If you connect a third-party smartwatch to your iPhone right now and expect full, interactive notifications to show up on your wrist, you’re out of luck unless your watch is an Apple Watch.
Non-Apple wearables could only show read-only notifications. You couldn’t reply, dismiss, or do anything with them. Apple just never opened that door until a European law forced it to.
With iOS 26.5, Apple has quietly handed EU users something pretty significant. Third-party earbuds can now pair with an iPhone the same way AirPods do, with a one-tap prompt that appears the moment you hold them near your phone.
Beyond pairing, third-party smartwatches can now display Live Activities from your iPhone, things like sports scores, food delivery timers, or ride-share countdowns, the same dynamic updates Apple Watch owners have had for years.
Those interactive notifications are now also available on compatible third-party wearables, so your Garmin or Samsung watch can let you respond to a message rather than just show you one.
There is one catch worth knowing. Notifications can be forwarded to only one device at a time. So if you flip this on for a third-party watch, your Apple Watch stops getting them.
Apple also locked down how that forwarded data can be used. Accessory makers cannot use notification content for advertising, location tracking, or training AI models, and they can’t pass that data along to any other app or service.
Apple has been vocal about its frustration. The company has publicly pushed back against the EU’s Digital Markets Act, calling the required changes concerning and warning that they introduce risks for consumers.
Accessory manufacturers still need to build in support on their end, so don’t expect everything to work on day one with every device.
The features apply to smartwatches, earbuds, and headphones, and your Apple account needs to be registered in an EU country for any of it to show up.
