Any downsides to Cellular?

[Mad Mac Maniac]

So it's that time of year where I'm starting to think about my upcoming Apple watch (series 4) purchase when it's released. At this point I'm virtually certain that a) I will buy one and b) I'll get the aluminum version. My only real question is if I will get with cellular or not. So that leads me to ask what the comunity experience has been with cellular over the past 9 months or so.

These are my biggest concerns:
1) Cost: The more I've thought about this the less a concern this is. I've calculated over an expected 3 year period the cost comes out to $0.40 a day (About $0.07/day extra for watch, $0.33/day for data plan). That's entirely reasonable for the potential use I could get from it. Especially considering that if I end up not using it as much as I anticipated I can always cancel the data plan and only pay the $0.07/day.

2) The red dot: I think this looks pretty stupid. But not a game changer because a) I'm not really fashionable/picky about that kinda stuff b) I'd probably get used to it, and maybe even start to like it c) it might go away anyway on series 4.

3) Battery issues: How much faster does the battery drain on the cellular version? I guess this is 2 part. Does the battery drain any faster WHILE in range of iPhone (vs non-cellular)? and how much faster does the battery drain without iPhone (without active use)? Obiously while streaming data/phone call it will drain the fastest, but that's also when you're actually getting the biggest benefit from the capability!

4) Connection issues: Does it have issues when initially leaving range of iPhone (i.e. GPS weirdness when leaving iphone for a run; data/phone call dropping when going out of range of iPhone)? Or does this work pretty seamlessly. I've noticed my iPhone seems to drop phone calls (at least occasionally) when I leave a wifi network.

My biggest concern would be connection issues, followed by battery issues (but I know the battery will be better than my S1 regardless). I guess what is your experience?

 

[rockarollr]

"Any downsides to Cellular?"

In the United States? Yes. The bill.

 

[JPack]

The answers to #3 and #4 probably won't apply to Series 4.

Series 3 is a first-gen cellular Watch that uses a Qualcomm LTE modem (MDM9635M) dating back to iPhone 6s. It simply wasn't designed for wearables. Series 4 will probably include a much newer LTE modem.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

"Any downsides to Cellular?"

In the United States? Yes. The bill.

Yeah, but I'm actually not too worried about that anymore. I have T-mobile and with my Military family plan I'm paying like $25 for my line, and the watch is $10 (inclusive of taxes/fees), but I think that might be reduced down to $8 with military plan. So basically I'd be looking at $35 for unlimited talk, text, data on iPhone and Apple Watch. Which is exactly what I was paying a few months ago before I got the military plan (and about half what I was paying for AT&T a couple years ago when I left). So I'm ok with that.

The answers to #3 and #4 probably won't apply to Series 4.

Series 3 is a first-gen cellular Watch that uses a Qualcomm LTE modem (MDM9635M) dating back to iPhone 6s. It simply wasn't designed for wearables. Series 4 will probably include a much newer LTE modem.

That's a good point. I do hope there will be significant improvements to the LTE modem on S4, but I could unfortunately see that being a thing that only gets improved every couple years.

 

[JPack]

That's a good point. I do hope there will be significant improvements to the LTE modem on S4, but I could unfortunately see that being a thing that only gets improved every couple years.

I'm more optimistic because Apple updates the modem every year on the iPhone and iPad (even the $329 model).

 

[44267547]

"Any downsides to Cellular?"

In the United States? Yes. The bill.

I agree. I mentioned it before, consumers are not apt to wanting to pay $15 for LTE service that they may infrequently use, especially on top of smart phone costs already. I find that the only real benefit to LTE for those who are unsure, is they were offering a free trial in the beginning for 90 days, I would like to see more LTE-based service that has a more attractive price point, maybe with some incentive attached.

 

[Newtons Apple]

I did the cellular thing for a few weeks and cancelled. For me the speaker is the weak point as you better be in a quiet place to hear the caller. Many times I had no coverage. If you use it a good bit, it does hit the battery

Never left my phone at home and do not plan to do so.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

I did the cellular thing for a few weeks and cancelled. For me the speaker is the weak point as you better be in a quiet place to hear the caller. Many times I had no coverage. If you use it a good bit, it does hit the battery

Never left my phone at home and do not plan to do so.

I think you were doing it wrong. Phone calls via apple watch are only for quick/intermittent use cases. You'd really need airpods to have regular conversations. That's what I plan on doing anyway

 

[rugmankc]

A while back I read a post by an AT&T customer, I think, who said at the end of the trial period he called up to cx and they removed the 10.00 monthly fee. Not sure what plan he had. And, don't remember all the details. Worth a try though. I am waiting on the S4 to see if it has anything I really want over the S3. Will probably get LTE just to have it.

 

[greytmom]

I kept cellular. While I don’t use it constantly, I do use it.

