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Apple Watch On Wifi

Just like everyone has stated in this thread, I have now been able to get my watch to connect to my wifi. While connected and the Bluetooth on my phone is off I can send iMessages, use Siri, send digital touches and make phone calls with the watch. When my phone completely turned off I can still do all of the same except for making calls.

What is more concerning now is that I've had two separate apple support agents (one by phone and one by chat) tell me that this isn't possible, and they are probably continuing to tell others the same thing.
 
Yea, Apple will continue sending people to forums to try to find/verify answers sending macgeek01's stats off the charts...along with his/her blood pressure :D (kidding)

And apple wonders why they get such push back on the apple chat folks...not to mention needlessly unhappy customers.
 
Uccle said:
Yea, Apple will continue sending people to forums to try to find/verify answers sending macgeek01's stats off the charts...along with his/her blood pressure :D (kidding)

And apple wonders why they get such push back on the apple chat folks...not to mention needlessly unhappy customers.
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Love it! Where are my likes already? LOL
 
The watch most definitely connects to wifi directly. It obtains the WPA keys for known wifi networks from the phone.

How the the phone and watch discover and communicate I have not yet spent the time to determine. If it's a broadcast protocol it will only work on the same L2 network. In other words, most home configurations. Within a business, most networks have multiple broadcast domains and L3 subnets, and unless apple has implemented a discovery mechanism that will work in these environments the phone and watch won't find each other unless they happen to land on the same network/subnet AND the enterprise hasn't disabled all broadcast traffic outside of ARP.
 
Thank you all for your information, now if we can get apple support on the same page, yeah... that would be great.
 
So those with no issues on wifi...

Are you turning off your Bluetooth when at home on your wifi network?

FWIW I was able to text and take a call out of Bluetooth range, but it didn't work every time. ??
 
I'm not turning it off all the time. I only did it it to verify that the watch was capable of connecting to wifi. I may need to get a range extender to be able to use it in my whole house. I currently have a Netgear Nighthawk AC 1900 dual band router. It has pretty amazing range for my phone but my watch doesn't seem to catch it as easily.

You would think since it can share a connection with your iPhone over wifi that there would be some notification or icon on the watch that would signal this. That being said I guess Apple support should also know that it's even possible in the first place.
 
WiFi connectivity may be lost if iPhone not used for extended period of time.

I have noticed if i move towards the other end of the office at work, the watch loses it's connection, even though in theory it is on the same WiFi connection.

I had not used the iPhone for at least an hour, and was not connected to power. When I went back into the office and unlocked the phone, and went back to the same location I did get a WiFi connection.

I presume that after a certain period of the time the WiFi connection sleeps on the phone to preserve battery life, thus losing connection to the watch.

Only done some limited testing - does anyone else see the same behaviour?
 
rsxmachine said:
I'm pretty sure keynote stated if watch and phone are on same wifi network you can access certain features such as phone calls even if phone not in same room.
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How do you tell which Wifi network the watch is on? I didn't see any settings for this on the watch nor the watch app
 
sfwalter said:
How do you tell which Wifi network the watch is on? I didn't see any settings for this on the watch nor the watch app
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you can't really see, but the watch will pick networks from the phone and gets the credentials from the phone
 
sfwalter said:
How do you tell which Wifi network the watch is on?
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From the access point.

Screen Shot 2015-04-26 at 13.39.13.jpg
 
wifi

I think the phone will prefer BTLE since it is much more power efficient.

I can only get the AW to attach to the WIFI when/if the BT on the phone is off, or it is clearly out of range.

It is NOT always connected to the wifi network, and I would imagine it doesn't want to be. It would probably use a LOT more power to stay connected to wifi, compared to BTLE

That said, WHEN it is connected to WIFI and not BTLE through the phone, the speed is QUITE A bit better. Nearly all things refresh noticeably faster.
 
It seems in the watchOS 2 beta the watch now shows whether it is connected to wifi or BT.
 
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