Can't do Wifi calling. AT&T. Apple Watch 3 LTE

[dave006]

No mine does not need to have a cell signal. In fact is has yet connect to the carriers network. Again I know because the device is still grayed out when I check my account. Once it connects it will self-identify and will show up as an Apple Watch.

The feature just has to be enabled to allow for you Watch to register with your carrier's network. That means the eSIM is on and it can provide the information needed to connect to your carrier to allow Wi-Fi calling to work.

As a test, take the SIM out of your iPhone and try to make a Wi-Fi call, it will not work. The LTE on the Watch works the same exact way!

Put the SIM back in your iPhone and disable cellular and then make a Wi-Fi call. The only difference that I found is that the eSIM is not powered if you have the Cellular option turned off. This Watch really wants to save power.

Dave

 

[deadworlds]

So why doesn’t it work when cellular is enabled but you are in a basement with no reception at the time? That’s part of the whole reason for WiFi calling. It seems to depend on having an actual cell signal which I don’t think is the right behaviour.

I agree, I still think there some other issue that is preventing WiFi calling from working as expected.

 

[sirozha]

I believe the issue reported in this thread is a cosmetic bug.

In iOS 11, Apple created a toggle for the Apple Watch under “Calling on other devices” in Settings > Phone. Before iOS 11, the Apple Watch never showed up in this place, and Wi-Fi calling had to be enabled in the Watch app under Phone.

There are actually two cosmetic bugs in iOS 11.

1. The Wi-Fi Calling toggle doesn’t show up for the Series 3 LTE Apple Watch in Watch App > Phone.
2. The Apple Watch (any generation) shows up in Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices ONLY if there’s more than one Watch paired with the iPhone and ONLY when the iPhone is currently connected to the other Watch.

For example, my wife has two Watches paired to her iPhone: Series 3 LTE watch and Series 2 Watch. When I manually connect the iPhone to the Series 2 Watch in the Watch app, (make sure that Series 2 is actually shown as the current connected watch), then I go to Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices, I see the toggle for Series 3 LTE Apple Watch. I can actually switch off this toggle and switch it back on. However, I do not see there the toggle for the Apple Watch Series 2 (even though Series 2 is the Watch to which iPhone is currently connected).

When I manually switch the iPhone connection to LTE Series 3 Apple Watch, this watch disappears from Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices. Instead, the toggle for Apple Watch Series 2 shows up there. However, the Wi-Fi Calling toggle for the Series 3 LTE Watch never shows up in the Watch App > Phone menue.

I have also another iPhone paired to another Apple Watch Series 2. In that phone, there’s no Apple Watch listed in Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices. But, the toggle for Wi-Fi Calling is listed in the Watch app under Phone.

So, my conclusion is that we are dealing with cosmetic bugs. Those who only have a Series 3 Watch and hence only have one Watch paired with the iPhone, never see a toggle for Wi-Fi Calling (be it in the Watch app under Phone or in Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices). Those folks who have two watches paired to their iPhone can actually connect to a non-Series 3 Watch in the Watch app and then switch to Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices, and they will be able to see the Wi-Fi Calling toggle for the Series 3 Apple Watch and can turn Wi-Fi Calling On or Off there. I believe that Wi-Fi Calling is enabled by default in Apple Watch 3.

It’s also true that LTE Series 3 Apple Watch cannot receive or make calls over Wi-Fi if the LTE toggle is turned off on the watch. Therefore, it’s not clear which connection is being used for the calls when the iPhone is in Airplane mode (or turned off). Whether the LTE connection or the Wi-Fi Connection is used for the calls is not clear to me. This may also be a bug that manifests itself in the LTE Series 3 Watch not using Wi-Fi for calls when the LTE toggle is switched off on the watch. I wonder if owners of the LTE Series 3 Watch can make and receive calls over Wi-Fi if they never activated LTE on the Watch. That would be the ultimate test. I’m getting my LTE Series 3 Watch on October 10, and I will test Wi-Fi Calling on it BEFORE I activate LTE to find out if Wi-Fi Calling actually works on the LTE Series 3 Watch.

 

[Dallious]

sirozha, this exactly how my watches work on ATT

 

[sirozha]

sirozha, this exactly how my watches work on ATT

I’m on T-Mobile. So, this behavior is not specific to a carrier. These are software bugs created by Apple.

