Fitness+ Apple Watch pairing and Apple TV airplay issues

I had this issue too. I created a support case with Apple, and they did not have an answer either. However, after much troubleshooting, I have appeared to resolve my issue. The "Home" Setup on the Apple TV was never completed. Once I did this, it started working 100% of the time.

On the Apple TV go to Settings > AirPlay and HomeKit. I selected the Room to change the Name, and then it paired my phone with the Apple TV, setting up "My Home".

Go back to the Fitness App and it should pair.

I have a separate but I assume related issue where when I open the Fitness app is says 'Open the Workout App on Apple Watch to Connect'. When I do this a connect button appears in the Workout app. When I tap it, it says 'Connecting' then the connecting screen disappears and takes me back to the workout list and there's no change on the Apple TV Fitness+ app, it still says 'Open the Workout App'.

Anyone else have this?

Sadly, none of the steps listed above have resolved the issue. Neither logging out and back in of AppleID, hard resets, full erase and restores of both AppleTV/Apple Watch, nor re-setting the Home hub had any effect. Still receive the “Pairing Cancelled” message.

Apple doesn't tell you this but you'll need to enable Two-factor authentication on your Apple ID account. Otherwise the TV and Watch won't be able to communicate.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915

Hey cjax1818,

We see you're experiencing issues with pairing Fitness+ on your Apple TV. We do see you've received a few answers, but wanted to make sure we provided a helpful resource in case it's still needed.

Check out the following article:

If you see "Pairing Canceled" while starting a workout in Apple Fitness+ - Apple Support

Thanks!

Almost found a solution this morning that may or may not help others....

Some posts are recommended ding setting up the HomeKit area, of course for those that have never done this it could be the solution. For others, I'm sure they have already set up HomeKit before Fitness+ even came out so not much to see here.

Then there are posts about making sure you have iCloud set up as well. Again for those that have never done this it could be path to getting things to work.

This morning went to one of my ATV gen4 and

1. Logged it out of iCloud under accounts
2. restrated
3. Logged back into my iCloud account
4. The above process obviously removed ATV form HomeKit as well.
5. I now saw the red 1 more thing to configure inside the AirPlay HomeKit section; my hopes were high
6. Went into Airplay/HomeKit section and was prompted to connect phone (bring it by ATV, bluetooth, etc)
7. Set everything up; and still a no go for my watch
8. Restarted; no go
9. Went back to HomeKit changed name of room device was in; no go
10. Changed name of device, no go...
11. Again, my wife's watch was already working before all this and still worked after I did all above.

I think this is karma for all the times I had upgraded my phone, watch, with new features/emojis and she's like "how do you get that?" and I just replied update your phone fool 🤣

Anyway for some it may help to go through steps above. At this point only thing I have not done is reset phone, watch. Not in mood to go through that yet. Working fine for me with phone, iPad, and watch so I can wait on ATV to; as apple puts it "just work" 🙄

I did resolve the black screen issue from my phone to my apple tv. But could not get my watch to directly connect to apple tv or my ipad pro. So the fix i found, instead of ‘screen mirroring’ you phone to apple tv then trying to start the works out which results in a black screen. Start the work out on the phone then hit the airplay button in the bottom right of the screen (picture attached) then it will show the work out on your tv and ask your watch to play to start. Hope that helps. This is the only way i got it to work between my iphobe 12, apple tv and ipad pro. Hope for a real fix soon.

GUYS DROP EVERYTHING; I FIGURED IT OUT!

I spent 3 days on the phone with the same Advisor (shout out to Colin!) and we finally cracked the code.

On your iPhone, go to the Home App and select the Home icon.

Home Settings>Click your iCloud Avatar, and make sure "Show Me on Apple TV" is toggled ON. (See below)

Not sure what this setting even means at all, but I tried every other troubleshooting option in this whole thread, and this is the one that finally fixed it.

My Apple TV is in a different room (home theater setup) and connection keeps dropping I suspect because of Bluetooth reception. The solution of connecting watch to iPad, and using airplay to stream to Apple TV is a godsend. Thank you, @beckie48 !

Thank you I did this, removed the user on my apple TV then re-added it. It was easy just asked to put my iPhone near the Apple TV, once re-adding the main user again I launched the fitness app on my apple TV. It asked me to open my fitness app on my watch, once launched on my apple watch it gave me the connect option.

Assuming that your iPhone is on 14.3 and your watch is on 7.2 the watch should connect to Apple TV when the watch is near the Apple TV box or select the Apple TV option from your iPhone or tablet when the workout begins. Currently AirPlay is not available with Apple Fitness + on Apple device nor AirPlay supported smart tv's, that includes trying to screen mirror.

I did have an issue with my iPhone finding my watch when I launched my first workout just using my iPhone. I hard reset the phone and the watch via the buttons and when both devices booted back up it found the watch right away when I went back and started a new Apple fitness + workout

I’m having the same issue. I was able to get my watch to connect to Fitness+ on the Apple TV after many attempts, but the connection was lost 10 min into my workout and I’m unable to restore it. I am getting the same messages as the original poster. I’m not sure why my watch connected when it did, as I didn’t do anything new.

Same here. I get The same pairing canceled prompt on my Apple TV regardless of how close my watch is to the actual Apple TV. I tried rebooting both the watch and the Apple TV but still get the same problem