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At home, wifi?

H

hugoleveille

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 26, 2009
49
0
I am pretty sure they said could connect to phone via wifi at home so we could use it in a completely different room. But so far, it pretty much disconnect from phone when going not that far from the phone.

So, can the watch really use wifi?
 
Nope. Verified this with a genius who owns one yesterday at the Apple Store. It's definitely on my wish list for a software update because Tim expressly said it was a function of the watch.

That's the one function that I feel was misrepresented. Tim Cook didn't say it was a function that was to be expected in the future. He implied it was a function immediately available of the watch. This was one of the many reasons why I purchased my AW. I'm patiently waiting to see if/when this feature will arrive. Is this feature enough to return my AW? No, but it may change my perception of the company.
 
Only if your phone is connected to wifi. If you connect your phone to your home wifi, the watch will connect to it as well. The watch will stay connected to the phone as long as both are in range of the wifi signal.

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TxRN said:
Nope. Verified this with a genius who owns one yesterday at the Apple Store. It's definitely on my wish list for a software update because Tim expressly said it was a function of the watch.

That's the one function that I feel was misrepresented. Tim Cook didn't say it was a function that was to be expected in the future. He implied it was a function immediately available of the watch. This was one of the many reasons why I purchased my AW. I'm patiently waiting to see if/when this feature will arrive. Is this feature enough to return my AW? No, but it may change my perception of the company.
Click to expand...

I'm definitely not a genius, but I own an apple watch as well, and that is incorrect. Even if I turn bluetooth off, I stay connected to the phone at my house.
 
I am able to connect to wifi via my AW as well (with bluetooth off I can make calls / text etc via the AW).

There are quite a few threads on here that you can search for detailing how other users also connected to their home wifi.
 
TxRN said:
Nope. Verified this with a genius who owns one yesterday at the Apple Store. It's definitely on my wish list for a software update because Tim expressly said it was a function of the watch.

That's the one function that I feel was misrepresented. Tim Cook didn't say it was a function that was to be expected in the future. He implied it was a function immediately available of the watch. This was one of the many reasons why I purchased my AW. I'm patiently waiting to see if/when this feature will arrive. Is this feature enough to return my AW? No, but it may change my perception of the company.
Click to expand...

Wrong. It most certainly can and does connect to wifi. If yours isn't, then something isn't right. But it's been proven repeatedly that the watch can connect to wifi, communicate with the phone as long as it's on the same network (and not blocked by firewalls, etc) and do virtually everything that a Bluetooth-connected watch can do.

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DarthBarbieDoll said:
My watch also works at home on wifi although I am still working on figuring out the settings for my work wifi. I can't seem to get it to work there just yet.

Here is a good reference thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7018803?start=0&tstart=0
Click to expand...

Mine doesn't work over wifi at work, either, though I'm certain it's due to many factors including a very tight firewall (blocks all but a few specific ports) and a 34 character network password. At home, it works over wifi perfectly.
 
DarthBarbieDoll said:
My watch also works at home on wifi although I am still working on figuring out the settings for my work wifi. I can't seem to get it to work there just yet.

Here is a good reference thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7018803?start=0&tstart=0
Click to expand...

I used those steps to get it working with my home WiFi on Sunday.

It DOES work!

I think you have to have a 2.4GHz signal. I put my phone on it temporarily until I got the watch to see the network. Once that was completed, I put the phone back on the 5G Wireless AC and the watch still worked.
 
wepiii said:
Only if your phone is connected to wifi. If you connect your phone to your home wifi, the watch will connect to it as well. The watch will stay connected to the phone as long as both are in range of the wifi signal.

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I'm definitely not a genius, but I own an apple watch as well, and that is incorrect. Even if I turn bluetooth off, I stay connected to the phone at my house.
Click to expand...

Agreed. My watch is connected to my Wifi.
 
DarthBarbieDoll said:
My watch also works at home on wifi although I am still working on figuring out the settings for my work wifi. I can't seem to get it to work there just yet.
Click to expand...

