New-to-me Apple Watch 5 not Discovered by iPhone during initial setup

Okay, weirdest thing is going on with my new-to-me, recently acquired, Apple Watch 5. Looking for suggestions on how to troubleshoot.

I bought this used. It’s a legit watch. I’ve got the packaging, lots of bands, etc. The serial number is recognized by Apple. The Seller has been very helpful. This is a legit watch.

Initially, when we tried to pair my wife’s iPhone 7 Plus with it, it recognized it when the watch got close to the iPhone, and then the iPhone camera focused on the swirling orb, and then it began the setup. It got hung up waiting to hear back from the Apple Servers. We rebooted the iPhone and the watch.

Now the iPhone never recognizes the Apple Watch as part of the setup. In fact, it doesn’t recognize my own iPhone 11 either. I can literally put the watch and iPhone side-by-side, exactly as the watch is saying I should do, and the iPhone doesn’t react or see it or start the setup process.

If I attempt to manually setup the watch and it gets to the pairing process, it shows the swirling orb. I open the Watch app on the phone and try to pair a new watch but, no matter how long I focus on the orb, it never registers with the app.

So then I try a manual pairing. When I do that, the list of nearby devices should appear in the watch app so that I can pair with it by entering the proper six-digit pairing sequence but the watch never appears in the list. I’m supposed to be able to tap on the (i) on the Watch screen but nothing happens when I do that.

Here’s what I’ve done.

- Updated iPhone to latest OS version

- Rebooted iPhone numerous times

- Rebooted Watch numerous times.

- Confirmed it is NOT still registered with the previous owner’s iCloud account.

- Confirmed Bluetooth is on and that it works with other items (i.e. AirPods)

- Confirmed Wifi is on and that it works

- Confirmed I am not in airplane mode

- Confirmed the watch and iPhone are fully charged.

Even Apple Chat support is stumped. They’ve given me an appointment at the Genius Bar to see if they can troubleshoot it.

Personally, I think it’s stuck in the original mode when it first tried to connect and got stuck waiting for a server response but there is no way for me to force a hard reset on the watch.

My only other option now is to let the battery completely die and then recharge it to see if that does the trick.

That’s it.

Let’s go, all of you Apple Watch Tech Stars. Hit me up with your thoughts and/or suggestions.

Thanks in advance.