Samsung has added a nifty new feature to its smartwatches recently, which is the ability to “Transfer watch to new phone”. This feature apparently was available on One UI Watch 5 which launched with the Galaxy Watch 6 last year, but I didn’t notice it. I have noticed it, and used it a few times here on the Galaxy Watch Ultra, which is running One UI Watch 6 and Wear OS 5.
This feature is really nice to have, especially if you switch phones a lot. Previously, you needed to factory reset the watch to pair it with another phone. In fact, that is still the case for other watches like the Pixel Watch and OnePlus Watch, not to mention the Apple Watch. So, being able to simply pair it with a new phone is so much simpler. Here’s how you do it.
How to transfer your Galaxy Watch to a new phone
To get started, you’ll want to open the Galaxy Wear app on the phone it’s currently paired to. Or open the Settings app on the watch itself.
Now scroll down to “General” on either the app or the Settings on the watch itself, and tap on it.
From there, you’re looking for “Transfer watch to new phone“, which should be the second to last option.
Once you tap on that, Samsung will explain how this works. Basically, you need to have the same Google account on the phone you’re moving the watch to. And if you have a Samsung account on that device, it also needs to be the same Samsung account. Finally, it tells you that once you transfer the watch, you won’t be able to transfer it back without resetting it first. This is actually not true, as I’ve transferred it back to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 three times so far without any issues.
After you’ve read all of that, tap on the blue “Transfer watch to new phone” button.
Now, the watch will become discoverable. So, on the new phone, open the Galaxy Wearable app.
Once you see your watch appear on the new phone, tap on it.
It’ll start to transfer over your watch, which typically only takes a minute or so. And you’re all set. You’ve just transferred your watch to a new phone without doing a factory reset.
It’s just that easy.
