The Apple Watch has evolved to become increasingly independent, to such an extent that we can use it to listen to our music. But not as if it were an independent speaker, but to avoid carrying the iPhone everywhere since the Apple Watch can be independent to listen to music.
What is needed
The first thing to keep in mind is that the Apple Watch cannot act as a music speaker. It is essential to pair a wireless headset through the Bluetooth connection. The brand of these headphones is indifferent , but obviously the AirPods are the quintessential candidate when it comes to an Apple Watch. In this case, the pairing is done automatically as long as they are linked to our iPhone, making the task much easier. If we are talking about other headphones, things change as it will have to be paired on the smart watch itself.
In order to perform this pairing, simply follow these steps:
- On the Apple Watch press on the digital crown that we have on the side.
- Head towards ‘Settings’, symbolized with a gear like in iOS.
- In the ‘Bluetooth’ section we will begin to track the equipment that we have around us.
- Tap on the Bluetooth headphones you want to pair and they will automatically be paired.
Once your Apple Watch has a way to stream music, you can start digging into applications that allow us to play it.
Through Apple Music
Obviously if we are talking about the Apple ecosystem, it is mandatory to talk about Apple Music . This application, obviously, integrates seamlessly into our smart watch to have on our wrist all the songs that we can play on our iPhone. This requires paying a monthly or annual subscription to the Apple music service to have access to all the songs they make available to us. But it is not mandatory, since if we are not subscribed to Apple Music we can also play all those songs that we have stored. In this way we will be using the iPhone as the true focus of music broadcast, the Apple Watch being an intermediary .
But if you want to have your songs with you even if you don’t have your iPhone with you, you can make use of the storage of your Apple Watch. When we have a new clock, we can synchronize the songs in our library with the clock in a very easy way since we get the option as soon as we enter the app. But if not, the steps to follow to synchronize are as follows:
- Make sure your iPhone and Apple Watch are paired.
- Open the ‘Watch’ or ‘My Watch’ application.
- Find the ‘Music’ app in the list and tap on it.
- Upon entering we can select the option ‘What you listen to the most’ so that the songs you listen to are always available on your watch. Or simply add music manually with the option found at the bottom.
It is important to have the Apple Watch connected to the charging base. Synchronization will only be done if it is reloading, as is the case with software updates.
Start listening to music without iPhone
Once we have the songs we want on our Apple Watch, we can start playing them even if we don’t have the iPhone nearby. To do so, simply click on the digital crown of the Apple Watch and look for the ‘Music’ app icon. Once here we can choose the song that we want to sound and also that the music emitter is our own clock. If it does not finish detecting the connection with the AirPods or with others, you will find the typical icon to be able to ‘AirPlay’ to be able to choose them. Although this is due to the fact that the Apple Watch always forces us to have headphones connected to play music.
Music control
Once music is already playing, we can make a good control of it through the clock. With the crown we can easily raise or lower the sound , and with the on-screen controls we can pause / play one song or go to the next. But here this does not remain since in the lower left we will have three points that will give us access to options to edit the source of the music or activate the random mode. In the other corner we can indicate if we like the song that is playing so that it recommends more of that style, or introduce it to our library. These options are very indicated especially when we are using the Apple Music service.
With third-party applications
But not everything is Apple Music, since there are some applications that also integrate with the Apple Watch although it has cost. Spotify after a great battle with Apple in the end has managed to integrate its own application in the clock that works quite well. It is also integrated with AirPods, being able to choose this bluetooth device to make the connection. In addition to the player control that we have in the intermediate tab, we can also access our library or all the songs on an album that we are currently playing.
At the moment Spotify is the only third-party app that supports a good integration with Apple Watch, although in the future we do not rule out that there are other applications available.