Problem with Unlock with Apple Watch

[yusukeaoki]

Hi I recently upgraded to a 2017 MBP 15in and trying to use the Unlock with Apple Watch feature.
Ive been trying to do this for weeks including restart, Bluetooth reset, etc and still no luck.
I am wearing my Watch as I type this and click the check box on my system pref to for "Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac".
I would be prompted with a PW and as soon as I type it in, I would get a spinning loading mark.

It would take FOREVER for it to stop with 1. It just gives me an error saying it couldnt connect or 2. It will make it look like its connected but soon as I exit out of system pref and bring it back up again, it wouldnt be ticked.

Ive searched a lot about this and seems like a lot of people are having this problems with many work arounds. Tried the restart, reset and all but still no luck. Anybody with same problem with a fix?
I have Apple Watch S3 GPS model with both mac and watch OS as latest.

Thanks.

 

[techwarrior]

Went through this with Apple Care (3 levels) a few weeks ago, and I learned a really useful gem in the process. Not sure if your "reset" mentioned above matches my solution...but if not, might be worth a shot.

Using the Watch app on iPhone, click on the top item (Name's Apple Watch). Then, click the ⓘ, then Unpair Apple Watch (more on this in a minute). After the watch reboots, re-pair it to the iPhone and select to restore the previous settings (yes, iPhone stores a backup of all of the watch settings, for this, or new watch purposes).

After it completes pairing, try again to setup Watch Unlock. Also, with Unlock with Watch disabled, while the iPhone\watch operation is running it's course, reboot the Mac. Possibly, log out and then back in with your iCloud Apple ID (but only if the re-pairing doesn't take care of it...

My issue was Apple Pay Cash related. Apparently, bits get confused in the iCloud account settings between the watch and iPhone.

Not guaranteed to work, and it will consume an hour or so of your time, but this one fits into the 4 R's of troubleshooting (reboot, reset, return, run like ...).

 

[yusukeaoki]

Went through this with Apple Care (3 levels) a few weeks ago, and I learned a really useful gem in the process. Not sure if your "reset" mentioned above matches my solution...but if not, might be worth a shot.

Using the Watch app on iPhone, click on the top item (Name's Apple Watch). Then, click the ⓘ, then Unpair Apple Watch (more on this in a minute). After the watch reboots, re-pair it to the iPhone and select to restore the previous settings (yes, iPhone stores a backup of all of the watch settings, for this, or new watch purposes).

After it completes pairing, try again to setup Watch Unlock. Also, with Unlock with Watch disabled, while the iPhone\watch operation is running it's course, reboot the Mac. Possibly, log out and then back in with your iCloud Apple ID (but only if the re-pairing doesn't take care of it...

My issue was Apple Pay Cash related. Apparently, bits get confused in the iCloud account settings between the watch and iPhone.

Not guaranteed to work, and it will consume an hour or so of your time, but this one fits into the 4 R's of troubleshooting (reboot, reset, return, run like ...).

Thanks for the reply.
It might be true that its Apple Pay related. I do have a credit card and a fast transit card (since I live in Japan) on there.
This was also a problem for my Apple Watch to re-pair with my new iPhone after my iPhone7 was replaced brand new.
Ill give it a shot but does this process remove all my card and would have to repair?

 

[techwarrior]

Thanks for the reply.
It might be true that its Apple Pay related. I do have a credit card and a fast transit card (since I live in Japan) on there.
This was also a problem for my Apple Watch to re-pair with my new iPhone after my iPhone7 was replaced brand new.
Ill give it a shot but does this process remove all my card and would have to repair?

Once I re-paired, I had to re-activate Apple Pay on my Credit, Debit and Cash cards. But, it took mere seconds to do so.

 

[SaSaSushi]

Thanks for the reply.
It might be true that its Apple Pay related. I do have a credit card and a fast transit card (since I live in Japan) on there.
This was also a problem for my Apple Watch to re-pair with my new iPhone after my iPhone7 was replaced brand new.
Ill give it a shot but does this process remove all my card and would have to repair?

I had similar issues a long while back and unpairing/repairing per the advice above ended up resolving it for me as well. I haven't had any problems since.

Apple Pay Cash definitely isn't the problem since it doesn't exist here in Japan yet.