Definitive word on pairing Apple Watch from old iPhone to new iPhone?

[brgjoe]

Ok, I have seen conflicting info on whether or not you should unpair your Apple Watch from your old iPhone before going to your new iPhone.

My iPhone 13 arrived and I am going to do a device to device transfer. Seemed to work pretty well last time, but I didn't use my Apple Watch back then. So should I just leave things the way they are with the watched paired to the old iPhone and will it then pair it to my new iPhone 13 automatically?

Or should I unpair it from the old iPhone and once everything is transferred try to pair it with my new iPhone 13 then? Thanks!

 

[Lammy]

When you get the new phone set up and open the watch app it’ll prompt you to check your watch for a notification asking if you want to use the new iPhone with the watch. I’ve never gotten it to successfully do it so I would just unpair it (it automatically saves that as a backup) then set up new phone and then restore watch on the new phone.

 

[Beards]

My experience was totally different to Lammy’s comment above.
After the device to device transfer the new iphone asked me if I wanted to use my watch with the new phone.
All I did was select yes…… The transfer took around 220 minutes…. I didn’t even take my watch off my wrist whilst I watched my watch doing the transfer.

 

[Aniseedvan]

My experience was totally different to Lammy’s comment above.
After the device to device transfer the new iphone asked me if I wanted to use my watch with the new phone.
All I did was select yes…… The transfer took around 220 minutes…. I didn’t even take my watch off my wrist whilst I watched my watch doing the transfer.

Same here, iPhone 13 set up from my 11 backup and the watch transferred fine.

 

[Lammy]

I may have had it do it successfully one time but I don’t customize my watch enough to try and wait for it each time so now I just set up as new. I’ll try the other way from now on though since it seems like others are having better luck!

 

[brgjoe]

Finally had some time to do the direct iPhone to iPhone transfer.

Worked flawlessly. And the watch didn't need to be unpaired from the old iPhone. It just asked if I wanted to bring my watch to the new iPhone and then it did it while I was at my desk.

So you don't have to unpair the Apple Watch (at least my series 5 one) from the old iPhone before doing the direct iPhone to iPhone transfer. Nicely done there, Apple. Thanks for the replies all!