Watch showing strange icon - two watches coming together - or watch+phone iOS 10.2

If you hold your watch at the top of your iPhone it will pick it up as part of the together mode so you can share pictures, contacts etc. If you don’t want it on you can turn it off: go to your phone settings, type in airdrop & it’s within those settings & is called “Bring devices together”where you can turn it off

It is something that should only happen when you bring together two devices belonging to different users, yes it is name drop animation.

Happening between two devices belonging to the same person is a bug and I reported it weeks ago. I suggest you all do the same.

https://apple.com/feedback

This is a precise game and to be precise it's

Settings, General, Airdrop, turn OFF "Bringing devices together"

It is part of the same animation. A warning in fact.

If you don't like it turn it off

Settings, General, Airdrop, turn OFF Bringing devices together

Set the thread to sort by oldest. Read the whole thread.

It is normal, it is Name Drop animation, but if you don't like it, turn it off.

I agree with you.

You can Report it as a bug https://apple.com/feedback

turn off airdrop and it stopped for....now

Turn it off as described above.

It should only happen when a watch and a phone are a couple of inches apart. If yours are several feet apart then restart your watch and phone and hers.

If no remedy then unpair both yours and your mom's devices and pair again, well away from each other (take your watch off when pairing your mom's devices)

Glad to finally find a discussion on this. I didn't even know how to describe it to get reasonable search responses on several attempts. Yay for the Apple Community! And Igirl1 for getting a photo of the watch screen and starting this thread.

I have two watches -- a Series 4 and a Series 7, both up to date with Version 10.3. My iphone 14 is running IOS 17.2.1.

It's only on the Series 7 that the display will randomly show a "watch-to-watch/watch-to-phone" motion, two watches moving into a position of being face-to-face. Igirl1's photo shows the first position, side-by-side. The next motion is those two watches moving to be face-to-face. This is then followed by a phone-to-watch motion, which shows the watch moving towards the Iphone's bottom connector, and moving back & forth towards it. Exactly as Igirl1's 2nd photo.

Then it stops. Just prior to the display showing this, the watch vibrates. This has been going on since, I believe, the update in September (whichever one that was, 10.0? 10.1?). Other than the vibration -- I hear no sound. The phone doesn't indicate anything, either. Just the Watch.

As far as I recall, I'm always wearing the Series 7 watch when it happens. Last night it happened, the phone was next to me on the bed, and I was wearing the watch. Neither one was on a charger. The Watch series 4 was on the bedstand, not on the charger. I don't recall ever seeing this happen on the Series 4 watch. I'm sure it hasn't.

Obviously the display is indicating some sort of 'pairing' activity. Or the need to pair. ? Both of my watches are shown in the app. I have the setting on "automatic" so that when I take off one watch and put on the other, the phone recognizes which one I'm wearing... usually:

I noticed just the other night that my Apple Series 4 watch--even though I had been wearing it for several hours, apparently was not connected to the phone. That's the first time that has happened, I believe. I went into the app, and saw a message to connect. I didn't need to repair it or anything. I just tapped on the watch in the app and it connected.

This is telling us SOMETHING! Right? Does everyone who is seeing this own two watches? I think so.

I'm wondering if repairing both watches will eliminate this event.

Weird.

Hey,

This morning, after taking a shower and coming to the bed room where my iPhone 14 sit on the table, my Watch made a weird sound and checking the screen, I saw something like the screen burns from the middle. Then two watches faced each other switching to a watch and a phone facing each other then it stopped. I didn't seem to understand what is going on and I goggled what i could be so I got to this topic.

I didn't know so far how to activate NameDrop but now I could replicate this intentionally. The weird thing for me is , how I understand, this should be working on devices logged in with different apple accounts. Apparently both of my devices use the same apple ID, so I don't get why it is happening.

Touch your watch with your phone. The animation appears. Nothing sinister though in my view unexpected.

Read the thread to see how to turn it off if you don't like it.

Touch someone else's iphone on ios17 or watch with OS10 with yours snd then the animation invites you to share selected contact info. I you think that is useful then leave namedrop turned on.

Use NameDrop on iPhone to share your contact info – Apple Support

Place your phone top just under the bottom of your watch. You will get this image. Its simulating that you should place your phone over the watch face, not below or next to. And if you are using just watches, place both faces toward each other.

this is a apply pay or pay item process it seems

Name drop. Hold your phone to your watch and it will do this.

its called Name Drop for sharing contacts.

I have exactly the same issue when I try to charge both my phone (14 Pro) and my watch (9) at the same time. Strange squiggly lines on the phone with eerie sound effects and the aforementioned two watch faces joining on the watch. Take one or the other off and it stops. I’ve tried three different charging stations with the same results.