Apple Watch pairing error

JonathanB · ‎10-18-2022

Hi everyone,

We've moved everything relating to Apple Watch pairing issues to this new conversation and will be providing all future updates as edits to this post, so that you won't need to go searching through the comments for these.

I appreciate these pairing errors must be very frustrating, especially for those of you that have been running into issues for several weeks now. Technical specialists are continuing to look into this, however based on what they've seen so far, this does not seem to be one overall fault that we can apply a blanket fix to.

With this in mind, please make sure you have followed the advice on the private message we've sent to each of you, this will ensure that your individual case has been escalated. We've originally sent these messages out a couple of weeks ago, so I'll double check that everyone that has commented has received these. You can find your community messages by clicking on your avatar in the top right of any page, then on "Messages".

Finally, please ensure you are following the Community House Rules when posting on the community, particularly points 8 and 13.

The private message mentioned above will put you in touch with a team that you can raise a complaint with should you wish to do so, any comments that share details of individual Three employees will be removed from the community.

JonathanB

**Update 26/10/2022**

Hi everyone,

We really appreciate your patience whilst we've been working on this issue. I can't imagine how frustrating it is to not be able to take full advantage of your Apple watches.

As I mentioned last week above, the errors do not seem to be one overall fault that can be fixed immediately for everyone. We do need a specialist team to do some work in the background on your accounts. With this in mind, I'd advise the following:

Make sure you've taken any action we've recommended on private messages to your community account. If you're experiencing these issues and we don't already know, please reply on this post so we can reach out.
Do not repeatedly attempt unpairing and pairing, this may be interfering with the work done in the background. Please wait for a Three representative to contact you and advise before you unpair and pair again.

We've seen some great progress towards getting this sorted in the last few days, I'm hopeful that it won't be too much longer till this issue is fully resolved for everyone.

JonathanB

**Update 17/11/2022**

Hi everyone,

We’re really sorry that there’s been a considerable delay between updates on the errors with Apple watch pairing. As we’ve mentioned previously there is more than one error involved and specialist teams are working hard to address the root causes of these.

I assure you that all comments about this issue are read, and all feedback given is being escalated on a daily basis.

Whilst we’re working on this, we’d be grateful if you can do the following:

If you’re new to this thread, please either private message me, or add a reply, and I’ll direct you to a team that can help further.
If I’ve already sent you this information, please ensure you have spoken to that team.
Please only unpair and re-pair your watch if directed to by one of our support teams as part of the troubleshooting and investigation of your issue.

I’ll provide another update soon.

Thanks,
JonathanB

**Update 02/12/2022**

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your continued patience. We’ve seen some great progress towards resolving these issues since the last update. As I’ve mentioned previously there is more than one error involved, and for many of you, your bill cycle will also affect when you can successfully re-pair the service.

Here’s some general steps that should help with common scenarios we’re seeing.

Ensure that you’ve registered for My3, without a registered online account and password set, the pairing will fail.
There are some instances where special characters at the start of My3 passwords have resulted in an error. We recommend that you have a strong password that is a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters but avoid beginning the password with characters like /!”£$|\. My3 supports these, but it seems to be causing an issue when this info is passed onto the smartwatch pairing system.
If you’ve changed your priceplan, upgraded, or are instructed to wait for your bill cycle to complete, you should wait till the day after your new bill cycle starts to attempt pairing. So for example, if your allowances refresh on the 1st, wait till the 2nd.
Although individual smartwatches can be unpaired from your account, cancelling or removing the add on completely will delay being able to reinstate the service till the following bill cycle.
As mentioned before, don’t repeatedly unpair and re-pair, the failed requests may cause further issues on your account that delay this being solved.
I’m continuing to regularly check for anyone new on the thread, just send a reply or private message me, and I’ll link you in with a support team that can help get your specific error looked into and make sure you get the best advice.

Thanks,
JonathanB

**Update 11/01/2023**

Hi Everyone,

As well as the steps on the last update, we're finding it helps to clear your temporary data from your iPhone before attempting pairing.

