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

Ok I found the solution it’s simple enough!

1 delete the watch app off your phone 2 factory reset the watch using the buttons on your watch 3 reinstall the watch app on your phone 4 start the set up process again! It will recognise the update and begin updating

worked for my own watch and several customers.

hope this helps you all

Here’s what worked for me. when it was on the pairing screen, tapped on the (i) selected English then Afghanistan as the country, then it allowed me to update the software.

i have been trying to update my watch for 2 days. on a whim i changed the country to afganistan, after seeing a reply to this thread. i swear i nearly had a heart attack!! it worked!! it picked up th update right away and is early complete as i write this!

I tried all of the above solutions without any joy, however I found a solution that seems to have worked!

I noticed there was a prompt that flashes up just after you accept the update (following the pair scan) - it's in the blink of an eye, but it prompts to 'Update Apple Watch' then disappears just before going to the update page.

The solution: Once you hit the 'Update Now' button, keep tapping the middle of the screen towards the right (to hit 'Update') - it took me a few goes, but managed to get it in the end!

Had the same problem with a new series 5.

I bundled a few of the solutions mentioned in this thread into one try and it worked (so one of them must have fixed the issue), I did this:

1. unpaired my old apple watch in my watch app
2. turned off bluetooth on my phone (so only wifi was connected)
3. clicked the (i) button on the watch pairing screen and set the language to English and the country to Afghanistan

This can be fixed by deleting the content on the watch. To erase the content on the watch -

1. Press and hold the side button until you see the slider to turn off the watch.
2. Now press and hold the Digital Crown/Home button on your watch.

At this point you should see a message pop up to erase the contents on the watch. Go ahead erase the contents. Proceed with the pairing process now. HTH!

Unfortunately, none of the solutions above worked for me. My apple watch software was not up to date and my watch was wiped of all data and unpaired. I couldn't pair my phone to update it and I could not update it because it wasn't paired.

The solution was to try to pair my watch to another phone to update the software. In this case it was my husband's iphone 6. I was able to get past the "not connected to internet error" and proceeded with the watch software update. Once the update was complete and after hard resetting the watch, I was able to successfully pair my watch with my new phone.

FWIW - I was trying to update / pair an apple watch series 3 (don't know what the last software version was - but definitely WAY outdated) and an iPhone 12 Pro Max (software version 14.6).

Hope this helps!

This issue has been frustrating me for hours today. I followed the advise of a comment above saying to change the language and location then try updating the watch again and it actually worked. Definitely try this if you’re having this same issue!

Had this same issue. Tried just about everything the comments said, but the only thing that worked for me was deleting the watch app and redownloading it. After redownloading, it paired my watch and allowed me to update.

I tried @Beem335i's method but wasn't successful on my iphone XS Max with a series 2 watch. However, after a couple of hours - I found my personal hotspot was On on my iphone - I turned it off and tried again to update and it was successful. Probably the watch using Bluetooth to communicate with the iphone messes things up and conflicts with the hotspot...worth for the iOS and watchOS developers to look at.

I was able to get the watch update working by making sure my watch was fully charged and then plugging in my iPhone to allow it to charge.

My best guess is that the Apple Watch app is simply displaying an incorrect error message. (Could be as simple as an Apple developer copy/pasting an error flow and forgetting to update the message that’s displayed to the user.)

Perhaps the error message should read: “Before updating your Apple Watch, your iPhone must be sufficiently charged or connected to a power source.” ?

After trying all methods noted in here, I contacted apple support and was able to resolve the issue quite quickly.

I reset the watch, erased all content and settings and on my Iphone I reset network settings.

After this the update worked. It took a while though, but my watch (4 series) paired with iphone 12.

hope this helps, I know how frustrating it was.

Hi! I’ve just had the same problem and here is what worked for me:

->I deleted any VPN app I had installed on my iPhone and after that it worked perfectly. So even if the VPN connection is not active if you have the app installed it will interfere with the update.

I have to thank Apple Support for this fix because they helped me with this idea. I hope this will work for y’all!

I kept having this until I unlocked my Apple Watch, then reloaded the software update screen. I'm not sure if it was a weird coincidence, but it was happening on two different occasions until I tried this.

I've been trying all of the suggestions I could find, but the one that put me over the top was resetting the network configuration on my iPhone (General > Reset > Reset Network Settings). No idea why and there's no way to know if one of the other steps was also necessary.

Also of note, I was originally on a 5Ghz-only WiFi network, which this watch (series 3) doesn't support. Switching to a 2.4Ghz WiFi network did allow the watch to get Internet access and I could see it downloading data over HTTP and HTTPS. And yet somehow it wasn't happy until the phone network was set up from scratch.

Quite the voyage of discovery.