Apple recently introduced their new Series 8 range of smart wearables as well as their new Apple Watch Ultra designed for extreme environments and outdoor adventurers. If you are lucky enough to be upgrading your Apple Watch to one of the new models recently launched by Apple and need to unpair your old Apple Watch from your iPhone. This quick guide will take you through the process of unpairing and erasing your old Apple Watch ready for resale or to give to a family member or friend. Thankfully Apple makes the and pairing process very simple and you can restore your Apple Watch to its factory settings.
Remember your Transit cards
It is worth noting before you start the unpairing process. If you use a transit card in the Wallet app on your Apple Watch, you need to remove the transit card from your watch before you unpair it from your iPhone.
To remove the transit card it from your watch, simply open the Wallet app on your watch and select the card you would like to remove, then scroll down to the bottom of this screen and select the Remove option. This will remove the card from your Apple Watch but not your iPhone. You are now ready to proceed with unpairing your watch from your iPhone.
Unpair Apple Watch from iPhone
To unpair the old Apple Watch from your iPhone. You need both devices to be in close proximity to each other. Once they are, follow the instructions below and don’t move them too far apart.
1. Open the official Apple Watch app on your iPhone and select the My Watch tab.
2. Select the option for All Watches
3. Tap the info icon on the right-hand side of the what you would like to unpair from your iPhone
4. At the bottom of this screen you will see in red the ability to “Unpair Apple Watch” select this.
5. If you have a cellular plan attached to your watch, you have a couple of options. If you would like to pair your Apple Watch and iPhone once again, keep your plan or simply remove your plan if you don’t want to pair your Apple Watch and iPhone again.
6. Confirm your choice and enter your Apple ID password to authenticate your decision.
7. This may take a little time as Apple will create a backup of your watch data
8. Once it has completed you can now set up your new Apple Watch with your iPhone
Erase your Apple Watch
Once you have successfully unpaired your Apple Watch from your iPhone, you can now delete all the content, applications and settings from your watch and return it to its factory settings. To do this on your watch.
1. Go to the Settings app and select General
2. The select Reset and then Erase All Content and Settings.
3. You may be prompted to enter your password for verification
4. Again you will be asked if you would like to keep or remove your cellular plan if you have one enabled on your watch
5. Once you are happy to proceed, tap the Erase All option to carry out the erase process
6. Your Apple Watch is now reset to factory settings and ready to sell or gift to another family member or friend.
Set up a new Apple Watch
To set up your new Apple Watch, you will need to own an iPhone 6s or later with iOS 15 or later installed. Before you start installing your new Apple Watch, it is highly recommended that you update to the latest version of Apple iOS.
1. Turn on your Apple Watch by pressing and holding the side button until you see the Apple logo
2. Hold your new watch close to your iPhone. A message will then appear “Use your iPhone to set up this Apple Watch”
3. Tap the Continue button. If you do not see the message, go into the Watch application on your iPhone and then into All Watches and select the option to “Pair New Watch”.
4. Make sure you keep the Watch and iPhone close together during the setup process
5. Follow the on-screen prompts and choose your settings depending on your preferences
6. Create a passcode
7. Setup Apple Pay using the on-screen prompts
8. Install your desired watch applications
9. Wait for your iPhone and Apple Watch to synchronize completely, this may take a few minutes.
If you are still interested in learning more about how to set up, or unpair your Apple Watch, it is worthwhile jumping over to the official Apple support website where you can ask for additional help if required.
If you have been experiencing issues with your Apple Watch and would like to know how to restart an Apple Watch or force restart your wearable, you might find our quick guide handy.
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