I will open a case with Apple when I find out if a new Series 3 LTE Apple Watch can do Wi-Fi Calling before it’s activated on a cellular carrier plan. I will also pair two Series 2 Apple watches to the same iPhone to see if the behavior of the Wi-Fi Calling toggle in Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling is the same breteeen two Series 2 Apple Watches as it is between a Series 3 Apple Watch and a Series 2 Apple Watch.

 

[Arran]

New series 3 here. LTE never activated.

Wi-Fi calling didn't work for me at first - but I think that's because I was toggling airplane mode on the phone to test if the watch could still make a call. So, based on something said earlier in this thread (or another?) I tried the following:

1. Turned off bluetooth on the phone and the watch could still make a call.
2. Turned off Wi-Fi on the phone and the watch could still make a call.
3. Turned off cellular (green circular icon) on the phone and the watch could still make a call.
4. Turned them all back on and made a call.
5. Turned on airplane mode on the phone (which, as you'd expect, greyed out the same three icons on the phone for bluetooth, wifi and cellular). The favorite contacts list on my watch also immediately greyed out. I wasn't expecting that because I have my watch set up to NOT mirror airplane mode on the phone. Anyway, the favorite contacts list on my watch "un-greyed" all by itself after 30-60 seconds and I was able to make a call from the watch.
6. Turned OFF airplane mode on the phone and made a call.
   
7. Turned off the phone completely. The favorites list on my watch greyed out after about 10 seconds but then re-enabled after 30 seconds. I made a call from the watch and it worked fine.

In all above cases, I was calling my home landline and answering the call to confirm I had audio.

Bottom line: The phone app on the watch seems to take a 30-60 seconds to jump onto wi-fi when it can't use the phone. (In earlier tests, I don't think I was waiting long enough???)

Other Info:

• Phone: iPhone 7 on AT&T.
• Home Wifi: Roaming wi-fi network consisting of an Airport Extreme and an Airport Time Capsule. Both 6th gen "towers". 2.4 and 5GHz enabled on both.

 

[sirozha]

Good test. So, you’ve confirmed that Series 3 LTE Watch uses Wi-Fi Calling when it loses connection with iPhone. The fact that after activating LTE, Wi-Fi Calling doesn’t work on the Series 3 Watch if LTE is turned off in the Watch appears to be a bug and needs to be reported to Apple.

Do you see a toggle for the Series 3 Watch in Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices? Do you see a Wi-Fi Calling toggle for the Series 3 Watch in the Watch app > Phone?

 

[Arran]

Do you see a toggle for the Series 3 Watch in Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices?

I have two watches (a Ser. 2 and a 3). I only see the toggle for the watch I'm NOT wearing. So when I swap watches, the toggle changes to the watch I just took OFF.

Do you see a Wi-Fi Calling toggle for the Series 3 Watch in the Watch app > Phone?

Ser 2 - Yes.
Ser 3 - Yes.

 

[sirozha]

I have two watches (a Ser. 2 and a 3). I only see the toggle for the watch I'm NOT wearing. So when I swap watches, the toggle changes to the watch I just took OFF.

Ser 2 - Yes.
Ser 3 - Yes.

This is strange. With activated LTE, Series 3 Watch doesn’t have the Wi-Fi Calling toggle in Watch app > Phone

 

[lp1977]

Registered to reply to this. FWIW, here are my thoughts and experience concerning this issue:

I believe the issue reported in this thread is a cosmetic bug.

Agreed

There are actually two cosmetic bugs in iOS 11.

1. The Wi-Fi Calling toggle doesn’t show up for the Series 3 LTE Apple Watch in Watch App > Phone.
2. The Apple Watch (any generation) shows up in Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices ONLY if there’s more than one Watch paired with the iPhone and ONLY when the iPhone is currently connected to the other Watch.

Agreed. Same here.

Those who only have a Series 3 Watch and hence only have one Watch paired with the iPhone, never see a toggle for Wi-Fi Calling (be it in the Watch app under Phone or in Settings > Phone > Calling on other devices).

Disagree. If I remove the AT&T cellular plan on my Series 3 LTE, I do indeed see the WiFi calling toggle under Watch app > Phone. First, the field CALLS becomes available, albeit with a blank space for a toggle next to WiFi Calling. After checking a couple more times, a green toggle (activated by default) does finally show up.

