Apple Watch Series 2 running slower on OS 4.0

Hi

The following steps may help, having resolved a similar performance issue for another user:

If you have not yet done so, update your iPhone to the latest software:

• Update the iOS on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Restart both your iPhone and your Apple 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
• If the issue persists, next close all open apps on your iPhone and then restart both devices again.

Unpair and re-pair your Apple Watch:

• The Watch app on your iPhone takes a backup of your watch automatically when unpairing via the app.
• Initially choose to Restore from Backup during set up (most data and settings will be restored, with some exceptions, such as Apple Pay cards, passcode).
• If the issue persists, consider instead unpairing and setting it up as a new watch.
• Unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone - Apple Support
• Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

I know I’m a bit late to this thread but I found a solution that has worked for me. My watch has been horribly slow since watchOS4, especially when using the Workout App. I was playing with the settings today and stumbled across ”Detect Gym Equipment“ being on. I never venture into a gym so turned it off and what do you know, the watch is responsive again!

From the watch... Settings > General > Workout > Detect Gym Equipment > turn off

Hope it helps.

I own AW series 2 from day one. With time the watch became slow and less responsive. Starting NRC workout was an 1 minute thing. Touch here, swipe there - wait 10 seconds. I read a lot about AW being laggy and at the and I was forced to take some serious measures. Updating WatchOS on a regular basis only made things worse. Here's what worked for me:

1. I uninstalled all the apps but the native ones. I figured I didn't use them at all anyway.

2. I removed all the watch faces but the ones I actually use.

3. I switched off syncing heavy rotation playlists in Music to prevent tracks taking up some serious space.

4. I turned off detect gym equipment - I run outdoors only.

5. I turned on reduce motion and disabled transparency effects.

6. I switched from recent to favorites while using the dock.

7. Said no to background app refresh.

The watch feels super fast now, sadly a compromise is needed.

So here are a few work arounds I've found to speed up the watch. Shouldn't have to do these, but they do help:

All of the following are done from the apple watch app on your phone.

1. Go to Dock and select favorites verses recent.

2. Turn off automatically install apps, only install the apps you need/use.

3. Uninstall any apps you don't need on the watch, this won't stop notifications, only watch app specific interactions.

4. Turn off background app refresh for watch apps you don't regularly go into, again won't affect notifications.

I found the sum of these really helped with performance. Hope this helps you guys out until apple releases an optimisation update.

Found a fix from searching online that seems to improve performance but doesn’t perfectly fix the workout app slowness. I still have hang ups in the workout app, but the series 2 watch performs better in general.

On the Watch app scroll down to Workout. Under Workout turn off “Detect Gym Equipment.”

You can do the same on your Apple Watch and it’s best to always double-check: under Settings on the watch go to General. Go to Workout and check that Detect Gym Equipment” is off. If it is still on, then turn it off.

My workout app was also lagging badly since upgrading to 4.0 and 4.2, taking several swipes to scroll and several taps to start a workout. I changed the dock from “Recents” to “Favorites” and it is perfectly responsive again.

It worked!!! Thanks!!!

My apple watch series 2 was so slow that I need to wait half a second for every movement... Anyways, iPhone was updated to latest version -> still slow. Then I tried to the restart method. Watch is back alive, running as smooth as new.

You must do this via the watch itself.

Goto Settings on the Apple Watch, then General > Workout > Detect Gym Equipment > and turn off. I can’t believe I’ve got my old watch back. Everything working quickly again.

Seems the problem has been solved in 4.2.2. Update

It’s fixed after updating to 4.2.2 on my watch series 2. Workout app works fast as before. Thanks

I deleted the Siri watch face and then shut down all apps on both watch and phone, restarted them both (iPhone first like suggested above) and my watch runs like a rocket again.

I've just updated my Apple Watch 2 to watchOS 4.2 and it seems to work fine now!

4.2.2 resolved my slowness issue. thanks to Apple team. 🙂

This fix worked for me.

On your iphone...

Settings > General > Workout > Detect Gym Equipment > turn off

On your watch

Watch (app) > Workout > Detect Gym Equipment > turn off

Fixed for me in WatchOS 4.3! Even with detect gym equipment enabled