Is Your Apple Watch Compatible with Your iPhone? watchOS and iOS Compatibility Explained
Reading Time: 3 minutes An Apple Watch needs to be paired with an iPhone before you can start using it. You may have an older iPhone, like an iPhone X, for example, and have plans to buy a new Apple Watch. You may wonder if you can set up your new Apple Watch with your old iPhone. The answer is maybe not; some older iPhone models cannot be updated to the iOS versions required by some newer Apple Watch models.
If your iPhone is not compatible, you will get a message saying, “iPhone Out of Date. This Apple Watch requires a newer version of iOS” when the pairing fails.
iOS and watchOS are the operating systems for iPhone and Apple Watch, respectively. By compatibility, I mean that different iOS versions and iPhone models will only work with certain watchOS versions and Apple Watch models. In this article, I list watchOS and Apple Watch versions and compatible iPhone and iOS versions.
In the example above, if you have an iPhone X, your iPhone cannot be updated to iOS 17. The latest version of iOS that can be installed on iPhone X is iOS 16. This means that the newest Apple Watch models can not pair with your iPhone X.
watchOS 10 compatibility
The following Apple Watch models support watchOS 10:
- Apple Watch Series 4
- Apple Watch Series 5
- Apple Watch SE
- Apple Watch Series 6
- Apple Watch Series 7
- Apple Watch Series 8
- Apple Watch Series 9
- Apple Watch Ultra
- Apple Watch Ultra 2
The following iPhone models support watchOS 10:
- iPhone XS or later running iOS 17 or newer.
watchOS 9 compatibility
The following Apple Watch models support watchOS 9:
- Apple Watch Series 4
- Apple Watch Series 5
- Apple Watch SE
- Apple Watch Series 6
- Apple Watch Series 7
- Apple Watch Series 8
- Apple Watch Ultra
The following iPhone models support watchOS 9:
- iPhone 8 or later with iOS 16 or later.
watchOS 8 compatibility
The following Apple Watch models support watchOS 8:
- Apple Watch Series 3
- Apple Watch Series 4
- Apple Watch Series 5
- Apple Watch SE
- Apple Watch Series 6
- Apple Watch Series 7
The following iPhone models support watchOS 8:
- iPhone 6s or later running iOS 15 or later.
watchOS 7 compatibility
The following Apple Watch models support watchOS 7:
- Apple Watch Series 3
- Apple Watch Series 4
- Apple Watch Series 5
The following iPhone models support watchOS 7:
- Phone 6s or later running iOS 14 or later.
watchOS 6 compatibility
The following Apple Watch models support watchOS 6:
- Apple Watch Series 1 or later
The following iPhone models support watchOS 6:
- iPhone 6s or later running iOS 13 or later.
watchOS 5 compatibility
The following Apple Watch models support watchOS 5:
- Apple Watch Series 1 and later
The following iPhone models support watchOS 5:
- iPhone 5s or later on iOS 12
watchOS 4 compatibility
The following Apple Watch models support watchOS 4:
- Apple Watch Series 1 and later
- 1st generation Apple Watch
The following iPhone models support watchOS 4:
- iPhone 5s and later running iOS 11 or newer.
watchOS 3, 2 and 1 compatibility
The following Apple Watch models support watchOS 3:
- Apple Watch Series 1 and later
- 1st generation Apple Watch
The following iPhone models support watchOS 3:
- iPhone 5 or later.
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