Apple Watch cannot reconnect

Hi, Bruno! I had the same situation at start as you: no serial number, no watchOS number.

Then I turned on wifi on watches, so all my devices (macbook, iPhone and watch) were in the same network. after that all these numbers appeared, but still no connection, "trying to connect..."

Then I unpaired iPhone and watch from the "Manage Run Destination" menu, and started all over.

First connected my iPhone through a cable to MacBook (developer mode is on) - no problem. But now on the watches appeared the same menu under privacy settings developer mode - and it was - off. Then Xcode said fetching debug symbols... all that stuff. and it works eventually

I wish you luck, I was banging my head a long time

Here's what worked for me:

Conditions

• Xcode 15.0;
• iPhone already available as a Run Destination;
• Watch is shown in the list, but no information about it is displayed, status switched between "Connecting" and "Waiting to reconnect";
• watchOS 10.0.1;
• Shared WiFi network.

Steps

1. In Xcode, open Window > Devices and Simulators;

2. Connect iPhone with a cable (not sure if this step is required);

• At this stage, watch is in the "Devices" list, no information about it is displayed, status of the watch switches between "Connecting" and "Waiting to reconnect".

1. On the watch, go to Settings > WiFi, make sure WiFi is on and select the WiFi network;

• At this stage, Xcode clearly connected to the watch and the note under the status changed to "Enable developer mode".

1. On the watch, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Developer mode (at the very bottom of the list);

• Watch restarted, asked to trust the Mac again, all permissions were given.

Xcode attempted to reconnect and, after a short while, connected to the watch successfully and started the pairing process. The whole procedure took a few minutes and now the watch is available as a Run Destination.

p.s. Xcode statuses are "rough approximations" from memory, all steps might not be necessary.

i did every possible thing, nothing helps

I followed the steps many others have posted but have had no luck...stuck in a waiting to reconnect connecting loop

hopefully Apple has a fix for this soon

I got it working by connecting my laptop, phone, and watch all to the same wifi network where devices could see each other. The problem was that all the devices were on a school network where the devices couldn't see each other. I created my own wifi network using my windows pc hotspot feature, which then used the school network under-the-hood, but allowed the devices to see each other since there was lower security rules in place.

In an earlier Xcode version, connecting to the school network with all devices still worked for Apple Watch to be available. It seems like connecting through the iPhone then going to the watch for testing the app is no longer working...The app now goes directly to the watch over the network.

After spending weeks trying to connect my Apple Watch Series 5 to Xcode, I suddenly discovered that all watches before the Series 5 (including the Series 5) can only connect to 2.4G Wi-Fi. My iPhone and Mac are connected to 5G Wi-Fi. So when I tried connecting my iPhone and Mac to the 2.4G Wi-Fi, the watch connected instantly.

But that's weird, There are a few times that I still using 5G Wi-Fi for iPhone and Mac, but I can still connect to my series 5. There might be some bug here for connecting watch on different Wi-Fi but actually the SAME LAN.

@jeremyhu, what is devicectl?

I had the same problem with "Waiting to reconnect to Apple Watch" because I used Personal Hotspot. I got to go to cafe to join WiFi there and the issue was resolved. iPhone, mac and watch want to be in the same WiFi network and Personal Hotspot was always the issue, starting from very first versions of watchOS.

XCode 15.2 beta and WatchOS 10.2 - Any fix to this real problem? Was able to connect few days ago and since no luck. Yup, unpaired then paired. Reloaded. Rebooted.

This is a workaround that won't work if you only have one Mac... In my case, I happen to have a Macbook Pro and a mac mini, and the problem did not occur on the Macbook Pro, so I copied watchOS DeviceSupport (latest is Watch6,6 10.2 (21S364)) to the mac mini, and the symptom was fixed. For some reason the download of watchOS DeviceSupport (about 2GB) appears to stop completing.

The problem was that my MacBook was connected to the 5 GHz WI-FI network while Apple Watch was connected to the same network but to 2.4 GHz.

Changing MacBook's WI-FI to the SAME network but 2.4 GHz helped.

I'm using Apple Watch Series 4 with WatchOS 10.3.1 and Xcode 15.3 (15E5202a) Release Candidate.

It looks like the paired iPhone's network can be kept as 5 GHz, but you can try changing it too if the previous step doesn't help.

Damn it Apple! Xcode 15.3 stopped seeing my Apple Watch Ultra 2. So I disconnected thinking I was going repair it and now NADA. I have been crawling all over the net looking for solutions for this. Restarted pretty much everything numerous times. Run Sysdiags, blah blah nothing is working. My iPhone sees it and all of that is working just fine. But Xcode and Devices and Simulators DO NOT see it. Ran the terminal command above and it does not show up. I have the device connected via BOTH bluetooth and WIFI but oddly it (the watch) does NOT see the Mac when searching for Bluetooth devices (system settings are open and on Bluetooth) or anything else for that matter.

xcrun devicectl list devices

DOES NOT show the watch only my iPhones and iPads. Odd.

Devices: Name Hostname Identifier State Model

iPad 2024 xx-iPad-2024.coredevice.local C72B3F88-06A9-4CD4-8AFA-49AD478540AB connected iPad Air (5th generation) (iPad13,16) iPhone13 xx-iPhone13.coredevice.local 43A16EBE-911D-4F89-AA42-3DF3B0D21AF9 connected iPhone 13 (iPhone14,5)

No watch?! And yet it is right here and talking to my iPhone?!

tried unpairing my watch from xcode to pair again but now it's gone forever. I am running watchOS 10.5 (also tried 10.4) and iOS 17.4.1 but it doesn't work.

My Apple Watch has the same issue. It was connected, then after Xcode 15.3 (released) it stopped talking to Apple Watch device. I unpaired to repair and have never been able to find or see the watch again. Tried toggling developer mode on the watch, no dice. I can connect the watch to Xcode 15.3 on my Laptop, but no longer on mu desktop. If I run: xcrun devicectl list devices the watch is NOT listed as one of the visible devices. All I see are the iPhone and iPad which had also been setup as dev devices?! Why has this issue been ongoing for so long?! I am seeing people reporting this back 8 months now?!

Did all the updates and still cannot connect to the apple watch???? On the same wifi network just loops on waiting to connect. Xcode 15.3, watch os 10.4 but shows 10.0.1 under devices. How to just remove the watch from the device list, I see no way to remove. WHY is developing app for the watch SO hard to do?