Why does it take so long to update a Apple Watch compared to a phone or tablet?

[max2]

Is it that much slower ?

 

[bigdave1981]

i always wondered this too

 

[StumpyBloke]

Mine doesn’t. I’ve just installed 7.0.2 in a few minutes.

 

[max2]

Mine doesn’t.

 

[mfram]

The watch has a lower-power, much slower processor.

 

[Levo14]

Turn off bluetooth on the iPhone (for real, in settings not control centre), make sure wifi connected on the watch and then start the update from it.
Think it sometimes goes via bluetooth with the phone

 

[antbob]

It prefers updating over Bluetooth for some reason and Bluetooth data transfer speed is SUPER slow. Like others pointed out if you can force it to Wi-Fi it would go MUCH faster.

 

[Broken Hope]

Since the series 4 WatchOS updates have been pretty fast to be fair.