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Fitness+ Apple TV - Apple Watch Fitness+ Connection Issue

Mlrollin91

Mlrollin91

macrumors G5
Original poster
Nov 20, 2008
14,177
10,194
Hi all!

I wasn't sure where to post this as it combines the Apple TV, Fitness+ and Apple Watch together. I've updated all my devices to the proper update version. When I launch Fitness+ on my Apple TV, it tells me to launch the Workout App on my Apple Watch. Upon doing so, I get a button on my Apple Watch that says "Connect". Upon clicking that, I get a pop-up with a "Continue" button. I tap that, it says "Connecting..." for about two seconds and then nothing happens.

Anyone else experiencing this, or has anyone gotten it to work?

Thanks!
 
My wife’s series 3 watch is connected to her iPhone 11pro but on starting a workout on the phone it keeps saying it needs to be connected by Bluetooth etc?? It connects fine on the Tv. I’ve rebooted her watch & phone several times but still keep getting same pop up- frustrating!
I’ve had no problem with my series 6 & 12 pro Max.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
Hi all!

I wasn't sure where to post this as it combines the Apple TV, Fitness+ and Apple Watch together. I've updated all my devices to the proper update version. When I launch Fitness+ on my Apple TV, it tells me to launch the Workout App on my Apple Watch. Upon doing so, I get a button on my Apple Watch that says "Connect". Upon clicking that, I get a pop-up with a "Continue" button. I tap that, it says "Connecting..." for about two seconds and then nothing happens.

Anyone else experiencing this, or has anyone gotten it to work?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I'm experiencing the exact same symptoms with my Series 6 AW. I'm able to get things working if using my iPhone or my iPad but with the ATV, I get either the 2 second then nothing...or the perpetual spinning "Connecting" with no change until I stop trying.

Here's what's interesting though - my wife also has a Series 6 AW, and it works perfectly for her...despite the Apple TV being logged in with my account credentials. In fact, her watch is listed automatically when opening the Fitness App on the ATV...not sure how to explain it but that's my situation.

Hoping someone somewhere figures it out!
 
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I’m having similar issues. Spent a good while Apple Messaging with support. We have a call in the morning set up to talk with a sr advisor. I’ll share what I find out after the call.
 
saketbash said:
I'm experiencing the exact same symptoms with my Series 6 AW. I'm able to get things working if using my iPhone or my iPad but with the ATV, I get either the 2 second then nothing...or the perpetual spinning "Connecting" with no change until I stop trying.

Here's what's interesting though - my wife also has a Series 6 AW, and it works perfectly for her...despite the Apple TV being logged in with my account credentials. In fact, her watch is listed automatically when opening the Fitness App on the ATV...not sure how to explain it but that's my situation.

Hoping someone somewhere figures it out!
Click to expand...
Thats so bizarre! I will have to try it with my fiancee's watch tomorrow.
macdevon said:
I’m having similar issues. Spent a good while Apple Messaging with support. We have a call in the morning set up to talk with a sr advisor. I’ll share what I find out after the call.
Click to expand...
I spent an hour chatting with an advisor online and then another hour with a SR advisor on the phone. It's been submitted to the engineers and I will receive a call back next week. They wanted me to do a factory reset on the TV and I refused. Its one thing to unpair the watch and repair it, but the TV has no backup and its a huge hassle to reconfigure it. I have a couple dozen apps with different logins, 4 different Apple IDs logged in. I also don't think its a TV issue because the Watch is failing to connect.
 
saketbash said:
I'm experiencing the exact same symptoms with my Series 6 AW. I'm able to get things working if using my iPhone or my iPad but with the ATV, I get either the 2 second then nothing...or the perpetual spinning "Connecting" with no change until I stop trying.

Here's what's interesting though - my wife also has a Series 6 AW, and it works perfectly for her...despite the Apple TV being logged in with my account credentials. In fact, her watch is listed automatically when opening the Fitness App on the ATV...not sure how to explain it but that's my situation.

Hoping someone somewhere figures it out!
Click to expand...
Just the opposite here. I can connect, I’m signed in. My wife can’t on either AppleTV. Both S4 watches.
 
