Simple Quesiton - New iPhone Same Watch

[BigMcGuire]

This is the first time I've upgraded/changed a phone with my AW3. I am hoping not to lose any health data. I have everything backed up to iCloud. When my new iPhone arrives today I'm planning on setting it up as a new iPhone and logging into my iCloud account. I just unpair the watch from the old phone, let it back up, then pair it to the new phone? Or do I have to restore from iCloud on the new phone to get the Apple Health data?

Thanks for any advice/help.
[doublepost=1538059011][/doublepost]https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205189

I didn't see this. Looks like I need to restore from iCloud backup on the new phone to get the Apple Health data? No way to set up as new?

 

[hexagenia]

If your experience is anything like mine, it's even simpler than that. When you get your new iPhone, just put it in close proximity to your old phone to transfer settings. You will be prompted whether you want your Apple Watch to transfer, as well. When you answer in the affirmative, your phone will continue its setup. When the iPhone is ready to operate, you can launch the Watch app on your new iPhone and you will be asked to "re-pair" your watch. When I had it in proximity to the phone, the Apple Watch haptic system alerted me to the pairing opportunity. I selected to re-pair, and then input my security code for my watch. The pairing process began and once it was finished, my watch had completely transferred from its old iPhone to its new one. Seamless. Good luck on your transfer!

 

[BigMcGuire]

If your experience is anything like mine, it's even simpler than that. When you get your new iPhone, just put it in close proximity to your old phone to transfer settings. You will be prompted whether you want your Apple Watch to transfer, as well. When you answer in the affirmative, your phone will continue its setup. When the iPhone is ready to operate, you can launch the Watch app on your new iPhone and you will be asked to "re-pair" your watch. When I had it in proximity to the phone, the Apple Watch haptic system alerted me to the pairing opportunity. I selected to re-pair, and then input my security code for my watch. The pairing process began and once it was finished, my watch had completely transferred from its old iPhone to its new one. Seamless. Good luck on your transfer!

Thank you! I will do this and give it a try.

 

[zorinlynx]

If your experience is anything like mine, it's even simpler than that. When you get your new iPhone, just put it in close proximity to your old phone to transfer settings. You will be prompted whether you want your Apple Watch to transfer, as well. When you answer in the affirmative, your phone will continue its setup. When the iPhone is ready to operate, you can launch the Watch app on your new iPhone and you will be asked to "re-pair" your watch. When I had it in proximity to the phone, the Apple Watch haptic system alerted me to the pairing opportunity. I selected to re-pair, and then input my security code for my watch. The pairing process began and once it was finished, my watch had completely transferred from its old iPhone to its new one. Seamless. Good luck on your transfer!

Does it actually transfer all the data from the old phone over to the new one over WiFi? If it does this would be amazing; in the past we've had to restore from iCloud which can be slow depending on how good the Internet is where you are.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I'm interested in this as well. My Xs MAX gets delivered this morning so I guess I'll find out. I'd be pretty bummed if I lost all my Apple Health data :/ I have 40+MB over the last almost year. lol. I think Apple does a much better job at not losing that stuff now than it did back when I got my AW3 last year.

 

[shinseiromeo]

I'm interested in this as well. My Xs MAX gets delivered this morning so I guess I'll find out. I'd be pretty bummed if I lost all my Apple Health data :/ I have 40+MB over the last almost year. lol. I think Apple does a much better job at not losing that stuff now than it did back when I got my AW3 last year.

I always do a clean install of any device I buy, be it a phone or watch. Just make sure iCloud backup is up to date before you unpair any device. When you log into the new phone or watch, sign in with the same apple id and everything will come back perfectly.

I do wish this was available before iOS 11. I have tons and tons of workouts from my S0 watch from iPhone 5s and up that I have no history of today unfortunately, except on the actual devices that are put away.

 

[hexagenia]

Just a quick note here. Using the process I described above, my Health and Activity data transferred properly. I can't speak for whether that came over with my iPhone transfer or my Watch transfer, but I can confirm that the transfer occurred. I see data as long as a year and a half back, when I started to pay attention to these Apps. If the data is really critical to you, please confirm with Apple that it does bring everything you need across. I was delighted how easy it was, but I got what I needed. I wouldn't want my experience to unknowingly cause you to lose what you obviously value in this record.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I forgot to post the results of this.... Didn't quite go as planned but it worked out for both of us.

My wife reset her old phone before unpairing her watch resulting in her having to reset her watch. She only lost 1 day of activities when pairing it to her new watch (iCloud turned on).

I had both phones, set up new phone, it had me unpair from old phone, then I only lost like 6 hours of activity (lol?).

So not bad. Worked really well, fairly fast.