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jihong

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 14, 2009
20
9
On iOS 14.5 beta and watch OS 7.4 beta. 90% of the time the “unlock with apple watch” feature does not work. Has anyone else had this issue? This is with multiple different masks and colors. Usually says “unable to connect to apple watch” and the watch tries to unlock the phone, but cant.
 
When I was using it with my Mini, I had the same experience. After switching over to the Pro the success rate improved to about 50%. It's got a long way to go but hey, it's early days.
 
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On iOS 14.5 beta and watch OS 7.4 beta. 90% of the time the “unlock with apple watch” feature does not work. Has anyone else had this issue? This is with multiple different masks and colors. Usually says “unable to connect to apple watch” and the watch tries to unlock the phone, but cant.
That is obviously non related to mask shape or color, as it doesn’t matter. If it says “unable to connect to Apple Watch” you already have the cause. Connection problems.
As long as i read, people are not experiencing this. They reported great performance unlocking the phone.
 
On iOS 14.5 beta and watch OS 7.4 beta. 90% of the time the “unlock with apple watch” feature does not work. Has anyone else had this issue? This is with multiple different masks and colors. Usually says “unable to connect to apple watch” and the watch tries to unlock the phone, but cant.
I have this problem pretty regularly as well. It seems to be unrelated to mask type since the phone is trying to unlock via watch but fails.
 
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I disabled the Unlock With Apple Watch feature since it doesn't work at all for me (I receive the same nonsensical error as you). Hopeful for beta 2.
 
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I get about 50/50 success rate but it is an early beta so I expect it to not work 100% yet.
 
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I'd say my success rate is 90% or better. When it doesn't work it's a variety of reasons with 'watch too far away' (it's right there on my wrist!) or something the most common. Love this feature, just wished it worked with Apple Pay. I do understand the security reasons why it doesn't.
 
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It works almost 100% for me. Just the other day it didn’t work as I was sitting on a train for some reason. The phone would say unlocked with Apple Watch and I also received the notification on my Apple Watch but it didn’t actually unlock, asking for my code. worked again later that afternoon
 
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Looks like this feature will work like automatic audio switching: work like wonders a few times and then never works again.
I have lost all of my hopes now.
 
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That is obviously non related to mask shape or color, as it doesn’t matter. If it says “unable to connect to Apple Watch” you already have the cause. Connection problems.
As long as i read, people are not experiencing this. They reported great performance unlocking the phone.
As you can see from the responses, the effectiveness is hit or miss. Unlikely to be an actual “connection problem” when all other features between the watch and phone are seamless and a new connection problem developed only with the update and only when trying to unlock with apple watch.

Its a great feature, just not stable all around it looks like. Its worth adding to your primary phone if you want to give it a shot, hopefully you’ll be one of the folks that had a high success rate. But it can be frustrating when it’s hit or miss because you so badly want it to unlock without having to use your passcode and you’re staring at your phone hoping itll click unlock lol
 
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Have people found it more reliable with Beta 2? Seems to be for me.
 
When I was using it with my Mini, I had the same experience. After switching over to the Pro the success rate improved to about 50%. It's got a long way to go but hey, it's early days.
I only used it for one day but it worked every single time
 
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