Can’t Set Up Apple Watch for Family Member

Hello all,

I struggled several hours last night with this problem, even chatted with an apple advisor for maybe 1-2 hours and in the end they escalated and set a call up for today. However, I cancelled the call because the following worked for me:

• set up an appleID first for the person you want to add the watch to (in my case it was my daughter)
• I had a spare iphone X (which is not compatible with the watch SE) which I used to sign in with my daughter's new appleID.
• Then try the pairing of the watch with your own iphone. I seem to have noticed that you get a prompt on the spare iphone to allow the watch to be added. Perhaps this is what was missing. It worked!

I had tried the suggestions to log in to appleid with my browser; that was not helpful. However, I did not try logging in to icloud.com, perhaps if you don't have a spare device you could try this.

I had the same error, then I logged in under just created daughter's account on the iPhone and disabled the sharing location. Then I logout on the iPhone (and logged in under my account) and tried to pair the watch. It helped.

But I couldn't setup cellular. The screen has shown the message that my subscription doesn't allow me to setup cellular. The support of cellular company didn't help of course (Elisa, Finland). After that I logged in on iPhone under my daughter's account and paired the watch as "for myself", it was paired at once and I could setup the cellular. Then I logout on the iPhone and login under my account.

A lot of time wasted, I think the product is not ready for the market

It is finally working for me. Someone posted about removing share my location in family sharing. I went through the steps to pair and I got past the error code. Then I got stuck on set up cellular but went to att store and they resent the eSIM and it worked. They also said at the store there was a watch upgrade yesterday that may have fixed the problem. Good luck, I’m exhausted after the amount of time I spent to get this feature that Apple advertises but could not support

I had the same issue with AT&T. After I logged in to iCloud with my daughter's ID/pwd on the desktop, there were no more errors. I visited AT&T's local store, but there was no solution. Looks like it is a workaround solution.

Thanks.

That's not true in every case - my account, Watch, everything is set to America. The only thing that worked for me was logging in to the child's iCloud account and accepting remaining terms of service.

I finally got it to work too! I felt like I was going crazy because I kept logging into my Apple ID and it still wasn't working. The key for me was logging into iCloud.com (not appleid.apple.com). I did that using the email address I'm trying to use to set up the watch, and it worked on the first shot.

Thanks everyone!

Make sure you are connected directly to your wifi router and not through an accesspoint / wifi extender / or repeater. This worked for me.

I had done these things and it didn't help. Logging into iCloud as the child's Apple ID was the only thing that worked.

When we were pairing the watch (series 9) to an iphone 13 pro -- it was giving me the same issue. Constant pair and reset.. Eventually I soft reset both the phone and the watch, set up a NEW apple ID for the watch, and it did allow us to pair it in the end. I'm not sure why it's not communicating on the server side of things, but with the new apple Id for the family sharing it did help. I did notice for the pairing, that it was stuck on the same "health data" screen for a little bit as well.

Not sure if this helps.

Today I was able to log into their new iCloud accounts on a desktop. You could not see the watch as an added device. Which was accurate. Tried to set them up again and they both worked, no issues.

After reading through all these responses, I decided to take a break and sleep it off. This morning I went on my computer and logged into my son’s iCloud to ensure all things were set. They were. Then I went to location sharing on my phone and turned OFF his watch that had connected on earlier tries. Then I tried to repair it and it finally worked like many of you! Though, now the cellular is all messed up from all the attempts, so that’s my next step, to go to T-Mobile and set that up. Crossing my fingers I don’t have an issue. Thanks for all your wisdom everyone and sharing your steps.

I am getting the same issue. I am on AT&T and bought two unlocked SE 2nd gen with cellular for my daughters yesterday. I'd have bought through AT&T but Best Buy had them on sale. Anyway, no matter how many times I try to pair them I always get that "CDPStateError error -2" message. I am the parent account on a family group and both daughters' Apple IDs were created yesterday after buying the watches. On a whim I tried setting them up for myself with my Apple ID, and both watches worked just fine. I was able to set them up as additional watches for myself and had no issues with signing in. I also took that opportunity to update them to the latest software (WatchOS 10.6) overnight, thinking that had something to do with it, but when I unpaired them from my account this morning and tried to pair them for the kids I get the same error message.

I assume that this means that it has something to do with their Apple IDs, but I can't figure out what. Sometimes the watches will show up under devices when I log in as them, sometimes not. I'm thinking of completely deleting their Apple IDs and restarting to see if that works, but I shouldn't have to. Ironically, we bought these over a kid-oriented smartwatch because it should just work with the rest of our Apple products.

we got the certificate error first and the watch needed an update. The one we were having issues with was the starlight color, which apparently is not as popular so they sit in the store longer. We updated my phone, and then I think when we opened the watch app again it prompted a software update for the watch. The AT&T guy was still handling it this point so I'm not 100% though. We may have also logged it in as if it was my own watch, updated the software, and then unpaired it as well. Regardless, certificate errors need a software update.

I also

hit this spot. I don't remember the exact prompts, but I tried putting in the computer password and it wouldn't work. It then gave me the option to reset encryption (or something along those lines) which basically said it would reset the passwords associated with her account and I chose to do that. It allowed me to continue the set up all the way to the end. I did also skip anything that it would let me and set it up later after the watch was on.