I was very glad I had it when I rented a car recently. I was going from Florida to Tennessee and back, and didn’t want to put the miles on my car.

When we got back, I was late turning the car in so I zoomed over to the airport drop off, intending to Uber back home. But, I zoomed out so fast I forgot my phone. I ended up using my watch to call my daughter (@ 10pm) to come and get me. LOL

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Nice. As I’ve been thinking about cellular on my Apple Watch I keep thinking of all the little opportunities where I’ll feel more comfortable leaving my phone behind... be it going on a run, going on a walk, going on a bike ride, going on a swim in my apt pool or the nearby ocean, taking my dog down to the apt dog park, etc etc

Will I actually use my Apple Watch every time I do these things? No. But it at least gives me the opportunity to not have my phone, which I think will be nice. However, For some of the activities I’d probably have to add the AirPods, so that’d be another thing to keep in mind.

 

[macduke]

I have these same questions, but I mostly want to know whether having the cellular on impacts the battery life significantly. The monthly price doesn't really matter because my T-Mobile bill is so cheap. I'll most likely be getting the SS version as I have that on my S0, so it will have cellular anyway. I also hope it doesn't have the stupid red dot which doesn't match a lot of bands. I'd prefer to not buy one of those black stickers either to hide it, lol. "Oh check out my $700 watch with a sticker on it." Dumb.

 

[Cryates]

Nice. As I’ve been thinking about cellular on my Apple Watch I keep thinking of all the little opportunities where I’ll feel more comfortable leaving my phone behind... be it going on a run, going on a walk, going on a bike ride, going on a swim in my apt pool or the nearby ocean, taking my dog down to the apt dog park, etc etc

Will I actually use my Apple Watch every time I do these things? No. But it at least gives me the opportunity to not have my phone, which I think will be nice. However, For some of the activities I’d probably have to add the AirPods, so that’d be another thing to keep in mind.

This is my exact use case, and so far I'm loving it. I'm more inclined to leave my phone behind when going to grab a bite to eat and what not as well. Even left it behind at home when I went to a doctor appointment the other day. I think if you make a lot of phone calls, it's not as easy because battery life takes a hit and you'll need a pair of AirPods to really have a ton of success at it, but if you're like me and mostly text (dictation is impressive on Apple Watch) and receive e-mails and such then it's great. Battery life is great (until you take some phone calls lol). It allows me to stay "plugged in" without lugging the phone around. It's freeing in a lot of ways.

 

[rayward]

I think you were doing it wrong. Phone calls via apple watch are only for quick/intermittent use cases. You'd really need airpods to have regular conversations. That's what I plan on doing anyway

I got the watch and airpods at the same time; they work so well together it's almost essential. There's such simple things as using to watch to play, pause, skip and change the volume on playback (even playback from the phone), but being able to leave the phone at home or in the car when going to the gym, park or pool is great too.
[doublepost=1531161655][/doublepost]

I have these same questions, but I mostly want to know whether having the cellular on impacts the battery life significantly. The monthly price doesn't really matter because my T-Mobile bill is so cheap. I'll most likely be getting the SS version as I have that on my S0, so it will have cellular anyway. I also hope it doesn't have the stupid red dot which doesn't match a lot of bands. I'd prefer to not buy one of those black stickers either to hide it, lol. "Oh check out my $700 watch with a sticker on it." Dumb.

I use the watch's cell connection very rarely, so I haven't noticed the impact on battery usage on those occasions. As far as day-to-day, if the watch is within range of the phone, it turns off the cell transmitters and does everything through the phone. So, if your watch and phone are together, you will have the same battery life for the cell and non-cell versions.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

I got the watch and airpods at the same time; they work so well together it's almost essential. There's such simple things as using to watch to play, pause, skip and change the volume on playback (even playback from the phone), but being able to leave the phone at home or in the car when going to the gym, park or pool is great too.
[doublepost=1531161655][/doublepost]

I use the watch's cell connection very rarely, so I haven't noticed the impact on battery usage on those occasions. As far as day-to-day, if the watch is within range of the phone, it turns off the cell transmitters and does everything through the phone. So, if your watch and phone are together, you will have the same battery life for the cell and non-cell versions.

I'm curious what happens if you're on a phone call (or something similar) using airpods and iphone, but then walk out of range of iPhone? Does the call seamlessly transfer to watch or does the call drop?

 

[rayward]

I'm curious what happens if you're on a phone call (or something similar) using airpods and iphone, but then walk out of range of iPhone? Does the call seamlessly transfer to watch or does the call drop?

I have never knowingly done that so I can't tell you I'm afraid.

