Streaming from AWU to APP's - can't find them even though connected?

[LarryJoe33]

Just wondering if I am alone here. I don't like to carry my phone around with me on hikes and at the gym. I have only had Apple Watches with Cellular service for this reason. I have found getting the watch to stream to APP's to be incredibly challenging over the years. It's just not easy to tell the watch to play from the watch. On top of it, recently the watch has been telling/asking me which output device to play too even though APP's say connected under BT. It tries and then I get a fail to connect message.

I have done some troubleshooting. I have erased my AWU and repaired it with the phone which seemed to help. I have forgotten and repaired my APP's and I have messed with settings.

It is frustrating because I get it working seamlessly at work, but the minute I get in the gym it is a crap show again. I have recently started to not kick off a workout and I think this may be the culprit, but I have thought that before about other tweaks. Could the wifi at the gym have any impact on this?

Any experiences very welcome. The issue is killing my workouts. I spend 10-15 minutes trying to get it to connect and play and then I give up and grab my brick of a phone to weigh down my gym shorts.

TIA,

Joe

 

[BigMcGuire]

I exercise with my AWU and AP3 - and sometimes with my APP2. I've found the process of connecting my watch to my AirPods to be far more frustrating now than it has been in the past. I use my AirPods all day on my Mac for work, then go out for a run/walk and sometimes my watch will just refuse to connect, other times after connecting, I'll get outside and hit play and ... they'll act like they were never connected and/or one AirPod will connect.

What I've done that works for me (most of the time) is:

I start my watch audio (music/podcast) while still in my house - I find the act of taking out the AirPods from their case then immediately hitting play makes the watch connect to them more reliably. So, I start the audio/music while I'm in my house, THEN go outside and then start the exercise. Back when I had a gym membership, I'd start the audio/podcast in my car (leaving AirPods case in car usually), then enter the gym, and then start the workout. YMMV.


If the AW refuses to connect to the AirPods, doing a hard reset (pressing crown+button till the watch reboots) results in me connecting to the AirPods instantly. This happens now and then where the watch just stops getting notifications from the phone and refuses to make calls or connect to AirPods (I'd say at least once every other month?).

I never worry about "connecting" the AirPods to the watch anymore. I just hit play, and if it asks, select the AirPods right after I put them on. Hold the watch up to your face and usually it connects. If it doesn't, take off AirPods, put them in case, wait 2 seconds, put them back in ear and try again. If still not connecting, hard reboot watch.


I've been getting in the habit of hard rebooting the watch every few weeks when I charge it. While this is very unscientific, it seems to help the connection issues (haven't had a no connect event for several months now).

 

[LarryJoe33]

I exercise with my AWU and AP3 - and sometimes with my APP2. I've found the process of connecting my watch to my AirPods to be far more frustrating now than it has been in the past. I use my AirPods all day on my Mac for work, then go out for a run/walk and sometimes my watch will just refuse to connect, other times after connecting, I'll get outside and hit play and ... they'll act like they were never connected and/or one AirPod will connect.

What I've done that works for me (most of the time) is:

I start my watch audio (music/podcast) while still in my house - I find the act of taking out the AirPods from their case then immediately hitting play makes the watch connect to them more reliably. So, I start the audio/music while I'm in my house, THEN go outside and then start the exercise. Back when I had a gym membership, I'd start the audio/podcast in my car (leaving AirPods case in car usually), then enter the gym, and then start the workout. YMMV.


If the AW refuses to connect to the AirPods, doing a hard reset (pressing crown+button till the watch reboots) results in me connecting to the AirPods instantly. This happens now and then where the watch just stops getting notifications from the phone and refuses to make calls or connect to AirPods (I'd say at least once every other month?).

I never worry about "connecting" the AirPods to the watch anymore. I just hit play, and if it asks, select the AirPods right after I put them on. Hold the watch up to your face and usually it connects. If it doesn't, take off AirPods, put them in case, wait 2 seconds, put them back in ear and try again. If still not connecting, hard reboot watch.


I've been getting in the habit of hard rebooting the watch every few weeks when I charge it. While this is very unscientific, it seems to help the connection issues (haven't had a no connect event for several months now).

Thank you for this. Sounds like we have similar issues and I also do a lot of the things you are doing. It’s jumping through hoops I feel we should not have to, but at the end of the day, I just want to workout to music without my phone. So this involved reboots and putting the APP’s in and out of the case until the watch connects and plays.