apple watch locked wont unlock

Follow these steps to erase your locked watch and re-pair it with your iPhone:

• Connect your watch to its charging cable, with power connected.
• Press and hold the side button until you see the Power Off slider.
• Press firmly on the display (do not try to slide the Power Off slider - just press down more firmly than a normal tap) and then tap on Erase all content and settings.
• Re-pair your watch using the Watch app on your iPhone, choosing to Restore from Backup if offered the option.

More information:

Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

If you forgot the passcode for your Apple Watch - Apple Support

I have the series 1 watch too. It worked well for a year and now about once every two weeks it locks and will not unlock. I have restored the watch to factory defaults and used the backup. I also restored it to factory and started from scratch. It works for about two weeks. Seems to have started after the last watch IOS update. My son works for Apple and he is at a loss. Can they help in the store?

It has happened to me this week. Amazing. There is no way to unlock the watch now. I have reset the watch, painfully reset the phone, turned of both devices and start up phone followed by watch, nothing worked.

Then suddenly for a brief moment the watch unlocked. For about 10 minutes the watch was behaving, then suddenly it doesn't unlock again. Bloody frustrating.

For gurus out there offering a solution, please do help if you really know what you are talking about. There is no way to interact with a locked watch other than "force touch power off button", and that doesn't work.

Maybe it's really time to shop for a Samsung and pray it doesn't catch fire on my wrist.

I have tried this 4 times. Reset the whole watch, start as new watch, start with backup. It doesn't help.

Issue is: the phone and Watch are connected. It shows up on battery. When the watch leaves the phone, the "no connection" blue icon doesn't light up. When you change Watch face using iphone watch setup app, it can be done. Hence it's a matter of one critical connection line of code that was left out.

Resetting 10 times will not help in this particular case.

Open the Apple Watch app on your paired iPhone. On the "My Watch" tab (at the bottom), check:

Passcode > Unlock with iPhone = "On"

Also make sure your iPhone's Bluetooth is "On"

When I try to go to the passcode setting I get a message that says "your Apple Watch is currently locked. Please unlock to continue".

On my watch I get the message "device locked unlock iPhone to start using Apple Watch". My phone is NOT locked. I'm creating the help request on it! This is so frustrating!

Rhrouse wrote:

When I try to go to the passcode setting I get a message that says "your Apple Watch is currently locked. Please unlock to continue".

On my watch I get the message "device locked unlock iPhone to start using Apple Watch". My phone is NOT locked. I'm creating the help request on it! This is so frustrating!

Hi

It may help to restart both your iPhone and your watch, turning both off together, then restarting your iPhone first:

• Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
• Restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Hi Jonathan, thanks for your response. Unfortunately I've tired that a number of times, including in every possible combination of order, shut down watch and phone at same time, restart at same time, one first the other first. Nothing fixes it. And when it does finally start working it's really automagical as it doesn't seem to be related to anything I do last night for instance, when I posted this. I tried every combination of restarting the two devices to no avail. Then about 4 hours later, for no good reason, the watch unlocked.

It may help to unpair and re-pair your watch:

• The Watch app on your iPhone takes a backup of your watch when unpairing via the app. Choose to Restore from Backup when offered the option during set up. Most data and settings will be restored, with some exceptions (eg Apple Pay cards, passcode).
• Unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone - Apple Support
• Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

I am having the same issue with my Series 1 watch. It has worked fine for over a year, but now it will not unlock with the message "unlock your phone to start using your watch" I have done on/off and hard resets on both in various order. I unpaired the watch on my phone and now it will not pair up again since I can't get the watch out of the locked mode.

Hi Donswee, did you have any luck unlocking your watch, I'm now experiencing the same issue, only I've also unpaired from my iPhone and now it can't find my watch on bluetooth settings.

thanks

Steve