Syncing music to watch really slow?

[Vell843]

I have an iPhone 7 and a series 3 (GPS) and I am also an Apple Music subscriber. With that being said I was on a run last week and was streaming a playlist that I had downloaded to my iPhone and skipping some of the songs via my watch but for some reason some of the songs seemed to buffer if you will until I went back to home screen and went back in music app. This was super frustrating as you can imagine when I am trying to keep a certain pace on my run.

So I decided to sync/download the playlist directly onto my Apple Watch and see if that solves the problem. I figured that since my running route is close (depending on which route I take) to my house maybe it was going in and out of my WiFi and then going to Bluetooth. Well downloading to my watch worked perfect however when I went to download/sync another playlist from my iPhone directly onto my watch it seems to be taking forever? Does anyone else ever have this issue?

Side note: I am coming from a series one and didn’t realize I could control my music from my phone on my watch due to me being an Apple Music subscriber.

 

[JackieInCo]

Music is slow syncing to the watch because it is doing this through bluetooth. Try transferring a song from your Mac to an Android phone using BT and you will see just how long it takes.

I to have had the same experience with streaming music using LTE on my watch. Restarting the stream always seems to work better.

 

[Shirasaki]

Using Bluetooth only happens when your watch and your iPhone are not in the same WPA2 enabled Wifi network. With WiFi, the sync would be very fast. I once synced 8GB of songs (200) in 2 hours.

 

[Vell843]

Using Bluetooth only happens when your watch and your iPhone are not in the same WPA2 enabled Wifi network. With WiFi, the sync would be very fast. I once synced 8GB of songs (200) in 2 hours.

So you are saying I should maybe try to turn off Bluetooth when I am connected to my home WiFi and see if that helps?

 

[Julien]

So you are saying I should maybe try to turn off Bluetooth when I am connected to my home WiFi and see if that helps?

No because we really don't know how it works. It is likely a combination of BT and WiFi a lot like AirPlay. Regardless even if it is through BT then it can still be fast. BT can do up to 24Mbps so an average 256kbps 5 minute track (10MB) could transfer in about 5 seconds even at ½ the speed. It seems that Apple prioritizes what the watch its doing when on the charging stand.

Try restarting both your iPhone and Apple Watch. If this doesn't work you could re-pair it it will likely do the trick.

 

[big samm]

I synced 175 songs in less then 30-40 mins.... And sometimes it can take ages.

 

[Shirasaki]

So you are saying I should maybe try to turn off Bluetooth when I am connected to my home WiFi and see if that helps?

No. The sync won’t even start.
I would try to keep both phone and watch under same WiFi, and hope the best cause it works quite inconsistently.

 

[the future]

Syncing music to the Watch is indeed the most slow, unreliable and opaque aspect of the whole Apple Watch experience.

 

[inkhorn]

Is the phone doing some kind of transcoding of the synced tracks when sending to the watch perhaps?

My phone has a few lossless-audio tracks which no doubt the watchs' basic hardware couldn't normally play.

 

[Vell843]

Is the phone doing some kind of transcoding of the synced tracks when sending to the watch perhaps?

My phone has a few lossless-audio tracks which no doubt the watchs' basic hardware couldn't normally play.

Nope it's a playlist I downloaded to my phone from Apple music.

 

[Shirasaki]

Is the phone doing some kind of transcoding of the synced tracks when sending to the watch perhaps?

My phone has a few lossless-audio tracks which no doubt the watchs' basic hardware couldn't normally play.

Also, watch CAN decode lossless audio, at least up to 48kHz/24bit. But I am not sure if music files are decompressed before uploading or not.