Watch is forcing me to make a mode instead of having sleep mode and theater mode available and syncs with phone

[AdmiralSirJohn]

Yes, I know that sleep mode has been moved to the "modes" button in the quick panel, but whenever I try to use it, I'm prompted to make a mode.

Unfortunately, that forces me to make a mode for the phone, not for the watch.

This is not what I want to do.

When I sleep, I used to put my watch only into sleep mode.

Now I don't have that option.  It's either both my phone and watch, or neither.

PLEASE SOLVE THIS!!!

[VerbumVeritum]

Modes created on your phone now automatically sync to the watch. To disable this, go to Watch Settings>Modes>scroll to the bottom and toggle off Sync modes with phone.

[EpsilonX]

That doesn't work anymore. When I go to watch settings that sync switch is off, oddly. I turn it on, and it makes no difference. When I go back to the app it's off again, and no matter what I try it does not stay on. So my watch randomly blinds me at night with its bright display now because I can't turn on sleep mode for it, just my phone. So annoying. 

[VerbumVeritum]

I just made the sleep mode on my phone, turned off the Sync modes with phone option, and then activated sleep mode on my watch. The phone did not go into sleep mode. Make sure you also have Sync Do not disturb toggled off in Watch settings>Notifications

[EpsilonX]

You're lucky you still have the Sleep mode, or any mode, on your watch. Mine says I have no modes set and I have to "Add a mode on your phone? You don't have any modes yet." Just an OK button and I have to continue on the phone.

That takes me to the Modes and Routines section on the phone, showing all the modes are indeed available. But they're not on the watch. So I go to the Watch Settings (repeating my message above), Modes, and turn on the Sync modes with phone switch. Still doesn't work. Go back to Modes and the Sync modes with phone switch is off again.

Restart phone, restart watch, no change.

Do Not Disturb is already synced with the phone and is still working, thankfully.

I don't understand how Samsung first wants to make a 1-step process (turn on Sleep mode) harder by making it a 2-step process. Give people choice! Do you want to make a convenient feature inconvenient? Select this inconvenience switch. But no, they just decided to make it annoying. Second, they broke the sleep mode on my watch and for others as well. Some people said they had to do a hard reset on their watch to fix it.

I'm a tech person, but I see how non-tech people shy away from tech when companies like Samsung pull things like this. You think a non-tech person is going to peruse forums, submit a bug report, hard reset their watch to get sleep mode working again? They'll just want to get rid of the watch and buy an Apple Watch. Who wants the display on their watch to be blindingly bright every time they turn around at night?

[VerbumVeritum]

Thank you for explaining your situation in greater detail! It is very helpful. Based on what you're describing, it definitely sounds like a weird bug. One UI Watch 5 is pretty new still, so there are bound to be a couple bugs. Your watch's sleep mode should definitely be syncing with your phone to make it available, and you can 100% use the watch's mode without turning the same mode on your phone on. Factory resetting and restoring from a backup really doesn't take much time at all, and does usually fix most glitches like these. If it worked for other people, I suggest you give that a try.

[EpsilonX]

Interesting. I was about to try a hard reset, went to the settings on the watch and saw "Modes" there. Went in to Modes, and there was Sleep and Theatre. I could select Sleep and I noticed it put my phone into Sleep mode but the watch didn't appear to do so. I now have Sleep and Theatre modes available from the modes icon, so that's a step in the right direction. I'll try tonight after restarting both phone and watch and see if sleep mode activates on the watch. 

I still have the issue where on the phone, Galaxy Wearable app, Watch Settings, Modes, the "Sync modes with phone" switch does not stay on. So that's not something that seems like it would be fixed by hard resetting the watch.

[EpsilonX]

 OK, a hard reset of the watch was needed. Now it properly goes into sleep mode. The "sync modes with phone" switch in the Galaxy Wearable app still does not stay on, so I'll have to see if it syncs the sleep mode with the phone when I turn it on.

[EpsilonX]

Oddly, that was the first and only time (since the update) that the watch went properly into sleep mode. So what happens now is that from the watch I can turn on sleep mode on the phone but it never activates on the watch.

[EpsilonX]

The only thing that worked, and I know this won't help many (though it might lead to trying to uninstall/reinstall the Galaxy Wearable app) is that when I got a new phone sleep mode started working as expected both on the phone and watch.