Apple Watch is not changing time zones

One thing that's easily overlooked - when traveling it's common to set the phone to "airplane mode", this simultaneously sets the watch to "airplane mode" as well. And it completely severs communication between the watch and phone.

Later, when you turn "airplane mode" off on the phone, it does not automatically change on the watch (because they can't communicate). The watch will not reflect the time-zone change until you manually turn "airplane mode" off on the watch too (swipe up to the control center, and tap the airplane mode icon).

So, before rebooting, check the airplane mode setting on the watch. When airplane mode is turned off on both the watch and the phone, then the watch should get the new location and adjust the time zone.

I'm not sure this will help, but it's worth checking - on your iPhone, go to the Settings app, tap "Privacy" and then "Location Services". Make sure that Location Services are turned on (the top setting) and also scroll down until you find "Apple Watch Faces" and make sure that's turned on as well.

I bought the series 3 cellular over the weekend and Just landed in Hong Kong. The time wasn’t changing but restarting the Apple Watch fixed it. I am sure the developers will be looking for a better fix here

That's odd - it should appear in the list of apps that are using your location services, below the setting for turning location services on or off (screenshot below). It may not be alphabetical - notice how my "Weather" app is at the top - so you may need to look carefully.

In a worst-case, you can try resetting the iPhone ("reset location and privacy" or "reset settings" should be good enough, no need to clear content), but before you do that I would fiddle with other settings to try to get the watch to communicate with the phone correctly. Maybe un-pair and re-pair the watch?

I know this may be a bit late but I had the same problem after travelling to a new time zone - my iPhone 6S Plus updated automatically but my Watch did not. After reading this thread and not finding an answer as I also followed the steps, I decided to "Power Off" the watch and turn it back on.

That solved the problem.

Give it a try.

I am new to the Apple watch (series 2) and have only had it for a couple of days. I took a day trip to a different time-zone, and noticed the same problem; the _digital_ clock faces did not update to the correct time zone.

But, and this is the odd thing, the _analog_ watch faces showed the correct time for my locality.

So, it seems to me that the watch had been updated, but something else is going on.

I had exactly the same when traveling from Moscow to Munich this week (series 2, watchOS 3.2.3). Digital watch faces did not update but the analog did. Re-booting the watch solved the problem, but this is clearly a bug.

I am having this same problem with my new Series 3. The series 0 changes timezones when I travel just fine, but in my trip from Central to Eastern and back it required a restart both times to fix the watch's time.

Powering off the watch has not worked for me. I’ve checked all (I think) other advice in this thread and nada. All my other devices changed immediately on crossing the time zone. Frustrating. Other stuff (weather/temperature) and map directions on watch have stopped working too. *****.

This worked for me! A restart was all the watch needed.

Reboot a bit of a pain but worked.

Thank you! After trying all the other suggestions, powering off / on my apple watch did the trick! Now to remember next time. 😕

Same thing here. New Series 3 didn't update timezone. Had to turn it off and turn it back on again for it to update to the correct timezone. Good to know, but shouldn't need to be done.