Bdub12 said:
Just the opposite here. I can connect, I’m signed in. My wife can’t on either AppleTV. Both S4 watches.
Click to expand...
When you’re in the Apple Fitness app you need to go to the very top where you’ll see a ”Log out” button. Log out and then when you log in again choose “Other User”, you’ll then be allowed to setup your wife‘s Apple watch.
 
rasputin1969 said:
When you’re in the Apple Fitness app you need to go to the very top where you’ll see a ”Log out” button. Log out and then when you log in again choose “Other User”, you’ll then be allowed to setup your wife‘s Apple watch.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but nobody is logged in now. From the screen showing both my account and hers, if we choose her we get "pairing cancelled." If we add a new user for her, it spins and never connects.
 
Bdub12 said:
Thanks, but nobody is logged in now. From the screen showing both my account and hers, if we choose her we get "pairing cancelled." If we add a new user for her, it spins and never connects.
Click to expand...
We experienced that as well. Only only thing that allowed us to fix it was pulling the power chord from the Apple TV and trying it again.

There’s obviously still some bugs.
 
I was able to resolve the issue by deleting the default user from the Apple TV, then re-adding a default user using the iPhone proximity setup method. It then worked okay. Although my Memoji icon associated with my iCloud account isn't showing anymore. I think the issue is to do with Apple IDs.
 
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With the advice of Apple, I logged out of my icloud account on apple tv, restarted the apple tv, power cycled my watch, then logged back in to my tv. This seems to have fixed any issues. It took a minute for everything but ultimately my watch appeared in the fitness app, there was a confirmation needed to do on the watch. After that, everything worked fine.
 
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macdevon said:
With the advice of Apple, I logged out of my icloud account on apple tv, restarted the apple tv, power cycled my watch, then logged back in to my tv. This seems to have fixed any issues. It took a minute for everything but ultimately my watch appeared in the fitness app, there was a confirmation needed to do on the watch. After that, everything worked fine.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I logged out of iCloud on the Apple TV, restarted it, logged back in, and now it works!
 
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macdevon said:
With the advice of Apple, I logged out of my icloud account on apple tv, restarted the apple tv, power cycled my watch, then logged back in to my tv. This seems to have fixed any issues. It took a minute for everything but ultimately my watch appeared in the fitness app, there was a confirmation needed to do on the watch. After that, everything worked fine.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I will give it a try!

Edit: Yep! It worked! Thank you!!
 
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Had similar issues with my iPad and watch not being detected. Logging out of the iCloud account and signing back in looks to have done the trick.
 
Just did a 30 min HiiT workout, Watch just paired instantly with the ATV and no issues at all. Great workout also :)
 
After installing all the updates on all the devices (iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, HomePods, Apple TV), I tried to get Fitness+ going and have experiences similar connection issues. Here's what I've had happen so far and what I've tried.

  1. Initially, launched the Fitness app on the Apple TV. It displayed by Apple Watch, plus an option to connect to another Apple Watch. I chose to connect to my watch, my watch vibrated and asked me to connect. After pressing connect, the watch displayed the loading spinner briefly and then it went back to the Home Screen. The Apple TV displayed a spinner and immediately said "Pairing Cancelled".
  2. I tried the above (item 1) multiple times with the same outcome.
  3. I tried force quitting both the Fitness app on the Apple TV and the Workout app on the Apple Watch. Same outcome as (item 1).
  4. I tried rebooting both devices. Same outcome again as (item 1).
  5. I tried connecting to connect to my Apple Watch by going to the "Other" option on the Apple TV launch screen for Fitness. I navigated to the Workout app as prompted, then clicked the "Connect" button that appeared. It asked me to confirm I wanted to continue, then just spun endlessly and never connected.
  6. I tried signing out of iCloud and signing back in. Same outcome as (item 1).
  7. I tried the same as (item 6), but rebooted after signing out and before signing back in. Same outcome as (item 1).
  8. I tried signing out, force rebooting both devices, and signing back in to iCloud. Same outcome as (item 1).
  9. I tried deleting my Apple TV default user and re-adding it. The auto-setup refused to work after attempting multiple times (including after reboots, force reboots, and more).
  10. I tried setting up my account/user again manually. Same outcome as (item 1).
  11. I tried resetting the Apple TV and re-setting it up. Same outcome as (item 1).

