Apple Watch
Send books and podcast episodes to your Apple Watch and listen with your iPhone left at home
If you run, swim, or otherwise would rather not strap a phone to your arm, this is the page you want. Send a book or a podcast episode to the watch and you can listen with the iPhone left behind.
Requirements
- watchOS 11 or later
- An Apple Watch paired to the iPhone running SoundLeaf
- The SoundLeaf watch app installed (see below)
Installing the Watch App
The watch app ships inside the iPhone app, so there’s nothing separate to buy.
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone
- Scroll to Available Apps
- Tap Install next to SoundLeaf
If you have “Automatic App Install” turned on in the Watch app’s General settings, it installs on its own after you update SoundLeaf.
Sending a Book to the Watch
- Open the book or podcast episode on your iPhone
- Tap Send to Watch
- Leave both apps open for a moment while the handoff starts
The watch fetches the audio itself, over Wi-Fi when the phone isn’t around to relay it, so the phone doesn’t need to stay awake for the whole transfer. Progress shows on the watch’s own downloads screen, and on Settings → Watch on the phone.
Send to Watch only appears when a watch is paired. Big books take a while, so send them the night before rather than five minutes before a run.
Listening Without Your iPhone
Once the audio is on the watch, everything you need is on your wrist:
- Play, pause, and skip
- Chapter list for jumping around a book
- Playback speed
- Volume on the Digital Crown
- Headphone controls, including the skip buttons on AirPods
Pair your headphones to the watch directly (Settings → Bluetooth on the watch), not to the phone. This is a watchOS thing, not a SoundLeaf thing: the watch can only send audio to something paired with the watch.
Complications and the Smart Stack
Add SoundLeaf to your watch face as a complication for a one-tap route back into what you’re listening to. It also shows up in the Smart Stack.
When the Phone Is Playing
If your iPhone is the one playing, the watch shows a remote screen instead: play, pause, skip, and what’s currently on. Useful when the phone is in a bag or a coat pocket.
How Progress Gets Back to Your Server
Your listening from a phone-free session reaches your Audiobookshelf server on its own, once the phone is around again.
The reason it needs the phone is deliberate. The watch holds no credentials. Not your password, not a token. Your iPhone is the only device that talks to your server with your identity attached. Lose the watch and you have lost a watch, not an account.
So listening offline on the watch works fine, and the sessions wait on the watch until the phone is next in contact, usually within moments of opening either app. Sending a new book is the one thing that needs both apps awake at once, because the phone has to ask your server for the play session.
”Watch app asleep” is not an error
The Watch settings screen says things like “Watch app asleep · last talked just now” with a grey dot. That is the normal resting state of every watch app, and nothing is wrong.
iOS reports the watch as reachable only while the watch app is actually running and able to take a live message. A watch on your wrist, inches from the phone, with the app closed, reads as not reachable. Earlier versions translated that flag into “Out of reach” with an orange warning dot, which told you nothing you could act on.
So the screen now says what is actually happening:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Talking now | The watch app is open and in contact |
| Watch app asleep | Normal. The watch app is not running right now |
| Waiting since 3h ago | Something is queued and hasn’t gone through yet |
| Orange dot | An actual fault worth looking at |
If something is queued, the phone shows how long the oldest item has been waiting. Opening the watch app usually clears it immediately.
Troubleshooting
Send to Watch doesn’t appear
Either no watch is paired, or the Send to Watch buttons switch on Settings → Watch is off. The button also stays hidden on an item with no audio tracks.
A transfer has been waiting for hours
Open the SoundLeaf app on the watch with the phone nearby. The transfer needs both apps awake at the same time.
Audio plays on the phone instead of the watch
Your headphones are paired to the phone. Pair them to the watch in the watch’s own Bluetooth settings.
Downloads on the watch are slow
The watch downloads over Wi-Fi, and its Wi-Fi is much slower than the phone’s. Keep the watch on the charger while a large book transfers.
Progress isn’t showing on the server
Open SoundLeaf on your iPhone with the watch nearby. The phone is what talks to your Audiobookshelf server.