Apple Watch Series 1 (The First One) - Unable to pair or use altogether..

No, there is unfortunately no way to bypass the initial setup screen or use the watch with minimum functionality (even just to see the time) without pairing it to an iPhone first. 

The Apple Watch Series 1 requires a successful pairing handshake to activate its internal clock and interface. Because you factory reset it, it is completely locked out until it finishes that handshake. 

That watch is 10 years old, or older. It’s obsolete from a support status, only has 8gb of storage (total), and can’t run any available versions of WatchOS. I seriously doubt you will be successfully pairing it to a phone anytime soon. I’d suggest recycling it, but I don’t get sentimental about electronic devices.

lkrupp wrote:

It’s tragic that an expensive smartwatch can become obsolete and useless while a real mechanical watch in the same price range can last literally for a century or more. I have my great grandfather’s pocket watch from the 19th century and it still runs fine. I also have my original series 0 Watch purchased in 2015 sitting in a drawer somewhere, useless. I have a series 4 right now (swapped out for battery service) and I'm waiting to see what might be released this Fall.

I also have a mechanical pocket watch from my grandfather, I can wind it up and it still works. But smart watches are more akin to computing devices, and computing devices are mostly no longer in use after 10 years or so. Here is a list of museum piece devices I have that are still running:

2010 Canon Printer 8120 (16 years) -- prints and scans fine (Tahoe 26.6.2), but "ink pad is full" and parts cannot be obtained for this model. There are ways to manually remove and clean the ink pad but that interferes with the sensors and seems like a lot of effort. I plan to recycle this device.

2010 MacBook Air (16 years) -- running well (albeit SMART warnings on internal SSD), all original equipment. Because it is limited to High Sierra, not useful for real life use.

2013 Epson Printer XP-820 (13 years) -- prints and scans fine (Tahoe 26.6.2)

2013 Macbook Air (13 years) -- still running well, but some web sites don't work properly (Big Sur) and Office 365 no longer can be run as Microsoft won't support Big Sur anymore.

2015 iMac (11 years) -- still running well, but some web sites don't work properly (Monterey).

2019 Macbook Pro 16" -- running well in all respects, on Tahoe 26.6.2 which is the last macOS for this model.

I believe most people keep laptops for 3-5 years, desktops maybe 5-8 years. I would say an Apple Watch is more akin to a laptop, but it has the added complexity of having to interface with an iPhone. So a 10-year old Apple Watch, obsolete, might need to pair with another obsolete or vintage device (iPhone on older iOS), this might not be possible in most practical senses. Especially as one cannot update or configure an Apple Watch or iPhone without downloads from Apple's servers.

I believe that companies stop supporting versions of the OS for various devices when it no longer makes business sense to do so. I will guess that there are so few users of the Apple Watch Series 1 that it doesn't make business sense to go through what might be a significant effort to adjust both the iOS for the iPhone as well as the OS for the watch to enable it to keep being a supported device.

For the several ancient devices I have, it is fun (like a hobby) to keep them running, but for everyday activities, they aren't really very useful.

If a company invested the extra engineering time and effort to sustain older devices that almost no one is using anymore, all of us would experience higher costs for their product because those higher costs just get passed on to consumers.

It’s tragic that an expensive smartwatch can become obsolete and useless while a real mechanical watch in the same price range can last literally for a century or more. I have my great grandfather’s pocket watch from the 19th century and it still runs fine. I also have my original series 0 Watch purchased in 2015 sitting in a drawer somewhere, useless. I have a series 4 right now (swapped out for battery service) and I'm waiting to see what might be released this Fall.

I would never compare the two. That pocket watch is a timepiece built with discerning skills and potentially centuries old engineering. The smart watch is a computer, redacted and strapped to your wrist. I wouldn’t expect it’s lifespan to be any different from other computing devices.

you can let them know by using their feedback channels

Product Feedback - Apple

to the best of our knowledge, writing it in these user forums will not mean it will ever reach apples ears