"Connecting your Apple Watch. This may take a moment" stuck.

You should all try this!

Reset the Apple Watch.

Try logging off your iCloud account on your phone and logging back in.

But that what worked for me was deleting your old Apple Watch backups.

-> Settings

-> General

-> iPhone storage

-> Scroll down to (on my phone)

-> If there is any kind of Apple watch backups, delete those

-> Then restart your Apple watch and phone and try normal pairing

An update: I had a phone software update my phone didn't tell me about until I restarted my phone like Janzasd said to do. I also had a software update on my watch that I wasn't able to update because I factory reset it and it requires to be set up before connecting to wifi, which is needed to pair the watch. I just updated my iPhone and I'm updating the watch right now. Everything is loading smoothly now and the watch stopped getting stuck on the connection screen.

So I did get the watch to finally sync... I’ll list out what I did:

Tried to sync a new series 3 watch with a new iPhone 11, got stuck in the loop of “connecting to watch.” I tried everything I could think of to get outta the loop but it never got passed that.

I happened to have an old iPhone 6 that’s updated to iOS 12 which is the most up to date for that phone, the watch had

no issues syncing to that. So I then factory reset the watch and tried syncing to my iPhone 11 again, however, this time I was not at home and was just on 5gE. The watch finally got past the connecting step and to the updating section on my phone but since I wasn't on WiFi it told me I had to connect to WiFi to continue... so when I got home I connected to WiFi and tried again, SAME CONNECTING TO WATCH LOOP. I was furious... but then I reset the watch and turned WiFi off on my phone and tried syncing the watch, it got right past connecting and onto the update again and told me to connect to WiFi. This time since I was able to switch to WiFi immediately and didn’t have to back outta the app and reset the connection, it started downloading. It took several hours (initially quoted the 1-2 days but was done in prolly 2-3 hours). After it updated it connected and I haven’t had any issues since. Completely ridiculous.

If you don’t have an old iPhone laying around, I would definitely try syncing it off of WiFi and if it works then kick the WiFi back on when it tells you to connect to WiFi to continue the update.

I managed to sort this issue out yesterday morning with my series 4 after over 2hours of pure frustration and annoyance. The connecting to AW message was displayed on my screen initially for about 30 mins before i realised that something was wrong. I simply tried turning on and off both the watch and my iphone X multiple times but the same message was still stuck on the screen. Then i figured that force holding the screen of the apple watch when it showing the pair with iphone message gives the option to reset the watch so i did and retried not much progress. After doing this i tried updating the ios on the phone (i am using the beta version) this seemed to have been the main issue so after this i tried pairing again, it seemed to have made progress because now it sort of paired and asked me to update the OS on the watch after about 15mins the watch os was updated and it starting setting things up but then said the pairing failed. I then restarted both devices again and watched a video which said to reset network setting on the iphone so i did (and i didnt change anything on iphone, all wifi&bluetooth devices etc were all still there after didnt need to enter passwords or anything) and restarted the phone, then tried again and then it successfully paired the devices and they have both been working perfectly since yesterday.

Essentially try the following things:

-Restart both devices (multiple times)

-Reset watch by force pressing the screen like the 3D touch on the iphone

-Charge both devices moderately or leave on charge

-Ensure IOS is updated !! (IMPORTANT)!!

-Reset the network setting on iphone in setting

Doing these things worked to help pair my series 4 and iphone X (using apples beta software) so it may help

I ended up having to reboot my entire watch. Clear it and then connect to an older phone that was running OS 12- resyncing my watch with that phone. Updating the apple watch through that phone and THEN removing the sync with the old phone- resyncing to my current iphone 11.....that worked. I hate apple

I tried connecting with typing in the code that iwatch was showing when you press the “i” instead of scening the iwatch screen then it worked for me. Have to connect to a strong wifi on 2.5g connection not the 5G.

Hello everyone,

My Apple Watch has been out of commission For about a week. I have scoured the web, YouTube, and talked to a few associates at the Apple store with no fix. I have also tried every method in this chat I came across a combination that worked me and trust me from what everyone was saying my issue was just as bad as everyone else’s worst case. I deleted my watch app reset my watch and phone reinstalled the app and took my phone connection off the 5G option I have on my home WiFi. I honestly think it was the 5G option that did the job. For whatever dumb reason Apple didn’t want to download on the 5G option and it’s sad Apple couldn’t figure that out. All in all good luck and I hope this works.

I just spent a couple of hours with Apple Support. The problem seemed to be with my iCloud account. When I logged off of iCloud on my phone and logged back in everything seemed to work.

We tried a bunch of stuff before that (reset watch to factory settings, reset network settings on the phone, restart phone, etc) but I think the iCloud thing is what worked.

Good luck!!

I reset my watch and my iPhone, turned off WiFi and tried to begin the pairing process using mobile data. My phone found the correct update and I turned the WiFi on to start download.

i have been trying different things for around 10 day’s but this solution solved it.

I got the same problem. And i have used a hole day to find out what's going on.

The last thing i tried was to log on my 2,4 Ghz wifi network and it works!

Hello hyris,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. It's my understanding that your Apple Watch becomes unresponsive when trying to connect with your iPhone 11 Pro. You've come to the right place! I'm happy to help.

If you haven't already, restart your Apple Watch and iPhone.

How to restart your Apple Watch

Restart your iPhone

Next, make sure that your iPhone has Bluetooth turned on and is connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network. Then use the steps in the following resource to set up your Apple Watch:

Set up your Apple Watch

Have a nice day!

I did a few steps and it worked for me. It might work for someone else:

• Erase the Apple Watch;
• Update the Apple Watch to the latest possible version;
• Reset the Apple Watch;
• Reset the iPhone;
• Keep both the Apple Watch and the iPhone charging;
• Do the pair setup on a cellular network.

Following all these steps I were able to pair my Apple Watch successfully.

This actually worked for me. I was trying to pair my watch 3 to my iphone 11, and it just hung. Finally, restarted watch and phone and switched off the wifi on my phone. I restarted the pairing process and voila. It works. I did set up my watch as a new apple watch, since it was battling to download the backup. Not sure why.

this is what's done it for me i think!

similar issue - pairing an old series 3 (stupidly reset it) to a new iPhone 11 - tried EVERYTHING to try and get it to get past the 'checking for update screen'

nothing would work but as soon as i kicked myself off my wifi it worked fine with downloading the update (6.2.6) and now downloading to my watch. has initially quoted 14 hours, but within a few glances it's gone down to 7. hoping this means it will connect okay!

Hello hyris,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. It's my understanding that your Apple Watch becomes unresponsive when trying to connect with your iPhone 11 Pro. You've come to the right place! I'm happy to help.

If you haven't already, restart your Apple Watch and iPhone.

How to restart your Apple Watch

Restart your iPhone

Next, make sure that your iPhone has Bluetooth turned on and is connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network. Then use the steps in the following resource to set up your Apple Watch:

Set up your Apple Watch

Have a nice day!