I also had a chat with an AT&T representative about this issue and after a long back and forth, I was told that "Yes, when you activate cellular service, your wifi calling will get deactivated." He either meant the toggle will get deactivated, or he doesn't really know what's going on. Probably the latter.

I also chatted with an Apple Senior Advisor and he has submitted a ticket with Apple engineers. I even sent them the screen shots of the disappearing/reappearing WiFi Calling field and toggle. We'll see what happens.

I believe that Wi-Fi Calling is enabled by default in Apple Watch 3.

Agreed

It’s also true that LTE Series 3 Apple Watch cannot receive or make calls over Wi-Fi if the LTE toggle is turned off on the watch. Therefore, it’s not clear which connection is being used for the calls when the iPhone is in Airplane mode (or turned off). Whether the LTE connection or the Wi-Fi Connection is used for the calls is not clear to me. This may also be a bug that manifests itself in the LTE Series 3 Watch not using Wi-Fi for calls when the LTE toggle is switched off on the watch.

Same here. I cannot make calls with the Cellular toggle switched off on the watch. I believe it has to do with the eSIM needing to be activated as someone stated earlier in the thread (dave006 - quoted below). I believe the watch is making wifi calls, as I am connected to wifi in the watch's control center before and after the call. I can't confirm it's wifi, but my gut says it is.

I wonder if owners of the LTE Series 3 Watch can make and receive calls over Wi-Fi if they never activated LTE on the Watch. That would be the ultimate test.

I have indeed been able to do this. You can even do it by removing your watch from the AT&T plan. Your subscription stays on your plan, but the device is removed from the plan. You can add it back easily through the set up process. The cellular toggle is greyed out on the watch in this scenario, so I'm not sure how the eSIM factors in or if it is a different type of wifi calling at this point.

The feature just has to be enabled to allow for you Watch to register with your carrier's network. That means the eSIM is on and it can provide the information needed to connect to your carrier to allow Wi-Fi calling to work.

As a test, take the SIM out of your iPhone and try to make a Wi-Fi call, it will not work. The LTE on the Watch works the same exact way!

Put the SIM back in your iPhone and disable cellular and then make a Wi-Fi call. The only difference that I found is that the eSIM is not powered if you have the Cellular option turned off. This Watch really wants to save power.

Dave

This makes a lot of sense to me about the watch's cellular toggle also killing wifi call functionality. But again, I'm not sure the technology works. eSim must not be necessary if you don't have a cell plan activated on the watch. If you have a non LTE watch without eSIM and your phone is powered off, you can still make wifi calls.

Bottom line: The phone app on the watch seems to take a 30-60 seconds to jump onto wi-fi when it can't use the phone. (In earlier tests, I don't think I was waiting long enough???)

I agree with this. My first wifi call tests failed even with the cellular toggle on the watch switched on. I think I just wasn't waiting long enough after turning off my phone and seeing the wifi activated in the watch's control center. I think it does indeed take a little time to establish wifi calling even after that point.


Those are my experiences so far.

 

[dave006]

The LTE Watch functions exactly as other Apple devices that are configure for Continuity. It would appear in the Wi-Fi Calling on Other devices until the eSIM is provisioned and a plan is associated to the Watch. Once this happens, the Watch then performs just like any other Cellular device.

Your iPhone can only use Wi-Fi Calling when the "SIM" is in the device, as we know the Watch as an eSIM, so it is populated with an ICCID once you configure the Cellular function. The only tricky part is that it appears the eSIM is not active unless the Cellular is enabled on the Watch. Yes that means that the Watch can't make or receive calls over Wi-Fi, just like your iPhone if you remove the nano-SIM.

Dave

 

[lp1977]

Thanks Dave. That info is very helpful. That info would be very useful for Apple's own support staff to know.

Ok, so for clarification for myself, this explains all of the issues I couldn't explain. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

We're using Apple's Continuity feature for WiFi calling on our Apple devices including the LTE watch - until we activate the cellular plan on the watch. We then lose Apple's Continuity WiFi Calling on the LTE watch, and we are replacing it with AT&T's WiFi Calling. The watch uses AT&T WiFi Calling like the iPhone in this regard. Toggling off the cellular toggle on the watch deactivates the eSIM which is necessary to provide info to AT&T for its WiFi calling feature. It's just that the watch doesn't have the ability to revert back to Apple's Continuity WiFi Calling if the cell toggle is toggled off. In the Watch app > Phone, the WiFi Calling toggle must be for (Continuity) WiFi Calling, then. The fact that Continuity WiFi Calling has been disabled should dictate that the WiFi Calling toggle is disabled as well. AT&T does not offer the ability to turn off WiFi calling via the Watch app or on the watch itself. And lastly, the watch's AT&T WiFi Calling takes a little more time to establish connectivity after the iPhone is turned off, out of bluetooth range, or unreachable.

