Apple Watch Series 2 running slower on OS 4.0

I am on 4.2.2 with series 2 and have tried all of these troubleshooting steps for months with no luck. To make things even worse, went for a walk with my wife and her series 0 on 4.2.2 and watched her load the exercise app faster than mine.

YES!! You're not the only one. I was thinking the exact same thing. I always get so mad when I start an exercise app. It seems like it takes almost a minute for the application to even get started, it's so irritating. I can't believe Apple hasn't address this issue.

That wasn’t very bright. The S1 and S2 have the exact same internals (except gps and waterproofing).

This isn’t a planned obsolescence thing as I can confirm my S3 LTE is also very slow to respond after opening up the workouts app.

I’m having the same issues with my Series 2 Nike Apple Watch. When I first start an activity I have to wait about 30 seconds before I can scroll to the workout I want. I’m also seeing lag and unresponsiveness when doing other things. I have rebooted, unpaired, set up as new, and erased all content and settings and none of that had fixed my issues.

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.

Brilliant! Worked for me too. It makes sense. That 10 second delay was the watch looking for compatible gym equipment. When it doesn’t find any it lets you select your workout manually.

Awesome find.

After update to watchOS 4.0 my watch is also unbearably slow. I thought I’d wait for the updates in hopes of seeing an improvement, but as of watchOS 4.2 this problem is still present.

I Followed all the recommendations in the first reply to this question. Unpaired and re-paired as a new watch. No improvement. After a few month, I gave up and started contacting Apple Support to complain since my watch was still under warranty. I was able to get my watch replaced. After pairing the new Series 2 watch as a new watch (starting from scratch with practically no apps) the watch is still slow, especially the workout app.

Additionally, I have a friend with a series 2 watch who hasn’t updated from watchOS 3 to 4. That watch is a year old and is fully responsive with no slowness or lag.

If a new watch doesn’t help, then this problem is definitely in the watchOS 4 software code. Apple, please pay attention to this post and fix this problem. You guys literally turned all series 2 or lower watches into garbage with the watchOS 4 update.

Same issues. I’ve gone through the reset/repair cycle many times and no improvement on my series 1. Starting workouts is just simply a painful process. If lucky, it hangs for a while (>20s) or outright crashes. I’ve intentionally not loaded additional apps on there to try to improve things but it’s borderline becoming useless as a fitness tracker. I’m so disappointed. Because of the recent trust issue, I can’t help feel this is similar to the recent battery-gate. It’s not convincing me to update at all, but rather jump-ship to Fitbit....

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.

Same here–Series 2 Apple Watch nearly useless after WatchOS 4, since Siri was central to my usage. My watch was my main way to turn lights on and off in my house, as well as my calculator and my way to set reminders. All worked great with Siri before.

Before iOS 4: Siri worked 95% of the time and was nearly instant.

After iOS 4: Siri works 60% of the time and takes 10 to 100 seconds to act.

Dictation is also messed up: I used to be able to dictate text messages and reminders accurately. Now the failure rate is close to 100%. I get gibberish.

I've wiped and reinstalled the watch, bought a new iPhone X to pair it with, and tried the tips here. No help.

It was a fun few months with a $399 watch! Unbelievable. Still tells time I guess...

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.

I have a open case with Apple Care about this exact issue, we have 3 Series 2 Apple watch’s in our house and they are all experiencing the same problems since updating to Watch OS4. I’m dealing with a senior advisor that apparently has never heard of this problem. You and anyone else with this problem should contact Apple support.

It is very annoying to see that after buying a product, it would be not usable after two years becasue the softwares force you to change the old products.

The new OSs should be not availbe for old devices unless they work exactly the same as before or better.

This was the procedure when Steve Jobs was the CEO.

I am thinking to throw all my Apple Products away.

I my self am dealing with Apple support to work out the problem, their software is causing the problem and it’s up to them to fix this. If you don’t put the problem on Apple then the problem is on you, the only on that can hold the company accountable is you!