You can do this in Settings, Safari, Clear History & Website Data.

In case anyone is having trouble finding their private messages, click on your avatar image in the top right of any community page, then "Messages". If you've posted on this thread, then you should have a message waiting from me with a link to a support team that will help.

Thanks,
JonathanB

Mod tip! The author of a post can hit 'Accept as Solution', to highlight a reply that helped solved their query.

grumpywino · ‎02-15-2023

Blimey, I need to read every post in this epic thread!

I'll try to be brief. I had the apple watch 8 from release day and activated the plan for it from the watch app, it went through straight away. Then....it seems renewing my sim only contract recently deleted my watch plan. Sigh. Yesterday the lovely Poona on 333 insisted she had reactivated my plan and to wait four hours. I was getting the E53305- You already have a paired device. Nathan on live chat then told me to wait 24 hours. I did. No change. Back to Nathan today, who gave up! 333 tried to help, lots of on hold, confusion. I was put through to a technical team, a lady called 'Sarah' (that had zero knowledge of the issue or this thread). I had to unpair my watch set it up as new, (and followed the other instructions above) and low and behold got the same error message. The lady then said she would activate the plan, and to wait 4 hours. But, I said, I have been told my plan has been activated yesterday by Poona and Nathan, and asked about unpairing from her end. She kept insisting she had activated the plan and to wait 4 hours, and to be fair I have received a flurry of text messages mentioning a new add-on, didn't get those yesterday!

If you read that saga I thank you. I have no idea if it will work, from the thread it looks bleak, I have fours to have a thorough read and set up my watch again, which I am none too happy about. I may cheat and restore from back up, I can always reset it later. I wouldn't mind but I only moved to Apple as I really wanted the smart watch plan, and I only renewed with Three as I had been happy with the smartwatch plan!

Enlery · ‎02-15-2023

JonathanB,

Here I am again.....

I have spent between 10-12 hours with agents, the complaints team, and managers.
The reason behind this is that I simply wanted to find out what the issue was since anyone (respectively) was able so to provide a solution. No one was able to take ownership. And you 'JonathanB' have (perhaps unknowingly) only dragged the conversation about this, since you simply did not get the support you needed to deal with the complaints on this thread adequately. What was anger from my side, turned into compassion since you just didn't know what you were talking about in the first place.

So coming back to my hours spent on the phone and investigating from my end. I can confirm that I found a solution to resolve this. It is definitely not the solution I am advising others; however, I was right from the start.

The issue is the 'Cellular Pairing'. The IMEI number is linked to the device, but ALSO the watch. Therefore you can unpair a watch, but the IMEI number/Cellular plan still thinks it's linked to the watch. That is why people see the 'E53305- You already have a paired device' error.
Your technical team, should try and UNLINK the IMEI number from the cellular plan with the 'old watch'. Then it will be possible to pair the cellular plan again with a new watch.

So what I did to test this theory, is: I cancelled my pay monthly contract, went back to Pay-as-you-go, and then requested a new contract again. So I was sent a new simcard (important note: new IMEI number). I then had to go through the process again of having my pay-as-you-go number transferred to that new sim card. Then I requested the cellular plan again, and voila, I was able to connect my watch again.

So the problem is what I stated above. When you opt for the cellular plan, decide to have a new watch, and add it again, it won't work, since the IMEI number is still linked with the old watch. It needs to be unlinked, so a new watch can be paired.

This all sounds strange in the beginning, but if you read my solution well, you'll see that it's quite clear what needs to be done, from a technical point of view.

So JonathanB, please, on behalf of all the people here on this thread, pass this information on. This will resolve so many issues here. Because that 'IMEI number' is the root of all the issues here. 100%

Please relay this message to the technical team. Otherwisew, you'll be losing customers for no reason.

Take ownership.

Regards,

Wenlery Manuel

cjwhite116 · ‎02-15-2023

But I’ve only ever had one Apple Watch, so my phone can’t be paired to a previous IMEI.

