Alright, let me tell you about my little adventure trying to get Qobuz working properly on my Apple Watch. It seemed like something that should just work, you know? But things are rarely that simple.
So, the first thing I did was obviously check the App Store directly on the watch itself. Scrolled through, searched for Qobuz. Nothing. Absolutely nothing showed up. That was a bit of a letdown. I figured maybe it wasn’t a standalone thing.
Next step, I grabbed my iPhone. Opened up the Watch app – the one you use to manage the watch faces and settings. I scrolled way down that list of apps you can install on the watch. Took me a minute, but eventually, I spotted it: Qobuz. It wasn’t installed automatically for some reason, unlike some other apps I have. There was just an ‘Install’ button next to it.
Okay, progress! I tapped ‘Install’ and waited. You know how it goes, the little circle spins for a bit. After it finished, I checked my watch, and bingo, the Qobuz icon was finally there on the app screen.
Getting it working
I opened the app on the watch. At first, it seemed like it was just a remote control for the Qobuz app on my iPhone. I could see the track playing, pause it, skip tracks, adjust the volume. That’s useful, sure, but not really what I was aiming for. I wanted to leave the phone at home sometimes, maybe go for a walk or a run with just the watch and my earbuds.
This meant figuring out offline playback. Back to the Qobuz app on the iPhone I went. I started poking around my playlists and albums. Found the download option. Now, the key thing I realised was you have to sort of specifically tell it to sync to the watch. It wasn’t super obvious at first.
- I made sure my watch was charging and connected to Wi-Fi. This seems important for syncing offline stuff for most watch apps.
- In the Qobuz iPhone app, I found the playlist I wanted.
- There was an option somewhere in the download settings or playlist settings – honestly, I clicked around a bit – that mentioned syncing or downloading to the Apple Watch.
- Selected that, and it started the process. It wasn’t exactly speedy. Took a good while for the tracks to transfer over.
But eventually, it got there. I opened the Qobuz app on the watch again, disconnected my phone just to test it, and navigated to the offline or downloaded section within the watch app. And there they were! My downloaded tracks, ready to play directly from the watch, no phone needed.
So, the bottom line? Yes, you can get Qobuz on the Apple Watch, and yes, you can even get offline playback. It’s not the most seamless setup I’ve ever used. You have to manually install the watch app via the iPhone Watch app, and getting offline tracks synced takes patience and making sure the watch is charging and on Wi-Fi. It doesn’t feel quite as integrated as Apple’s own music stuff, naturally. But, it works. I can now go out with just my watch and listen to my Qobuz playlists. Just gotta remember to sync what I want to listen to ahead of time.