 

[macduke]

I use the watch's cell connection very rarely, so I haven't noticed the impact on battery usage on those occasions. As far as day-to-day, if the watch is within range of the phone, it turns off the cell transmitters and does everything through the phone. So, if your watch and phone are together, you will have the same battery life for the cell and non-cell versions.

This is exactly what I wanted to know, thanks! My iPhone is usually on me, but it would be nice to go on a run or for a swim without it. Also a lot of times when I'm working out in the yard mowing or landscaping my Watch will lose iPhone signal and become almost useless. Perhaps a mesh WiFi network would fix that problem, but I'm waiting for 802.11ax.

 

[bbeagle]

This is exactly what I wanted to know, thanks! My iPhone is usually on me, but it would be nice to go on a run or for a swim without it. Also a lot of times when I'm working out in the yard mowing or landscaping my Watch will lose iPhone signal and become almost useless. Perhaps a mesh WiFi network would fix that problem, but I'm waiting for 802.11ax.

I only use my watch for text messages using LTE. Very rarely a call when I 'need' to answer it for a few seconds. Like my wife calling instead of texting me - got to be important.

During work, I take a couple walks of about 10 minutes each with just my watch, no phone. I either go swimming/playing in the pool or bike riding with my kids at night in the summer for about an hour. Just my watch, no phone. I also go for walks with just my watch. Pretty much any activity I do outside, I don't take my phone. A lot more freeing.

I also referee football and lacrosse. I can't take the phone on the field with me, so I'm still connected on the field and know if something is an emergency which I wouldn't know until I got to the locker room. It's also great looking at radar for approaching storms.

For example, I had a situation where I was doing a game, and didn't have any communication on me. My wife went into early labor (before 8 months!)... totally not expecting it... I couldn't be contacted. A friend of mine actually drove to the game, got onto the sidelines and stopped the game to let me know. I left the game and I missed the delivery as I was 2 hours late getting to the hospital. If I would have had an Apple Watch LTE at the time, I wouldn't have missed it. So this situation makes me confident to know that if something like a parent in the hospital, someone dying, or something, I will know and be where I need to be.

 

[dave006]

I'm curious what happens if you're on a phone call (or something similar) using airpods and iphone, but then walk out of range of iPhone? Does the call seamlessly transfer to watch or does the call drop?

The basic rule: Apple Watch supports handing off from watch to iPhone only.

In your case, your call will remain on your iPhone that you left behind if the call was on your iPhone with or without Airpods. If you were actually taking the call on your watch with Airpods or watch speaker via a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection to your iPhone, then the call will just drop when you take your watch out of range of your paired iPhone.

If you start a LTE call on your watch and then walk within range of your watch, you can then pick-up the call on your iPhone. Green active call will show on your iPhone lock screen.

Note: you will have to enable the "Handoff" setting. Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, then tap General and turn on Enable Handoff.

Dave

 

[Lennyvalentin]

If you start a LTE call on your watch and then walk within range of your watch, you can then pick-up the call on your iPhone. Green active call will show on your iPhone lock screen.

I suspect the call will technically remain on the watch though, as I don't think LTE supports physically transferring a call to a different device (it could potentially lead to unauthorized people hijacking other peoples' calls). So one should be aware that a cell call from a watch will likely still be burning watch battery even after handoffing the call to an iphone...

 

[i hate phones]

I have these same questions, but I mostly want to know whether having the cellular on impacts the battery life significantly. The monthly price doesn't really matter because my T-Mobile bill is so cheap. I'll most likely be getting the SS version as I have that on my S0, so it will have cellular anyway. I also hope it doesn't have the stupid red dot which doesn't match a lot of bands. I'd prefer to not buy one of those black stickers either to hide it, lol. "Oh check out my $700 watch with a sticker on it." Dumb.

Not sure I can comment on battery because I don't have a non-cellular as a comparison, but I'm pretty sure cellular isn't even really on unless you are away from your phone/wifi. It does drain faster if you are actively using cellular, I think a phone call can completely drain your watch in an hour. streaming music over cellular will drain it faster as well. You also have the option to disable cellular all together if you don't want it to attempt to connect when away from phone/wifi.

as for the red-dot, I hope it goes away as well. I have an aluminum colored stick on mine. I honestly can barely tell its a sticker, but still annoying that its even needed. Not sure what they were thinking with that design choice.

 

[macduke]

I only use my watch for text messages using LTE. Very rarely a call when I 'need' to answer it for a few seconds. Like my wife calling instead of texting me - got to be important.

During work, I take a couple walks of about 10 minutes each with just my watch, no phone. I either go swimming/playing in the pool or bike riding with my kids at night in the summer for about an hour. Just my watch, no phone. I also go for walks with just my watch. Pretty much any activity I do outside, I don't take my phone. A lot more freeing.

I also referee football and lacrosse. I can't take the phone on the field with me, so I'm still connected on the field and know if something is an emergency which I wouldn't know until I got to the locker room. It's also great looking at radar for approaching storms.

