Updated to One UI 8 Watch, can't connect to phone

[The_Chief]

I upgraded my Watch Ultra to the new One UI 8 Watch this morning - ever since, it will not connect with my S24 Ultra.

Setup begins fine with the Wearable app: while the phone shows TWO identical Galaxy Watch Ultra devices, the watch does NOT show my phone as a pairing option.

Wearable will go through the whole transfer process and fail at the same point, every time. The "Finishing up" process can get to 100% and it will fail every time.

I have cleared the system cache on the watch and reinstalled Galaxy Wearable on the phone. I will only reset network settings or reset the watch as a last resort.

Anyone else here having problems with connecting the Watch Ultra with the phone after updating?

[Manuelsyv]

Have you cleared your catch ?

[The_Chief]

As I said in paragraph 4, I cleared system cache in the watch recovery

[Robin621k]

Factory reset is your only option at this point.

[Robin621k]

Poster stated they wipe cache partition.

[AlienX]

Have you installed the galaxy watch manager compatible with wearos oneui8 on your phone?

[Manuelsyv]

It sounds like the update might’ve caused a pairing glitch between your Watch Ultra and the S24 Ultra. In paragraph 4, where you mentioned that the setup reaches “Finishing up” (even 100%) but still fails — that usually points to a communication or permission issue between the two devices during final handshake.

Here’s what I suggest before doing a full reset:

Unpair/delete both watch entries from your phone’s Bluetooth settings manually. Go to Settings > Connections > Bluetooth, and remove both “Galaxy Watch Ultra” listings.

Then restart both the watch and the phone.

Open the Galaxy Wearable app, but before starting the setup, go to App info > Permissions, and ensure all permissions (especially Nearby Devices, Bluetooth, Location, and Storage) are turned on.

Also, toggle off Wi-Fi on your phone temporarily during the setup — forcing it to rely only on Bluetooth may help finish pairing cleanly.


If it still fails, you can try using the “Add new device” option from within Galaxy Wearable instead of letting it auto-detect.

[userAV8fwDY2Oe]

Not sure if this was asked but were you on the One UI8 Watch beta if so I had to clear cache, update Galaxy Store, and ensure running non beta Galaxy Watch Manager and after some trial and error it is connecting to my S25 Ultra on One UI 8 Beta 3 with no issues.

[The_Chief · Accepted solution]

This is this morning's stable release for the Watch Ultra. Working with Samsung support by text, we tried everything less before I had to factory reset the watch. That fixed it, and most of the watch's settings were restored.