Apple Watch won't play on AirPods

Hi

Some other users have experienced issues connecting AirPods with Apple Watch (after they have been paired and previously used successfully) in order to begin music playback from the synced playlist.

You may wish to contact Apple Support or make a Genius Bar reservation to seek assistance or to submit feedback in order to report the issue:

Contact Apple:

• Contact - Official Apple Support
• https://twitter.com/applesupport
• http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/

Send feedback (you should not typically expect to receive a reply):

• https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html

My new AirPods delivered today, i was so disappointed about the lack of seemless pairing promied by all the reviews. Setting up on my iPhone and Apple Watch was a terrible experience, repeatedly failing and not being able to connect. Had to try over and over to get it right on the phone and on the watch it kept saying the airpods were too far away, when they were mere centimetres apart.

Finally this tip solved the problem on the apple watch. Toggling the airplane mode on the Apple Watch allowed it to recognise the AirPods and allow me to swap between phone and watch audio sources automatically.

One of the worst setup experiences in my long apple history...

Guy

I had a similar issue my AirPods paired with my iPhone, iPad etc....with no problem. But when I chose to play music from my AppleWatch it did not pair with my AirPods. So I tried unpair the watch, no luck. Hard reset helped the first time then it does the same thing no pairing with my AirPods. Went to the apple store and they told me to unpair my watch and set it up as new NOT BACKUP ! It helped !! So far it works. They told me it is an software issue since my watch had 3 unexpected crashes which is unusual for the Apple Watch according to the Apple store employee. Hope that helps.

Mine will not sync with Apple Watch and finally after playing with turning on/off airplane mode as suggested it surprised me by syncing up but then it kept dropping off. It would play a few tracks and then I get an error message to make sure my AirPods are switched on so like a fool I looked for the power switch. Then I spent 45 minutes with Apple support just to be told to ask Genius Bar. Anyway I have scheduled a return and decided to suffer the restocking fee.

Ok I was in contact with a senior Tech and now they are telling me the issue has something to do with the Bluetooth unit of the phone ?! Did anybody try yo get a new watch ? So far only the airplane toggle is helping or reset

I just recently bought an Apple Watch. It seems that after you update to the latest Apple Watch OS, pairing the Apple Watch to Airpods does require toggling Airplane Mode. The other thing to try is unpairing the Watch from the Phone and then pairing them again as it means the Watch will back up to the iPhone and then restore to factory settings which will also reset the Bluetooth on the Apple Watch. Hope this helps

Thanks for the tip it has fixed the issue when wanting to see the battery level of my AirPods via the watch.

The initial set up for pods to phone was seamless and took seconds so it seems bizarre that we need to invoke airplane mode to get connectivity!

I had the same issue. I solved it by removing my AirPods from my iiPhone completely. I received a message that warned me that they would be removed from all devices. I said OK. I then started the pairing process with my iPhone for each of my AirPods (I have two of them named different names). Then I was able to go to my Watch 3 and re-connect to the AirPods I wanted to use and it all worked great from that point.

Same issue - had to turn Bluetooth off on my iPhone before AirPods would connect to the watch. Not the most elegant solution, but volume seems fine so far..

Are you choosing the "source" option from the Watch in the Music App to connect the headphones to watch?

Little update from my side so the unpair and setup as a new watch did not help same problem occurs. So I have to get the watch to the Apple they will send it out for repair.

I hoped the latest update would cure this problem but its no better.

Come on apple don't spoil this.