Switching to a new phone is always a bit of a celebration, but if you have a Samsung smartwatch on your wrist, the excitement can easily turn into a little frustration. In the past, changing phones almost always meant a factory reset of your watch. Thanks to newer versions of the operating system Wear OS (from the line Galaxy Watch4 above) and superstructure One UI Although Watch is a much more user-friendly situation, I know from my own experience that even today the system can be quite frustrating for an inattentive user.
Below you will find complete instructions on how to Galaxy Watch Move to a new smartphone without losing data, including health data or watch faces.
What to back up before disconnecting
Before you start fiddling with your new phone's settings, you need to back up all your key data on your old device. If you don't, you won't be able to restore your workout history or blood pressure readings.
- Health data (Samsung Health): Steps, sleep, ECG, blood pressure and workout records are not synced directly to the watch, but to your Samsung account Cloud. Open the app on your old phone Samsung Health, tap in the top right three dots icon and then on Settings. Make sure the switch is on Sync with Samsung Cloud.
- Watch system backup: In the app Galaxy Wearable to go to Watch settings→Accounts & backup and turn on the switch Save backup to Samsung Cloud. Specifically, the app and home screen layouts, downloaded watch faces and their color customizations, and system notification, alarm, and tile settings are saved here.
Gallery
If you're missing Google Wallet for paying with your watch, know that I didn't forget it. For security reasons, payment cards are never backed up. On your new phone, you'll have to add them to your watch and manually verify them with your bank again.
Transferring to a new phone step by step
Rule number one: When is a reset necessary and when is it not?
- No reset required: If you are switching with Galaxy Watch4, Watch5, Watch6, Watch7 or Watch Ultra on a device with Android 13 and later, and you are signed in to the same Google and Samsung accounts on both phones.
- A reset is required: If you are switching from an older watch with the Tizen operating system (Galaxy Watch3, Watch Active2 and older), you are switching to a phone with a completely different Google account, or connecting your watch to your iPhone (which in new models with Wear OS it's not possible anyway).
Procedure without data loss (pro Wear OS/Galaxy Watch4 and newer)
- On your new phone, turn on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and sign in to the same Google and Samsung account as on your old device.
- On your watch, go to Settings→General and select an option Transfer watch to new phone.
- The watch will prompt you to start transferring to the new device.
- The new phone will automatically detect the watch. Tap the button Connect.
- A matching numeric code will appear on both your watch and your phone. On your phone, tap Confirm.
- Check the Samsung license agreement and optionally send diagnostic data, tap "Continue" and wait a few minutes for it to finish.
Gallery
Restoring watch faces, apps, and Samsung Health
Even though the watches look identical after a successful transfer, the system is still finishing data processing in the background. Once you launch on your new phone Samsung Health and you log in, the app will download the complete history from Samsung CloudIt may take a while, but you won't lose any data from the past. Third-party apps like Spotify, WhatsApp or Strava, your watch will likely ask you to sign in again or confirm pairing with your new phone.
You might be interested in
But things don't always go smoothly. From my own experience, I can confirm that the most common stumbling block is an unsynchronized Samsung/Google account.
The most common errors and their solutions
- The watch doesn't appear at all on the new phone: Make sure your old phone is turned off, or at least has a power off BluetoothThe watch tends to constantly actively return to the original device.
- Error message "Transfer could not be completed": This problem occurs if the new phone is missing the installed module Galaxy Watch Manager, which is an add-on for the application Galaxy Wearable. Download it manually from Play Store, restart your new phone and start the process again.
When to do a factory reset
If the watch repeatedly reports a communication error, do notIf the pairing process gets stuck at 99 percent, don't worry and do a factory reset. If you've made a backup beforehand, you won't lose anything.
- On your watch, go to Settings→General and select an option Restore.
- After restarting the watch, find it on your new phone via the app Galaxy Wearable as a brand new device.
- During the initial wizard, the app will notify you that it has found a backup for this watch and whether you wish to restore it.
- Confirm the restore. Within a few minutes, your watch will be back to the state you left it in, including watch faces and system settings.
From my own experience, I can say that the connection process Galaxy Watch to a new phone is very simple. The biggest problem for me in the past was the aforementioned unsynchronized Google and Samsung account, so be careful about that.
