Watch OS 5 update says not connected to Internet

Had this problem with my Apple watch 4. Trying to pair to my iphone12. Don't think phone or watch series made a difference. DIL came to help. We tried all these suggestions. No telling what state everything else was in at the time but when she changed the setting on the watch and phone the Afghanistan/English the update finally started downloading, however it would not install to the watch until the phone was updated to the most recent IOS which at this time is 15.1. Meanwhile I was updating my iphone12 to 15.1. When that was finished she simply attempted to pair and it immediately started the update. Appears it was important to be sure you have the most recent IOS installed.

I got through this with the help of apple support!

All I did was: Press and hold the crown and side button at the same time until the screen turns black, release both and wait until the apple logo appears then press and hold the side button until "Erase All Content and Settings" pops up and press this. Allow to erase then delete the apple watch app on your phone and reinstall. IT THEN PAIRED and UPDATED!! YAY!

ive been trying to pair my watch for 4 months and I won’t work. It says the WiFi is not connected when it is and has 4 bars. I don’t know how to fix it and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

Same here. I just bought a used Apple Watch, and simply couldn't get passed the no internet issue... Tried a few different phones, a few different tips from here, but nothing worked.

I have an iPhone SE2 and a couple of iPhone 7. So I decided to try on my friends iPhone 11 and it worked. God knows why.

So, my suggestion is to try on different phones. For now, I am updating the watch. Hopefully after that I can unpair from her phone and pair it back on mine.

Good luck to us all!

so i’ve been trying to set up my watch from ‘new to me’. couldn’t set wifi on watch because i couldn’t start up the watch without updating software. couldn’t update software bc of no internet notice. i first checked my phone settings for my ios and turns out it hadn’t updated since 14.8.2 since my iphone data on my phone was too full, needed 4 gb empty. once i deleted 4 fb of whatsapp photo downloads, i was able to update phone ios to 15.2. once that was updated, i was able to get to the software upload screen for my watch past the ‘no internet’ notice and am currently installing.

I tried every single thing on this thread. It finally worked when I: 1- put my WiFi on regular, not 5g 2- rebooted my router 3- plugged my phone directly into the USB port on the router

Not sure which one of these things did the trick. But I would start with making sure the wifi is not on 5g.

Make sure you’re not on 5g and reboot your router.

Purchased the Apple Watch 5 in Nov of 21 for a Christmas present, it was an open box, unused device. It took over a week of trial and error including the hard resets and app removals, etc. I had success just today. My network had a 2.4 Ghz and a 5Ghz network; for the last week i have had the phone on the 2.4Ghz band.

Just today I connected the Iphone to the 5Ghz network, then started the pairing process once again. Note the apple watch never appeared on my 2.4 Ghz network when my phone was connected to the 2.4 Ghz.At this point the Router network recognized the Apple watch.I assigned it to a home device and rename it within my network.Next I had to list it as a wearable device. This allowed the router network to open communication to the Apple Watch and begin to accept the updates.It appeared for a while that the updates stalled, but after almost half an hour the Iphone said it had another update, then another. It finally finished updating to OS 8.3 and restarted. Now going through the final set-up phase. Hope this helps.

I turned off my iPhone and then choose update on the watch and it worked.

It’s been a while since this post but I solved my issue with the watch not wanting to update and error message saying “not connected to internet.” I clicked on settings and entered my ICloud, I erased all of the watch data and deleted the app. I reinstalled it and it instantly started to work with my Apple Watch Series 3. My watch was factory reset so I couldn’t do anything on the watch, only on the iPhone.

Check it out! Hope this helps!

You saved me. I had exactly the same issues. Solved!! Thank you!!

Hello all! I was having the issue of "cant update because you are not connected to the internet" when I very much am connected. This is how I fixed mine:

1. Hard reset watch (press & hold crown) then turn it off (press and hold button under crown)

2.RESTART Iphone

3.Go to settings>General>Iphone storage>watch(the app)

1. select "delete all backups/files ( The button is in red at the bottom)

5.Follow step 1 again (if needed) but now you will select "delete app" and confirm it.

6.Reinstall "watch" app , turn watch back on, then open & pair

7.Follow prompts to update!

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Things that may help:

1. be on a trusted & stable WI-FI connection

2.log out & back into your icloud on Iphone

3.remove watch from your icloud account.

4.make sure Iphone is up to date.

Hope this helps!!!!

So I tried all the suggestions and 3 hours later I gave up and went to bed. The last thing suggested was change the internet over to 2.4 hertz and after leaving it be today I tried it again and lo and behold it started the update so we’ll see if it completes or not. I honestly can pin point the solution but there was a lot of resetting of both devices. My guess is the internet hertz was the fix so maybe try that

Hi there,

You might have better luck asking this question over in Apple Support Communities run by Apple Support.

I am 4 years late to this thread but after a couple of years trying to connect my Apple Watch Series 3 to my iPhone 12 Pro Max with no luck I have finally figured out a solution for myself. I’ll share it in hopes of helping someone else.

I completely gave up trying to connect it to my new iPhone. (12 pro max) It just wasn’t going to work no matter what I tried.

So I got out my old iPhone (iPhone SE) from my closet.

Note:

      1: There is NO SIM card in the old iPhone (SE)
    
      2: I used my new iPhone (12) hotspot as Wi-Fi.

      3: On the iPhone (SE) I deleted the watch app

      4: I force restart the iPhone (SE)
    

(Press and quickly release the volume up button. Press and quickly release the volume down button. Press and hold the side button. When the Apple logo appears, release the side button.) - Works for majority of older phones.

      5: I factory reset the Apple Watch to pairing mode.

      6: I re downloaded the watch app. 

      7: I reset the network settings on iPhone.
        (Settings-General-Reset or it may say Transfer or Reset IPhone) Clicked on Reset then click Reset Network Settings in pop up Reset Menu. 

      8: Both Apple Watch & iPhone SE were connected to chargers. (The whole time) 

      9: Once everything was loaded back up & connected back to Wi-Fi. (Must Re enter Wi-Fi password so don’t forget it.) I opened the watch app on iPhone (SE) then set phone down. 

     10: Picked up Apple Watch. Chose location. ( A location I was not in) (Canada) then hit continue until the picture that your phone scans popped up. Used the iPhone SE  camera to connect. Brought me back to the watch app. 

Then it said that awful message that the Apple Watch needed to be updated to finish pairing. I clicked yes to update so of course it took me to the checking for update screen. This time though In about 8 seconds a message popped up saying that I would need to update my iPhone in order to update my Apple Watch so I clicked yes (to phone update). I was surprised because I’ve never gotten that far before.

I then waited for the phone to update. (The long dreadful Requesting Update download)

While I was waiting on that I decided to check back at what the watch app looked like. LO AND BEHOLD it was actually loading. I had to wait for my iPhone to finish updating of course but it finally did.

Once the phone came back on I went straight to watch app. Refreshed back into the loading update for Apple Watch. Took 30 mins in all to download the update. (Not Including all the steps I took before this)

Haven't tried pairing it to my new phone just yet because all I really wanted was for this Watch to just have the “required update” it needed.

I’ll update when I decide to do that. If I can do that.

Anyway,

If you have an older iPhone, one you don’t care about resetting the network settings and don’t have a SIM card in or plan on putting one in then maybe this is worth a shot for you to try.

I truly hope this works for someone. Specially since a lot of everyone’s problems seem to be the same but not everyone solutions work.