Apple Watch 3 without Iphone

[Ka Tec]

Ok, so I need help from some Apple Watch 3 superusers on this. I run an Imac Pro, Macbook Pro and Ipad Pro. But...I have an android phone. Due to the tight Google Assistant and Google Maps integration in the Android platform which I heavily rely on currently its not an option for me to switch to an Iphone OS.

The thing is I have been seriously looking to get an Apple Watch 3 to do the following:

- Tell Time/Date
- Count/Track my swimming and heart rate (I swim 3-4 x week)
- Receive/Make phone call whilst I'm surfing. I surf once/week (not a priority but nice to have)
- Apart from surfing I don't need/want any notifications ie LTE will be off for majority of my week​

So the question I have is if I put my current sim into an old apple phone, pair it w the Apple watch. Could I then run the Apple Watch to do the above without the apple phone?

Furthermore when I get into wifi areas can I sync my health and swimming stats to the cloud and view them on my ipad pro?

Finally if all above fails, after paring with a sim if I have an iphone at home without a sim-card can I do the above and have my watch sync to the phone when i get back home and see my stats.

Really appreciate some advice on this from some Apple Watch gurus. Thanks in advance!

 

[barjam]

The watch isn’t a stand alone device and requires an iPhone.

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

It doesn't seem like you'd take advantage of any of the Apple Watch's specific features. Why not get an Android Wear watch?

 

[oeagleo]

It doesn't seem like you'd take advantage of any of the Apple Watch's specific features. Why not get an Android Wear watch?

Because the Apple watch is cool; Android Wear watches arent?

 

[mccrinmi]

Hi, Ka Tech --

I don't personally have a Series 3, but from my experience with the Series 1 + WiFi + my iPad + leaving my phone at home, you should be able to see your synced health stats. As for the rest, the S3 is definitely the most free-roaming capable. If you keep your phone connected to WiFi at home and enable WiFi calling, there's a chance you'll be able to call from anywhere with the watch. I don't know for sure, though.

Apple's support article on this isn't perfect, but provides a little bit of clarity:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205547

 

[dk001]

Tried this with an Apple Watch Nike 2 - ended up being a fail.
I swapped to a Gear Sport and this provides me with pretty much everything the Apple Watch did. Benefit it was easier to setup and had a better battery life.

JMO YMMV

 

[dave006]

The thing is I have been seriously looking to get an Apple Watch 3 to do the following:

- Tell Time/Date - Yes
- Count/Track my swimming and heart rate (I swim 3-4 x week) - Yes (details need to be stored on iPhone)
- Receive/Make phone call whilst I'm surfing. I surf once/week (not a priority but nice to have) - Yes
- Apart from surfing I don't need/want any notifications ie LTE will be off for majority of my week

Answers in Bold above.

Finally if all above fails, after paring with a sim if I have an iphone at home without a sim-card can I do the above and have my watch sync to the phone when i get back home and see my stats.

If you get the Apple watch with LTE service it must be paired to an iPhone with an active SIM on a post-paid Cellular carrier and they must offer a wearable plan for watch. Yes your watch has it's own plan on your account.

Once you complete the paring step you can put the SIM back in your Android phone. The watch is assigned an individual phone number but it can't be used to call directly to the watch. This phone number is hidden for both inbound and outbound calls to the watch.

Making calls from your watch is easy, any calls made from your watch will appear to come from your come from your phone that has the same SIM that you used when you paired the watch with your spare iPhone. You can also sync up your watch to your iPhone via Bluetooth to transfer data collected on your watch.

Now on the Wi-Fi front, big potential issue for your previous use case. The watch can't connect to just any Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi network has to already be known to your paired iPhone. So you could take your iPhone to key places like your office, preferred coffee shop, gym. Once the iPhone connects to the Wi-Fi network, it can then share the connection information to the watch via Bluetooth. The reason for this is the watch can't connect to a Wi-Fi network and exchange any information that needs to be entered like a userid, password or network key.

Let us know if you need more details or have other questions.

Dave

 

[Ka Tec]

Wow thanks everyone for their comments. A bit of background through my Credit Card Rewards program, I'm able to get a FREE Nike cellular iwatch. Unfortunately only the Samsung Frontier is available on the rewards which is not water-proof. Worst case if it fails flat i can give it to my wife who has an iphone or sell it.

Answers in Bold above.
Once you complete the paring step you can put the SIM back in your Android phone. The watch is assigned an individual phone number but it can't be used to call directly to the watch. This phone number is hidden for both inbound and outbound calls to the watch.......
Dave

Thanks Dave for answering my queries so objectively. It's clearer now. Good news I can use it as a backup phone but bad news I can't connect it to wifi. But after checking the iwatch apps, it looks like they are not available on the other platforms like the ipad so eitherway a spare Iphone would be needed. I'm also thinking of pairing it with my wife's iphone and just run the apps on that.

One final question question can I go back on the history of my swim data if I don't connect it to an Iphone? Ie will it store that data on the phone?