You may have to talk to some of the higher-ups in your company's IT department and get them to relax the "guest" segment. Most company's set this up that devices can't communicate with each other on that segment - to protect them from each other.
 
xraydoc said:
Wrong. It most certainly can and does connect to wifi. If yours isn't, then something isn't right. But it's been proven repeatedly that the watch can connect to wifi, communicate with the phone as long as it's on the same network (and not blocked by firewalls, etc) and do virtually everything that a Bluetooth-connected watch can do.

Tested mine with BT off on the phone and it did work, but the range seems to be pretty limited in my home. Assuming its my wifi? Guess a call to AT&T Is due. (It was just installed last week).
Click to expand...
 
I have been able to turn BT off both at home and at work and have the watch connect to the iPhone with the wifi. I'm not sure yet if all the functions are available with wifi that are available with BT, but I have certainly been able to do simple things such as receive texts, at quite a distance from my iPhone.
 
amro said:
I used those steps to get it working with my home WiFi on Sunday.

It DOES work!

I think you have to have a 2.4GHz signal. I put my phone on it temporarily until I got the watch to see the network. Once that was completed, I put the phone back on the 5G Wireless AC and the watch still worked.
Click to expand...

I was doing some speed tests but I think the Apple Watch might be slowing down my wifi speeds. I used to get 100mbps but now I was getting 12-20. I think that it doesn't support the AC band and is slowing down that 5ghz band.
 
wepiii said:
I'm definitely not a genius, but I own an apple watch as well, and that is incorrect. Even if I turn bluetooth off, I stay connected to the phone at my house.
Click to expand...

Corrcet.

I have turned bluetooth OFF on my iPhone 6, still I was abble to send and receive messages to myself on the Apple Watch.
I have Turned ON the Airplane mode, still I was abble to send and receive messages to myself on the Apple Watch.
I have totally swiched OFF the phone, still I was abble to send and receive messages to myself on the Apple Watch.

This is while on the range of home wifi.
Have done the same experiment on the public wifi, but it didn't work. Probably because these whifi providers ask you to log on everytime you sue them.
 
capitanbuzo said:
I was doing some speed tests but I think the Apple Watch might be slowing down my wifi speeds. I used to get 100mbps but now I was getting 12-20. I think that it doesn't support the AC band and is slowing down that 5ghz band.
Click to expand...

I think the watch is 802.11g only (2.4GHz). Not certain, but I think that's the case. Shouldn't impact 5GHz network performance at all.
 
At home, wifi?

xraydoc said:
I think the watch is 802.11g only (2.4GHz). Not certain, but I think that's the case. Shouldn't impact 5GHz network performance at all.
Click to expand...


The wifi on the AW is b/g/n 2.4ghz compatible
My router is not cconfigure on b and the AW works fine
 
fischersd said:
You may have to talk to some of the higher-ups in your company's IT department and get them to relax the "guest" segment. Most company's set this up that devices can't communicate with each other on that segment - to protect them from each other.
Click to expand...

I certainly appreciate your suggestion. I work in a public school system so I am not sure that the IT department would honor such a request. As teachers, if we want to use the school wifi with our phones or iPads, we have to log in to the wifi network with our computer sign on and password. Wifi works just fine on my iPhone so I don't know if I need to do something with the wifi setting on my phone to get the Apple Watch to work. I'm still trying to figure that part out.
 
DarthBarbieDoll said:
I certainly appreciate your suggestion. I work in a public school system so I am not sure that the IT department would honor such a request. As teachers, if we want to use the school wifi with our phones or iPads, we have to log in to the wifi network with our computer sign on and password. Wifi works just fine on my iPhone so I don't know if I need to do something with the wifi setting on my phone to get the Apple Watch to work. I'm still trying to figure that part out.
Click to expand...

It could just be the "existing network glitch". Delete(Forget this network) the wifi network on your phone and re-add it. That may be the "kick" the watch needs to pick it up.
 
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