 

[sirozha]

@lp1997

What you call Continuity Wi-Fi Calling has nothing to do with Continuity. This is a carrier-assisted Wi-Fi Calling that became available around 2015 - I believe. Before that, in order for an Apple device other than iPhone to make or receive calls, the iPhone had to be turned on and be on the same Wi-Fi as a non-iPhone Apple device. The magic sauce in that case was in fact Continuity.

Some time in 2015, Apple introduced the “Wi-Fi Calling on other devices” feature that didn’t require the presence of the iPhone on the same Wi-Fi or even iPhone being powered on. When this feature was introduced, you could take your Mac to Starbucks and leave your phone at home, and your Mac would be able to make and receive calls over the Starbucks Wi-Fi. This feature also worked on iPads. It even worked on cellular iPads with an active cellular data plan and no Wi-Fi connectivity.

In 2016, Apple renamed “Wi-Fi Calling on other devices” to “Calling on other devices”. This feature requires assistance from the carrier, and not all carriers support this feature still.

To revert the “Calling on other devices” feature to the Continuity Wi-Fi Calling feature (which requires no carrier assistance), all you have to do is turn off Wi-Fi Calling on your iPhone while keeping “Calling on other devices” feature turned on. You will immediately see that “Calling on other devices” feature will change its name and will say that iPhone must be on the same Wi-Fi for this feature to work.

When Apple announced LTE Series 3 Watch with a phone capability, I thought it would be based on “Calling on other devices” just like it works with cellular iPads. However, it doesn’t seem to be the case, and the LTE calling feature seems to be heavily dependent on the carrier and not being just carrier assisted like the “Calling on other devices” feature is. For example, with T-Mobile, the Series 3 LTE Calling feature is based in the T-Mobile DIGITS system. The DIGITS system is platform agnostic and works with both Apple and Android devices. Therefore, the secret sauce behind LTE calling on the LTE Series 3 Apple Watch on T-Mobile is DIGITS and not Apple’s “Calling on other devices” feature.

“DIGITS” is similar in concept to “Calling on other devices”. T-Mobile even had a document published (before Apple Series 3 Watch was released) that basically said that if you were using Apple’s “Calling on other devices” and had no non-Apple devices, you shouldn’t use DIGITS. However, it appears that Series 3 LTE Watch cannot make calls over LTE by using Apple’s “Calling on other devices” feature unlike the cellular iPad that uses “Calling on other devices” for making calls over the LTE data connection.

When we enable an LTE plan on the Series 3 Watch, it appears that we switch from the Apple’s “Calling on other devices” feature to the carrier-specific Wi-Fi Calling feature that leverages a known Wi-Fi network to route calls to and from the LTE Series 3 Watch. Why the Series 3 LTE watch requires a carrier-specific system to make calls over Wi-Fi when LTE is activated is unclear. Maybe this is necessary for a smooth hand-off of calls in progress from Wi-Fi to LTE when one walks out of Starbucks with the LTE Apple Watch on one’s wrist while the iPhone is left at home.

All of this is extremely confusing, and Apple never goes into any technical detail to explain how all of these technologies are similar and how they are different. All of the information that I provided here is based purely on my empirical experience.

Perhaps Apple hid the Wi-Fi Calling toggle in iOS in order to ensure that the LTE Series 3 Watch will always utilize a known WI-Fi network (if available) for making and receiving calls. This may have been done out of concern for preserving the battery life of the LTE Series 3 Watch throughout each day.

 

[deadworlds]

Okay So I think i've disproven that this wifi calling issue is a cosmetic issue. I turned off bluetooth and wifi on the phone and waited for watch to connect to Wifi. I left the cellular toggle on, on the watch, because of what dave006 said about the esim. I made a call on the watch that lasted about 2 minutes. I waited a few hours and then checked t-mobile.com to see what it had logged the call as (wifi or cellular). The call was logged as being a cellular call and not wifi.