For example, I had a situation where I was doing a game, and didn't have any communication on me. My wife went into early labor (before 8 months!)... totally not expecting it... I couldn't be contacted. A friend of mine actually drove to the game, got onto the sidelines and stopped the game to let me know. I left the game and I missed the delivery as I was 2 hours late getting to the hospital. If I would have had an Apple Watch LTE at the time, I wouldn't have missed it. So this situation makes me confident to know that if something like a parent in the hospital, someone dying, or something, I will know and be where I need to be.

Oh man. Yeah, the last month of both of my wife's pregnancies which have happened in the past few years I was always watching my phone signal strength anytime I wasn't at my office. I'd have figured out a way to bring my phone onto that field, lol. Or had someone nearby with my phone watching it for me. But before 8 months it's difficult to prepare for.

Funny—the only sports photography I've ever done is college football and lacrosse. Good sports!

You mentioned storms. Do you use RadarScope? On my S0 it loads so slowly even from the phone. I guess I'm just not sure which apps work without a phone nowadays or if they're all supposed to now? Aside from Macs which last longer, this is probably the longest I've ever gone without updating an Apple product.

 

[rayward]

This is exactly what I wanted to know, thanks! My iPhone is usually on me, but it would be nice to go on a run or for a swim without it. Also a lot of times when I'm working out in the yard mowing or landscaping my Watch will lose iPhone signal and become almost useless. Perhaps a mesh WiFi network would fix that problem, but I'm waiting for 802.11ax.

I haven't tried to see how long I can go before I drain the watch battery completely, but I've gone deep into a second day without charging, and it's had around 50% left. It doesn't take long to charge either, so a quick boost every now and then, with the occasional full charge (say once a week) is enough to see off any battery insecurity.

I am really looking forward to the podcast app on the watch, so that I can listen to my shows while working in the yard without having to take the phone with me.

 

[michaelb5000]

On the connection issues question, I had LTE for several months and just turned it off (mostly for cost, I would have kept it for free for a few bucks). I did have connection issues on LTE on the watch, but never used it enough to be motivated enough to test it. So some of the time, I would get a text on LTE on the watch, dictate a reply, send it, and then minutes later it would tell it failed to send. Some texts did send, so this was hit or miss. Some of the time the watch showed LTE connection and some of the time the watch had lost an cellular connection. Maybe this had to do with the state of phone that I had left behind (but I was just using the watch out doing something like kayaking, so this was never planned). I would still get the LTE version, it is worth it for emergency 911 alone, if you don't turn on the LTE service to me.

 

[Scratch4]

So it's that time of year where I'm starting to think about my upcoming Apple watch (series 4) purchase when it's released. At this point I'm virtually certain that a) I will buy one and b) I'll get the aluminum version. My only real question is if I will get with cellular or not. So that leads me to ask what the comunity experience has been with cellular over the past 9 months or so.

These are my biggest concerns:
1) Cost: The more I've thought about this the less a concern this is. I've calculated over an expected 3 year period the cost comes out to $0.40 a day (About $0.07/day extra for watch, $0.33/day for data plan). That's entirely reasonable for the potential use I could get from it. Especially considering that if I end up not using it as much as I anticipated I can always cancel the data plan and only pay the $0.07/day.

2) The red dot: I think this looks pretty stupid. But not a game changer because a) I'm not really fashionable/picky about that kinda stuff b) I'd probably get used to it, and maybe even start to like it c) it might go away anyway on series 4.

3) Battery issues: How much faster does the battery drain on the cellular version? I guess this is 2 part. Does the battery drain any faster WHILE in range of iPhone (vs non-cellular)? and how much faster does the battery drain without iPhone (without active use)? Obiously while streaming data/phone call it will drain the fastest, but that's also when you're actually getting the biggest benefit from the capability!

4) Connection issues: Does it have issues when initially leaving range of iPhone (i.e. GPS weirdness when leaving iphone for a run; data/phone call dropping when going out of range of iPhone)? Or does this work pretty seamlessly. I've noticed my iPhone seems to drop phone calls (at least occasionally) when I leave a wifi network.

My biggest concern would be connection issues, followed by battery issues (but I know the battery will be better than my S1 regardless). I guess what is your experience?

1) I think of the added cost as an insurance and convenience fee. Insurance: for those instances when I can still be connected when my iphone battery dies or i left it somewhere, and I can still be connected to my family for emergencies. Convenience: I don't have to carry around my iphone for those quick trips out of the house... one less thing to carry!

2) I like the red dot. Makes my watch special.

3) Can't really comment as the watch is usually connected to the iphone or wifi. I never actually checked the drainage rate when on cellular. But I always come home after a full day with 75% battery left.