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Unlock with iPhone unavailable with series 5 Watch

After upgrading from a series 3 to a series 5 the function to unlock my Watch with my iPhone does not work anymore. The option 'Unlock with iPhone' can be found in the Passcode menu of the Watchapp but when I try to open that the menu is dim, not available and the hourglass waiting symbol keeps turning indefinitely. As a result, I am not able to switch on the 'Unlock with iPhone' function.


This has always worked for me without any issues on the series 3 watch. Of course this could be a WatchOS6 or iOS13.1.1 issue, as I had to upgrade both WatchOS and iOS. I am using an iPhone 7


Any ideas?

Apple Watch

Posted on Sep 30, 2019 1:17 AM

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Posted on Oct 2, 2019 1:42 AM

I tried many things, including reconnecting the Watch, setting it up as new etc, but nothing helped. Then suddenly yesterday, with no apparent reason, the issue has automagically fixed itself... Cant figure out why, but at least it is working again.



5 replies

Oct 4, 2019 5:29 AM in response to AndreNL

Update: Talking to Apple support and they couldn't find what could cause this problem. They proposed to take back the watch and swap it for a new one. This morning I visited the Apple store in Amsterdam and got a fresh new S5 Watch. Unfortunately the problem is still there, nothing changed. I still can't figure out why the passcode menu was available earlier this week and why a day later it failed to load again. Am I really the only one with this issue?

Oct 29, 2019 2:14 AM in response to AndreNL

It seems like I have found a solution for this issue, finally!!


I was searching for a solution for another problem I had with the universal clipboard not working anymore on my iPhone. The advice I found was to disable iCloud, remove all iCloud data and re-enable iCloud again on the iPhone. After this, universal clipboard indeed worked again, and as a collateral surprise the Unlock with iPhone function is working again and after 4 days it seems stable. Other problems I had (like searching for contacts crashing) are also gone. Looks like something was off in my iCloud data sitting on my iPhone, messing things up at various places. This was after the iOS 13 upgrade. Anyway, looks like its fixed now.


Unlock with iPhone unavailable with series 5 Watch

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