My advice? If you are having issues and a reboot or a simple logout/login cycle doesn't work, don't waste your time. There's a major issue here that pretty much all the possible troubleshooting steps doesn't always solve. Hopefully there will be a minor point release in the next few weeks to fix this issue.
 
Brad Smith said:
After installing all the updates on all the devices (iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, HomePods, Apple TV), I tried to get Fitness+ going and have experiences similar connection issues. Here's what I've had happen so far and what I've tried.

  1. Initially, launched the Fitness app on the Apple TV. It displayed by Apple Watch, plus an option to connect to another Apple Watch. I chose to connect to my watch, my watch vibrated and asked me to connect. After pressing connect, the watch displayed the loading spinner briefly and then it went back to the Home Screen. The Apple TV displayed a spinner and immediately said "Pairing Cancelled".
  2. I tried the above (item 1) multiple times with the same outcome.
  3. I tried force quitting both the Fitness app on the Apple TV and the Workout app on the Apple Watch. Same outcome as (item 1).
  4. I tried rebooting both devices. Same outcome again as (item 1).
  5. I tried connecting to connect to my Apple Watch by going to the "Other" option on the Apple TV launch screen for Fitness. I navigated to the Workout app as prompted, then clicked the "Connect" button that appeared. It asked me to confirm I wanted to continue, then just spun endlessly and never connected.
  6. I tried signing out of iCloud and signing back in. Same outcome as (item 1).
  7. I tried the same as (item 6), but rebooted after signing out and before signing back in. Same outcome as (item 1).
  8. I tried signing out, force rebooting both devices, and signing back in to iCloud. Same outcome as (item 1).
  9. I tried deleting my Apple TV default user and re-adding it. The auto-setup refused to work after attempting multiple times (including after reboots, force reboots, and more).
  10. I tried setting up my account/user again manually. Same outcome as (item 1).
  11. I tried resetting the Apple TV and re-setting it up. Same outcome as (item 1).

My advice? If you are having issues and a reboot or a simple logout/login cycle doesn't work, don't waste your time. There's a major issue here that pretty much all the possible troubleshooting steps doesn't always solve. Hopefully there will be a minor point release in the next few weeks to fix this issue.
Click to expand...
Try item 9 again, do manual setup (don't try auto), make sure the right IDs are assigned to the correct services (which should match your iPhone that you Apple Watch is paired to), then, go into settings on the Apple TV and you should see a red '1' next to one of them to complete your Homekit setup. After that, mine worked.
 
shuurajou said:
Try item 9 again, do manual setup (don't try auto), make sure the right IDs are assigned to the correct services (which should match your iPhone that you Apple Watch is paired to), then, go into settings on the Apple TV and you should see a red '1' next to one of them to complete your Homekit setup. After that, mine worked.
Click to expand...
I sadly have tried that now as well with no luck. It's actually my item 10, but forgot to mention I did the auto-setup to complete Homekit. After it completes the setup, the red (1) disappears and Homekit is setup properly, but Fitness+ still doesn't connect to the Watch.
 
I guess I'm the lucky one... I have both S4 and S6 watches and my wife has an S6 and the AppleTV 4K box I'm using it with senses them all and the connection button has worked reliably for all 3 watches every time so far.
 
My issue is after my wife connects her Apple Series 5 to our ATV4K it asks to open her Fitness app to subscribe even though my subscription is shared with the family. The ATV4K doesn’t recognize the active subscription. It works perfectly for myself however. My wife also has full access in her Fitness app and can Airplay to the Apple TV.
 
I’ve been wrestling with this issue on an Apple Watch SE managed via Family Setup. Apple support insists the Family Setup factor is not an issue, even though my wife’s Apple Watch Series 6 connects to the same Fitness and Apple TV no problem. Anyway, after spending a few hours on the phone, I finally got to an agent who basically said, “This is a known issue that we hope to address in a future software update.” Now we wait.
 
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