Apple Watch 3 won’t pair after iOS 15 update

I am having the same problem! My watch series 3 won’t updated to watchOS 8 after my phone updated to the iOS 15! I let it run overnight it said error try again later so I tried again and it kept pausing saying my phone wasn’t connected to WiFi but it was!! Tried uninstalling the app and pairing it again and now it will not paid my watch to my phone so I can’t updated it! Tried for 24 hours with no luck!! My guess is I’ll have to buy a new watch another couple $100 down the drain!! Thanks!!

I’ve managed to fix this issue by resetting the watch itself.

Double tap the side button from the pair animation and choose reset.

Then when starting the whole pairing / update process, make sure the watch is on it’s charger. Usually it prompts about this (and the 50% charge requirement) but it didn’t.

Now the status is “downloading to watch”.

Hope this works for you.

Thanks for posting in the Apple Support Communities chv,

We see you linked here from How to pair your Apple Watch with a new iPhone, after encountering issues pairing your Apple Watch with an iPhone running iOS 15.

If you haven't yet, we recommend ensuring your Apple Watch is updated to the latest version. The latest release for Apple Watch, is WatchOS 8 which is compatible with Apple Watch Series 3. The following page offers guidance that should help: Update your Apple Watch

Cheers!

We appreciate you keeping the thread up to date chv,

What version of watchOS is installed on the device now? You mentioned you were able to pair with a device running iOS 14, is that device still available to be used to update the Apple Watch?

What messages are you seeing on the Apple Watch or iPhone when trying to pair? Can you describe the steps you took to reset your Apple Watch?

The more information you're able to provide, the better community members will understand exactly what's occurring, which can increase your chances of getting a helpful response.

Thanks!

The apple watch 3 GPS only has only 8GB of internal storage, most of that is taken up by the operating system and other critical software with not much space left for the update.So installing or even pairing to an ios14 or ios15 phone is proving nearly impossible for just about all the watch 3 users on this forum.

The same applies to Apple watch 1 and 2 they are almost impossible to either pair or update with an ios 14 or ios15 phone.

Your best bet is to call in at an apple store and ask them to update it for you.

My Apple Watch 3 had the plain white apple screen when I woke up from processing the update overnight. When it turns on I can't get it off that screen. I've tried a hard reset and everything. The update busted my watch! I'm pretty bummed. No way it's a coincidence.

Yep same here. Nothing works and I can't delete the iOS 15 update from my iPhone either. They should have had a warning about the update before installation. I will call Apple to try to fix but not hopeful. Maybe they should issue us new watches. Not our fault they no longer work but I might as well ask for the moon.

I guess the series 3 is just trash at this point because I haven’t found any solutions 😭😭

i have the same situation with the update to ios 15. Iphone 6 brfore update everything was ok👍, now is a headache.

Mine is pretty much broken also.

This will take a while hope it works for you.