Watch OS Update Slow

[Del Martes]

Picked up an Apple Watch 6 44 mm today. Updating the OS to 7.3 right now, but the process is toooo slow! Googled; the suggestions recommend connecting the iPhone to home Wifi network and prior to that, disabling Bluetooth. The reason is that WiFi is faster than BT.

However, I do NOT have home wifi network. I have an iPhone with cell service. The Apple Watch and my M1 MBA are tethered to the phone.

Do you have any suggestions to help me speed up the watch OS updating process?

 

[jz0309]

you can update over night, besides that, there have been a lot of posts but there I no better answer.
It has actually quite improved with watchOS 7 ...

 

[Del Martes]

Updating overnight, lol. The experience of updating the Watch OS is somewhat reminiscent of my Windows experience--clunky, frustrating, unpleasant. That is why I switched over to Mac many years ago. This is my first Apple Watch. I will spend a few days learning how to use it. At this point, after about 9 hours, my impression is that this is NOT a fully baked Apple product.

I have 14 days to decide to return or keep the device.

Thanks for chiming in, btw. I wasn't knocking on your idea. It was a criticism of Apple on its half-baked product, the Apple Watch.

 

[Howard2k]

I think you'd be in the minority of Watch owners not having access to high speed wifi. Some phone plans can give great speed but even then it depends on coverage. Some plans will also offer a certain amount of bandwidth at super high speed and then impose a very significant slowdown on traffic beyond that cap.

If it's a cellular based device by iPhone proxy I would consider the implications on your data plan too, if you haven't already. Maybe there are none but better to avoid surprises.

I just picked up an SE and did my first software update today. I was on WatchOS 7.1 and updated from there to Watch OS 7.3.1. I didn't time it, but it was quick. Didn't seem like more than 10 minutes. I only have 40Mb/s downstream on my Internet connection and the SE is only 2.4GHz, it's not like I have a super fast connection and it was a quick update.

Imagine what a WatchOS 8 update will be like.

 

[profcutter]

I’ve also had problems with update speeds on mine since new, an Apple Watch series 3. Maybe it‘s the watch itself? Try another one? My wife’s series 5 updates much much faster.

 

[BugeyeSTI]

Updating overnight, lol. The experience of updating the Watch OS is somewhat reminiscent of my Windows experience--clunky, frustrating, unpleasant. That is why I switched over to Mac many years ago. This is my first Apple Watch. I will spend a few days learning how to use it. At this point, after about 9 hours, my impression is that this is NOT a fully baked Apple product.

I have 14 days to decide to return or keep the device.

Thanks for chiming in, btw. I wasn't knocking on your idea. It was a criticism of Apple on its half-baked product, the Apple Watch.

My Series 6 updates in around 10 minutes.. Sounds like not having high speed internet is your real problem...

 

[profcutter]

I updated last night from 7.1 to 7.3 on my series 3. We have gigabit service with AX wifi. Took 3-4 hours overnight.

 

[BenAigen]

Series 5 - took less than 10 minutes to update.

 

[Aspasia]

My AW5 updated last night. No idea how long it took as I was asleep.

 

[jz0309]

Updating overnight, lol. The experience of updating the Watch OS is somewhat reminiscent of my Windows experience--clunky, frustrating, unpleasant. That is why I switched over to Mac many years ago. This is my first Apple Watch. I will spend a few days learning how to use it. At this point, after about 9 hours, my impression is that this is NOT a fully baked Apple product.

I have 14 days to decide to return or keep the device.

Thanks for chiming in, btw. I wasn't knocking on your idea. It was a criticism of Apple on its half-baked product, the Apple Watch.

After using an AW for over 5 years I do not think it is a half-baked product, but, the AW is not for everyone, no doubt about it. That's the nice thing that you can buy it from Apple and try out on your own and return it after 14 days if you don't like it.

 

[Del Martes]

Alrighty, guys, thanks for the feedbacks! It's appreciated!

I returned the AW after a day. In addition to the frustration of updating the OS, there is also the larger issue of the face being too small! It's so difficult to navigate! An uncomfortable experience.

I am a fan of Apple products. Over the years, I've owned a few MacBook laptops, iPads, and iPhones, and I have really enjoyed using them! They are so markedly better than their Windows counterparts.

But AW did not give me the same comfortable feeling. On that point, maybe it's not Apple's fault, as a watch, by its nature, IS small.

I'll use my iPhone for Apple Pay, listening to music and other stuff.

Thanks very much again for the feedbacks!

 

[Runs For Fun]

The problem is not having access to WiFi. Without WiFi it has to transfer the update over Bluetooth which is very slow.

 

[jz0309]

The problem is not having access to WiFi. Without WiFi it has to transfer the update over Bluetooth which is very slow.

actually, to the best of my knowledge, iPhone uses BT to transfer the update to the watch, unless you disable BT in which case it will use wifi, but you have to force it to ...

 

[Runs For Fun]

actually, to the best of my knowledge, iPhone uses BT to transfer the update to the watch, unless you disable BT in which case it will use wifi, but you have to force it to ...

That doesn’t seem to be the case from my experience with updates recently.

 

[jz0309]

That doesn’t seem to be the case from my experience with updates recently.

I've read quite a few comment here on MR re this topic, that's what I based my comment on. I honestly don't pay attention when I update watch, I know it takes time so I either do it overnight or lay the watch down and continue working ... but glad to see your experience is different.

 

[Runs For Fun]

I've read quite a few comment here on MR re this topic, that's what I based my comment on. I honestly don't pay attention when I update watch, I know it takes time so I either do it overnight or lay the watch down and continue working ... but glad to see your experience is different.

I thought I remember reading somewhere that with WatchOS 7 it prefers WiFi over Bluetooth for updates.

 

[svanstrom]

I returned the AW after a day. In addition to the frustration of updating the OS, there is also the larger issue of the face being too small! It's so difficult to navigate! An uncomfortable experience.

It's definitely not a device that's meant to be constantly interacted with; more of an information-consumption interface.

So compared with like a smartphone it's a completely new type of device.

Back in summer 2015 when I got an AW I first noticed how it freed me from reacting to every damn notification on my phone.

Since then I've had my phone on silent, and only allow time-sensitive notifications to reach my watch.

Archiving emails directly from notifications on my watch has made me so much more efficient with email; there's no more sitting down to like 20 new emails, because about 18 of those I could archive after reading the notifications only.

I'm also sort of addicted to the health data that I'm getting. If I'm feeling tired in the morning what I'm getting from my watch can actually fairly well help me predict in what shape my brain/focus will be later on in the day, and I can plan my activities based on that.

And I'm almost 100% paying using Apple Pay.

Overall it's a very helpful little device; but I very rarely actually use its touchscreen like I do on my phone, it's more simple stuff (basic scrolling, and hitting single very large buttons).

 

[perezr10]

My Series 6 updates in around 10 minutes.. Sounds like not having high speed internet is your real problem...

Yeah, I’ve had every series Apple Watch and this Series 6 is the fastest one I’ve seen at doing updates. The combination of a faster processor and 5gz WiFi have made it noticeably quicker than my Series 5.

What I really want though, is for the watch to do updates while on my wrist. Putting it on the charger is so annoying. Maybe the Series 7 will finally give us that.