Enlery · ‎02-15-2023

Hi 'cjwhite116',

It then depends on which error message you are getting.
But most people here have the issue that says, "You already have a paired device"

Could you remind me what your issue is again?

Since the moderator 'JonathanB' is very adamant about following the guidelines, I just want to point out that I am not trying to do his job. I'm simply reaching out to a fellow community member who has a query. In the end, we're here to help each other out.

kul · ‎02-14-2023

I’ve been trying since sept still not working

All I seen is There’s a problem

when I try to set up mobile service

Anonymous · ‎02-14-2023

The six month free trial of SmartWatch pairing is coming to end. I never got my Apple Watch to pair with my account, Three support have stopped contacting me with "updates" on the issue ("we're sorry this is taking so long, we're working on it, blah blah blah" was all I got), and despite requesting that the SmartWatch pairing fee be removed from my bill it's still there and no doubt I'd have to start paying the £7 from next month as no-one at Three seems able to fix this problem.

So I've ordered a Vodafone sim and will be cancelling my Three account as it seems the safest way not to get charged for something I've never been able to use.

P51oss · ‎02-07-2023

Just to give people an update as to where I am. I followed JohnathanB’s advice and contacted the Social Media Team via chat. They took my details asked me to do the usual steps which didn’t change anything and in the end they had all my details of the issue and said that they will send the details to the Technical Team, this is the main missing link that the Call Centre people are unable to do as at their end it says that there are no errors so they cannot escalate it. Last night upon checking the Watch app on the iPhone, in the Mobile Data section it said that the data plan for the Watch was invalid and there was a button to remove it. After removing it and restarting the phone and watch I was able to press the Mobile Data button to add the data plan, it took me to the Three log in screen, without the E53305 error, I was then able to successfully log in and then add the Smartwatch Pairing 1m plan. After it confirmed that the plan had been added it returned to the Watch app Mobile Data screen where the infamous Activating button was spinning. Ten minutes later I restarted my phone and watch and the Three plan was now showing on the Watch app in the Mobile Data section. Next to the Three plan there was now the normal “ i “ button which when pressed it gave you the correct option of removing the plan. Upon checking on the watch the cellular data button in Control Centre was now white which meant it was connected, it had indeed connected to the Three network. Upon testing I was able to make a successful phone call on the watch with my phone turned off. I was then able to log in to my Three account and the data plan was showing as - Smartwatch Pairing 1m - Active. This was below my normal phone plan. Either Three are getting to the bottom of this or they are massively unaware of the current situation that the customers are facing and because the call centre are not escalating it to Technical Team. The only way that seem to get it escalated was via the Social Media Team. I have since received an email saying the following -

Hi P,

My name's Joe and I'm part of the Social Media Team. In Suzi's absence I've been asked to give you an update on your device pairing issue.

We escalated this to a more technical team who have since confirmed that the issue should now be resolved.

You should now be able to pair your device without issue.

If you encounter any difficulty with this, please let us know.

Joe
Social Media Team

Hope this is of help to anyone else.

I hope this information is of help as this has been a ridiculous situation that Three customers have had to endure !!!!

jamwo123 · ‎02-19-2023

How do you contact the social media team?

Enlery · ‎02-08-2023

Hi P51oss,

Thank you for this update!

I will give it another go and see if it works.
I've been with Three for 6 years, and have had no issues, until now. I just wanted to return to my Pay-As-You-Go and sell my Apple Watch, all because of this nonsense.

I couldn't agree more that the customer service agents are not trained adequately to deal with this query.
All of them have no clue what it's about when you speak to them.

But I couldn't believe more that there is a missing link somewhere, and you might have found the connection.

Thanks, I will give it one last try as I really wouldn't want to sell my watch as it's super helpful for me as a cancer patient.

Kind regards,

Wenlery Manuel

P51oss · ‎02-08-2023

You are welcome Wenlery, good luck.