[Apple Watch] Unable to Check for Update - Not connected to the internet error

Hi. I was trying to pair a brand new series 3 to iPhone 12 with iOS 14.6. My problem was solved by following these steps.

1. make sure both devices are charging.
2. general > redefine > redefine network

I spent a lot of time on this and try all, the methods mentioned (changing language and country, hard resetting the watch, the phone the network, using 2.4 Ghz wi-fi, logging off and on iCloud on my phone, updating in low battery mode, airplane on of and leaving the watch on charger for a night, using spare clean iPhone 6Plus for pairing, and many else I do not even remember now). Finally I went into my phone's current wi-fi settings and changed the DNS (settings ->wi-fi ->currently used wi-fi name scrolled down to DNS and changed automatic to manual and set it to cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1) after saving the changes and restarting the pairing process again the phone immediately found an update and started downloading.

Hope it helps some of you

For anyone still looking at this in 2021, I have spent hours today with this error constantly looping back. After trying all the suggested fixes on this forum.

weirdly enough I clicked on the change language option, set to UK (which it was already on)

it then gave me a option to pair the device, once paired this time it continued to download the update for the OS

hope this helps anyone, I would recommend trying all fixes on this page including this one. As different fixes have worked for different people

Beem335i's answer worked for me as well! Thank you!!

Make sure your watch is on the charger before you pair/check for update. The update will not start if the watch is not on the charger. Try restarting phone and watch, and then (once the watch is on the charger) pair and select update. It should begin the update.

No idea how this worked, but I turned on and off airplane mode like 5 times, after this, it connected to the internet. Hope this helps someone nothing else here worked for me.

Before I start; I by no means mean that the other possible solutions listed are not correct or that they work or not, I will share with you what has been working with me with several times with different watches and phones (a total of 13 successful fixes of this problem).

• Try to install, once you get the “Unable to Check for Update - Checking blah blah blah", stop and unpair your watch.
• Uninstall the "Watch" app from the iPhone and restart it.
• Install the App again and pair watch.

The update should proceed with any inconvenient.

Hope this helps, have a good one.

I had the same issue. I was able to solve the issue by obtaining an old iPhone and attempting pair with that iPhone.

After attempting to pair with old iPhone, I unpaired it. Turn the old iPhone off. Then paired with current iPhone that had previous issues. Before pairing make sure to reset Apple Watch. As soon as I went to pair the “minutes remaining” screen popped on screen and download complete. goodluck

turn off Bluetooth on your iPhone. It will force the update vía wifi

Hey guys, this issue had been driving me crazy for months on my Apple Watch Series 3 and I tried all of the other solutions on these pages, but they didn't work. Finally, I found out that all I had to do was go to Settings > Bluetooth and then forget my Apple Watch connection(Do this by tapping on the "i" symbol). My IPhone then created a new connection with my Apple Watch and then it started updating. I really hope this solves your Apple Watch update issue!

Same here, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iOS 14.6, new setupApple Watch series 4 WiFi and cellular, can’t get past the update required stage as not connected to internet. Hard reset phone, reset network settings, reset watch, nothing works so it’s basically useless. It’s ridiculous the setup of a new watch won’t let you just set it up with whatever software level it’s at then update afterwards

hello, I solved this issue by smashing my apple watch and not buying an apple watch ever again. So im gonna buy a simple fit band and throw my apple watch which I PAYED with my HARD EARNED money and which apple decided to DISABLE with these tricks. So long my dear apple watch.

Tried Avery thing mentioned here, and tried from another phone still no success. Anyone have a solution to this problem?

I have an iPhone 11 with the 14.6 iOS and could not pair my series 3 watch because the phone said it could not connect to the internet. Called Apple and the tech did a lot of troubleshooting and finally said the watch was bad and had to be sent in for repair.

FIX!- I was able to pair it on another iPhone 8 that had iOS 14.6 AND complete the download. I then unpaired it from the iPhone 8 and paired it to my iPhone 11. No issues. Find a friend with an older model iPhone or use one of your older model phone seems to be a work around.

Ensure that your watch and phone is charged to at least 50 %. That solved the problem for me.