Apple Watch Will Not Pair After Extended Period of Not Using

Early Watches will not use 5Ghz

Series 1,2,3 will be tough to pair but you should try this

- Ensure the iphone is on iOS16.3 or later

- Erase the Watch completely. Put your watch on its charger and keep it there until you complete these steps. (select the watch OS version) Erase Apple Watch – Apple Support (UK) 

- When pairing do not try to restore the backup, pair as a New Watch

In addition...General advice for "no internet" warning

Trouble Pairing, Watch, no internet. 

First check you have no other sports watches like Fitbit that are paired to your iPhone  

Then force restart the watch. i.e. press and hold both the side button and Digital Crown for at least 10 seconds, then release both buttons when you see the Apple logo. 

Then Force Restart the paired iphone  

Force restart iPhone – Apple Support (UK) 

Then in the iphone, Settings, General, Transfer or reset iphone, Reset, Reset network settings. Then reconnect the iPhone to Wi-Fi.

Make sure you have no VPN or VPN based adblocker in the iphone in Settings, General, VPN & Device Management.

Then reset the router to factory settings which usually involves a paperclip on a little hole. 

Try again to pair the Watch. 

DMTankD wrote:

Seems like it might just be time to save up a little and get a new one

Even the SE 2022 will knock the spots off a series 3 for performance and most of the capability except for Blood Oxygen, ECG, 5GHz wifi and keyboard that you get on Series 8.

DMTankD wrote:

I have tried all of these except for resetting my entire router.

Don't give up til you try all of them.