so I wouldn't be able to test this unfortunately. The two, do end up reconnecting but it is a little weird that the connection should break and then reconnect again.
:confused:

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it now, I think it was my iPhone 7, breaking the connection. I was using my phone this morning when I suddenly saw the bluetooth icon on the homescreen, go from being on (icon was lit up), to off (being dimmed). This happened several times, whilst the phone kept trying to reconnect itself - which it did eventually. Perhaps the bug lies with the recent iOS 10 update?!
 
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Dino F said:
I think it was my iPhone 7, breaking the connection. I was using my phone this morning when I suddenly saw the bluetooth icon on the homescreen, go from being on (icon was lit up), to off (being dimmed). This happened several times, whilst the phone kept trying to reconnect itself - which it did eventually. Perhaps the bug lies with the recent iOS 10 update?!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I suspect a bug in the iOS BT stack. My scenario was that I was out exercising with my watch, my bike computer (which connects via BT to the phone), and a pair of BT headphones connected to the phone. At the same moment, my bike computer beeped that it disconnected from the phone, I lost audio on my headphones, and my watch showed disconnected. I thought it was the individual devices, until I had all going at once and the phone was the common denominator.
 
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I have a Made for iPhone hearing aid that uses Bluetooth to maintain its connection. I'm getting static quite often while listening to music this way, and my watch frequently disconnects. I am also frequently receiving "Loss of Signal" errors from my Dexcom G5 CGM, which also uses Bluetooth to connect to the phone.

Hopefully the upcoming 10.1 update will fix these. I can usually get the CGM to start syncing again by force-quitting and relaunching the Dexcom app and/or toggling the Bluetooth stack off and on again.

I haven't checked to see if the watch is disconnecting at the same time that the CGM does, but given that the CGM seems to be terrible about proactively reconnecting, the CGM is a bigger deal -- that, and it's a medical device and I do need to see the reading.
 
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Lots of issues with iPhone 7 and Bluetooth. Should be patched in an update soon. Lot's of complaints about the iPhone 7 with CarPlay and streaming audio in general because of Bluetooth.

I read somewhere that it may be cause by GSM interference if you have T-Mobile or ATT phones....
 
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Same happens to me, phone will randomly lose connection and the only thing i have is the watch, and Beats Studio Wireless headphones when working out, headphones haven't lost connection ever
 
It probably is related to different hardware in the 7. I didn't have problems with the 6s.

I'm also having problems with the Music complication. It indicated that I was listening to the Elton John song I'd been listening to five minutes ago when I was actually midway through a Bruce Hornsby song, and I couldn't change the volume with the crown or change tracks. This happens even if the phone appears to be connected to the watch (no "disconnected" indicator). When this happens, I also can't change faces or change other settings from the phone.

I am using the original watch (release date delivery, actually) and I have no idea if buying a new watch would resolve it. I'd prefer not to as I planned to wait for the next revision and I'm hopeful that 10.1 will resolve this.
 
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