How to Restart an Apple Watch: 3 Best Methods You Should Try
Apple’s line of smartwatches is not perfect, as even the latest iteration, such as Series 7, can develop hiccups occasionally. But, hey, that should never be a cause for worry. Every gadget tends to misbehave sometimes, regardless of the brand.
Speaking of an Apple Watch, the best way to get rid of any glitches and freezes while using one is to restart it. You’ll get all the steps to do just that in this guide, including how to force-restart and reset your Apple Watch’s firmware with your iPhone.
Read on below to find out.
How to Manually Restart Your Apple Watch
Before proceeding with this method, ensure your Apple Watch is not connected to its charger; an Apple Watch cannot restart while charging. With that out of the way, follow the steps below:
- Press and hold the side button on your Apple watch till a menu with the following options pop up: Power Off, Medical ID, and Emergency SOS
- Swipe the Power Off option to the right
- Your Apple Watch’s screen should go blank here, indicating that the operating system has shut down.
- Hold the side button on your Apple watch again until you see the Apple logo.
How to Force-Restart Your Apple Watch
This more drastic method forcibly shuts down all operations on your Apple watch and automatically boots up the OS. You should give it a shot if the previous manual restart method didn’t fix the glitches and freezes on your Apple watch.
To force-restart your Apple Watch,
- Press and hold both the digital crown and side button on your Apple watch for a minimum of ten seconds
- Again, your Apple Watch’s screen will go blank, but let go of the two buttons immediately after the Apple logo appears on your screen.
And that’s it. That should fix all minor issues on your Apple Watch. However, if you want to get more technical, you can try the following method on how to use your iPhone to restore your watch’s original firmware, provided you are running on iOS 15.4 or a newer version.
How to Restore Apple Watch Firmware with Your iPhone
Crucial data from your Apple watch are backed up on your iPhone, but Apple recently enabled a feature that allows you to restore your watch’s firmware with these data. You only need an Apple Watch running WatchOS 8.5 and an iPhone running iOS 15.4, and you’ll be up and running.
To use this method,
- Turn on Bluetooth on your iPhone and ensure you connect to a WiFi network.
- Connect your Apple Watch to its charger
- Click the side button on your Apple watch twice
- Follow the prompts on your iPhone to complete the firmware restore process
Final Notes
There you have it! Now you can restart, force-restart, or restore your iPhone depending on the lengths you’re willing to go. However, note that the last method only works on select iOS builds and depends on whether your Apple watch’s firmware has previously backed up on your iPhone.
