My Apple Watch will not unlock after upgrade to watchOS 7.6

Question

Level 1

11 points

My Apple Watch will not unlock after upgrade to watchOS 7.6

Is anyone else having a problem where the Apple Watch will not unlock after upgrade to version 7.6? My company's policy is to require unlock via my phone and disables the ability to enter a passcode on the watch. Thus the watch is saying "Device Locked", "Unlock iPhone to start using Apple Watch", yet my iPhone to which it is paired IS unlocked and my iPhone is able to read the "General", "About" information from my watch. How do I unlock my watch? This worked before the upgrade from 7.5 watch SW to 7.6.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Jul 20, 2021 7:18 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 21, 2021 8:15 AM in response to JohnKzr

Hi there JohnKzr,

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. We understand you're having some difficulties with your Apple Watch unlocking with your iPhone and we'd be happy to help assist. First, have you performed a restart on both your Apple Watch and iPhone since noticing this? If not, we'd recommend trying that first by following the steps in the articles below and then test if you are able to unlock your watch with your iPhone.

How to restart your Apple Watch

Restart your iPhone

If you continue to notice the same behavior, it's possible that the Apple Watch is no longer fully connected with the iPhone and may need to be set up again. The resources below will walk you through the unpairing and repairing process. You will be able to restore the Apple Watch from a backup during the repairing process so you don't your watch data.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch

Set up your Apple Watch

We hope this helps.

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Answer 2

BobHarris

Level 9

55,109 points

Jul 29, 2021 12:29 PM in response to JohnKzr

Unpairing my Apple Watch from my iPhone https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204568

Then pairing and restoring my Apple Watch to my iPhone https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204505

Cured my Apple Watch unlock via iPhone issues.

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Answer 3

JohnKzr Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 21, 2021 10:10 AM in response to barberlives123

I tried all steps above and still cannot unlock my watch. I first tried restarting both devices (watch first, wait until rebooted, then restart phone)=>did not resolve the problem. I then did the second steps (unpair and erase Apple Watch, Set up Apple Watch)=> Still does not unlock. However, it does communicate as it will show the statistical info under "About" in the Apple Watch App on the phone.

In summary, I practically now have a non-functional watch due to the update.

[Edited by Moderator]

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