The introduction of Apple Watches opened up a whole new convenience for users. Apple Watch users can look at their wrist for alerts, health data, etc.
However ,sometimes Apple Watches takes super long to update, I’m here to help you.
An Apple Watch update is completed wirelessly via the watch app on iPhone. However, since the update file is transferred to your Apple Watch from your watch app over Bluetooth, it is a lot of data to send so the whole update process can take very long.
If your Apple Watch update to taking a long time, restart your iPhone and Apple Watch, make sure your Watch has at least 50%, and it must be connected to a charger, and both your iPhone and Apple Watch should be connected to the same Wi-fi network to complete the update.
Read on to find out how long a watchOS update takes and how you can improve the update speed, when updating your Watch.
How Long Does It Take for watchOS to Update?
A typical Apple Watch update should take anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour. However the Watch can sometimes change the estimated update time, where the estimated update time can become days.
There are several steps to update an Apple Watch, each of these steps has many variables which can affect how long they take. For example, the speed of watchOS updates is affected by the size of the update file, your internet and network setup, the age of the iPhone and the Apple Watch, and the battery life of the two devices.
If it is a recent update, it may take longer to update as many users could be attempting to update the watch, causing the Apple servers to slow down.
Do you find your Apple Watch’s battery isn’t lasting long enough? For a complete guide, on how to improve your Apple Watch battery please read my helpful article.
How to Improve watchOS Update Speed?
The best method to improve the speed of a WatchOS update is to turn off Bluetooth on you iPhone. This ensures that Wi-Fi is prioritised in file transfer.Wi-Fi has a much larger bandwidth than Bluetooth, so more data can be sent at once, reducing the update time.
Using Bluetooth as the primary connection to the watch is recommended for day-to-day use. So remember to switch it back on after the update is complete.
Take a look at these steps to improve the speed of an update:
- Passcode: During a watchOS update, users are prompted to enter a passcode multiple times during the update process. Turning off the passcode could save valuable time.
- Battery: Ensure that the remaining battery of both devices is above 50%.
- Local Update: Apple Watches, which can connect to Wi-Fi and run watchOS 6.0 or above, can be locally updated, a much quicker process.
Do you charge your Apple Watch overnight? Could this be overcharging your Watches battery causing permanent damage? Discover the truth in my article.