what

Trying to pair an Apple Watch to a phone, an update was required; upon requesting it, the Apple Watch (through the iPhone) would cancel, reporting:

Unable to check for update, not connected to the Internet

what did not work

• rebooting the phone
• rebooting the watch
• uninstalling the Watch app from my phone – I couldn’t find it
• leaving both the watch and the phone on chargers for the duration

what got further

I enabled the iPhone’s hotspot, which disabled its wifi, and attempted the update again. The phone started to download the appropriate firmware.

Minutes in, I re-enabled the wifi for a faster download; downloading and updating the watch both succeeded. So apparently, only the initial negotiation required this workaround.

why?

It might be wifi bands, 5GHz (faster, but shorter range) vs 2.4GHz:

• the iPhone 5 (2012) was the first one to support 5GHz wifi
• the Apple Watch Series 6 (2020) was the first one to support 5GHz wifi, and the watch in question was a series 4 (2018)

resources

• a post on the Apple forums – lots that didn’t help, but also the key

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