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Unlock watch with iPhone not working and settings not available

Phone and watch are on latest updates. "Unlock with iPhone" is not working. Tried to toggle "unlock with iPhone" on the watch, but once off, it says "You can enable this feature from your iPhone" but there is no such option?

Posted on Jul 30, 2021 8:35 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 5, 2021 9:35 AM

Unpairing and pairing again turns off the "Unlock with Apple Watch" in the process, which you can do in a few seconds via your iPhone Settings, vs the half hour to an hour it will take to get through the unpairing/pairing sequence.


If you want both unlock Apple Watch with iPhone, and unlock iPhone with Apple Watch, then at the moment I only know the narrow time window where you can unlock your Apple Watch with your iPhone if "Unlock with Apple Watch" is enabled.


  • iPhone asleep (screen is blank)
  • Raise your wrist and wait for the numeric passcode unlock screen to appear
  • Immediately wake your iPhone and unlock your iPhone.


If you wake your iPhone before the Apple Watch numeric unlock screen appears, it will not work.

If you take to long to wake your iPhone and unlock it, it will not work.


This is a bug, but until Apple fixes it, either disable "Unlock with Apple Watch", or use the above dance, or enter your Apple Watch numeric unlock passcode.

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 5, 2021 9:35 AM in response to brucemccorkendale

Unpairing and pairing again turns off the "Unlock with Apple Watch" in the process, which you can do in a few seconds via your iPhone Settings, vs the half hour to an hour it will take to get through the unpairing/pairing sequence.


If you want both unlock Apple Watch with iPhone, and unlock iPhone with Apple Watch, then at the moment I only know the narrow time window where you can unlock your Apple Watch with your iPhone if "Unlock with Apple Watch" is enabled.


  • iPhone asleep (screen is blank)
  • Raise your wrist and wait for the numeric passcode unlock screen to appear
  • Immediately wake your iPhone and unlock your iPhone.


If you wake your iPhone before the Apple Watch numeric unlock screen appears, it will not work.

If you take to long to wake your iPhone and unlock it, it will not work.


This is a bug, but until Apple fixes it, either disable "Unlock with Apple Watch", or use the above dance, or enter your Apple Watch numeric unlock passcode.

Jul 30, 2021 8:58 AM in response to brucemccorkendale

Turn off "Unlock with Apple Watch" under iPhone settings -> Face ID & Passcode (for touch ID, it may be slightly different title).


This is a bug, and Apple will most likely issue an update in the next few days/weeks.


Unpairing and pairing again, turns off “Unlock with Apple Watch”, which is why it appears to fix things.


If you want both, you may be able to do the following dance (assuming you have Face ID; not sure if this will work for Finger Print Reader iPhones)

iPhone screen blank (screen off)

Raise Apple Watch until the numeric passcode unlock screen appears.

Then immediately wake the iPhone and unlock it.


If you wake the iPhone too early, it will not work.

If you wait too long to wake and unlock the iPhone, it will not work.

Unlock watch with iPhone not working and settings not available

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