Hi
There is a difference between your watch being "unpaired" vs it becoming temporarily "disconnected".
Disconnections
Once they have been paired, your watch and iPhone remain paired until they are manually unpaired. However, they can become disconnected or connected (multiple times) whilst remaining paired.
Disconnections can be normal, such as when the watch loses the Bluetooth connection with the paired iPhone and no known Wi-Fi network is available to your watch. When disconnected, Apple Watch still offers various features:
- How to use your Apple Watch without your iPhone nearby - Apple Support
- About Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on Apple Watch - Apple Support
Your watch and iPhone should reconnect automatically a short while after being brought close together again. If they do not, keep your iPhone and watch close by each other and follow these steps until they do:
- Check that both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are enabled on your iPhone:
- It may help to toggle Bluetooth off and on again on your iPhone (Settings > Bluetooth).
- For the best performance from your watch, keep both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi permanently enabled on your iPhone.
- Check that Airplane Mode is not enabled on your watch:
- When viewing the time on your watch, swipe up on the watch face to open Control Centre.
- If your watch is not connected and Airplane Mode is turned on, tap the button to turn it off.
- It may otherwise help to toggle Airplane Mode on and off again.
- Restart both devices, turning both off together, then restarting your iPhone first.
- If they still do not reconnect, unpair and re-pair your watch (choose to Restore from Backup when re-pairing):
More information:
If your Apple Watch isn't connected to your iPhone - Apple Support
Unpaired
If your Apple Watch is instead unpaired according to the Watch app on your iPhone, but still paired according to your watch, then you will need to erase all content and settings directly on your watch in order to re-pair it to your iPhone.
- On your watch, go to: Home screen (via a single press on the Digital Crown) > Settings (cog icon) > General > Reset > Erase all Content and Settings.
- Then re-pair it to your iPhone via the standard process (choosing to Restore from Backup, if offered the option):