How to transfer your Pixel Watch to another phone

With the Pixel Watch 2 and the Wear OS 4 update for the original Pixel Watch, users can now transfer smartwatches to another phone.

This feature is probably one of the most exciting new additions for me, though admittedly, it won’t matter as much for the average user. Part of my job, after all, is evaluating smartphones. That means I’m frequently swapping phones and, as a result, resetting my watch just to set it up all over again.

Thankfully, that process will be a thing of the past and going forward, it will take just a few taps to bring my watch with me. For anyone out there wondering how to do the same with their Pixel Watch, here’s how it works.

To start, you’ll need to make sure your devices are updated. The process works on the Pixel Watch and Watch 2, and it theoretically any other smartwatch running Wear OS 4, though the process might look different. Your smartphone will also need to be up to date — a Play Services update enabled the feature on the smartphone side, so if you have any trouble, just double-check that Play Services is updated.

Next, you’ll need both the current phone your watch is paired to, the new handset you’re moving the watch to, and the watch itself.

With all your devices to hand, start by heading into the smartwatch app on the phone your watch is paired to — in my case, it’s the Pixel Watch app. Head to ‘System’ and tap ‘Transfer watch.’ From here, you’ll follow the onscreen steps, which involve starting the transfer, opening the watch app on your new phone, selecting your smartwatch, and waiting for the process to finish.

Overall, it’s a fairly straightforward process and only takes a few minutes to move your watch to a new device. When I tested it out, the only issue I ran into was the Fitbit app refused to connect to my Pixel Watch 2 on the new phone. However, a reboot seemed to fix the problem.