Using Airpods with an Apple watch

By Chuck, 30 December, 2016

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

Hello everyone,

I have had some success using Airpods with my Apple watch. Here is what I do.
1. I remove one of the Airpods from the charging case, and set it down on the table. It is important to not put the Airpod in your ear at this time.
2. Go to the watch face and flick up twice to open the control panel, double tap the watch face.
3. Flick right until you hear air play. Double tap the watch face. 4. Flick right until you hear Airpods. Double tap the watch face. 5. Now you can put the Airpod in your ear. The focus will stay on the Apple watch as long as you do not use the iPhone.

The quickest way to change the focus to the iPhone, is to do a two finger double tap on the screen to start music. The focus will switch to the iPhone almost immediately.

In order to change the Airpods' focus back to the Apple watch, you must remove the Airpods from your ears and repeat the above steps.

It is not elegant, but it does work.

Chuck (mobile)
Pleez x cuze enny tie ping or spelin air ores.

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Comments

By Mary Ward on Saturday, January 14, 2017 - 16:16

I love the Airpods too, but was expecting a more seamless transition between devices. Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering why I couldn't get the Airpods to work with my watch. Not at all as elegant as it was on the presentation back a couple months ago, huh? A four-step procedure every time you want to start using them with the watch? Is there a way to tell them to just stay with the watch and be done with it, no matter what's going on with the phone? Given the multiple steps to connect the watch, that would be a better solution for me. I would be happy to use the watch with the Airpods only, since I got them mainly to use with the watch so I could make my Apple watch less of a talking watch. Would also like to be able to turn speech on and off quickly on the watch like you can on the phone.

And is there more of a delay with typing on the watch than on the phone? I've found the degree of lag on the phone with the Airpods to be nnoticeable but still in the acceptable range. Thanks.

Hi,
Unfortunately right after I wrote the above description on how to connect the AirPods to the Apple Watch, I reverted back to my old Bluetooth headset. It connects to the watch and the phone seamlessly, exactly like I was expecting the AirPods would. It has great battery life, and fairly good sound. It's main downside is the microphone really stinks! Dictation comes out like gibberish,.

I carry the AirPods with me to listen to music, and podcast. But for day-to-day operations I use my, M Pow Free Go Bluetooth headset.
I checked recently, and it seems that these are no longer available through Amazon.
Good luck,
Chuck