A page or so ago I made a post talking about how I removed the phone plan from the watch and then restored the phone plan back onto the watch. I was able to place a few wifi calls (just connected to wifi with cellular toggle off), these calls were logged on t-mobile.com as being WiFi calls. After about 2-3 successful wifi calls, the watch refused to make anymore.

I really don't think we are dealing with a cosmetic bug as others have mentioned but rather a more serious bug having to do with the carriers. I still have not heard from apple engineers but I patiently wait. I will update when I learn more.

 

[dave006]

I have been using my Watch all day for calls and I have not had any Cellular "calls" at all. These were all Wi-Fi calls since I was around the house today. Tomorrow when I am back at the office I will try Cellular calls.

Hey @deadworlds what happens when you make a Wi-Fi call from your iPhone? Does it log it correctly as a Wi-Fi call or is it listed as a Cellular call on T-Mobile?

I am testing exactly the same way you are, I turned off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the Settings on my iPhone and my Watch takes about 5 seconds and then connects to Wi-Fi with 4 Blue bars.

Dave

 

[deadworlds]

I have been using my Watch all day for calls and I have not had any Cellular "calls" at all. These were all Wi-Fi calls since I was around the house today. Tomorrow when I am back at the office I will try Cellular calls.

Hey @deadworlds what happens when you make a Wi-Fi call from your iPhone? Does it log it correctly as a Wi-Fi call or is it listed as a Cellular call on T-Mobile?

I am testing exactly the same way you are, I turned off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the Settings on my iPhone and my Watch takes about 5 seconds and then connects to Wi-Fi with 4 Blue bars.

Dave

Dave yes, calls made over WiFi on my phone say “WiFi call” next to the phone number.

I spoke with Apple support tonight’s. Here’s what they had to say.

“Hmmm ok, odd. The only response from engineering at this point is what you already had as far as the update (making sure i have updated iOS and watchOS). What we need to do now, as they have consolidated our contacts with engineering during release season, is to get you set up with a call for phone support and then get you to a Senior Advisor there that can gather information again and get it re-submitted. Sound like a plan?”

So on Monday I’ll be talking to a senior advisor and resubmitting more usage data. Seems that senior advisors have been limited in terms of how much contact they have with engineering. I was told that within the past few days they’ve limited how and when they can contact engineering because they are in “realease season” as I was told. . My only option now is to wait for a callback on tomorrow where I will speak with a senior advisor, collect more data and send it off to the engineering department.

 

[deadworlds]

Got off the phone with the senior advisor just a few moments ago. I am amazed at some of these customer reps, I was told my issue with WiFi Calling is because the watch doesnt support WiFi. Can you believe that? Anywho, im back to chatting with a support rep via the online chat, I find they tend to be more competent.

Update:
Spoke to senior advisor via online chat! I walked them through the problems and clarified about how watch doesnt show up on "Calls on other devices" but it will show up if I remove the cellular plan from the watch. Also clarified that watch on Wifi will cellular toggle off, will fail to make wifi calls. If cellular toggle is on but watch is on wifi, it will place the call via cellular.

We collected more data and sent it off to the engineering team again. The advisor also informed me that she made a detailed report about how to replicate the issue on their end. I was also scheduled for a call back for this Friday, where I will hear what the engineering team had to say. I also made sure to mention that other people are having this problem across multiple cell carriers.

So we wait again.

 

[JennyG1000]

I did some testing of wifi calling as well, and noticed that the problem in my case is actually wifi connection. After turning bluetooth off on my phone, watch does not always connect to the wifi, even after a minute, so it sometimes switches to cellular. When it does connect to wifi, it makes a wifi call. However the wifi connectivity must be still very buggy, as I went for a walk around my Neighborhood, and initially could see LTE functioning.
Then halfway through the walk it refused to connect. Are there SSID issues as well? Like people having the same network names colluding with the ones watch has?

 

[sirozha]

WatchOS 4.1 Beta 2 has been released. It now has a very pertinent feature for this discussion.

• New Wi-Fi toggle in Control Center on Series 3 with LTE

It also now shows the SSID of the Wi-Fi network that the watch is connected to.

Hopefully, turning off LTE with the LTE toggle in Control Center won’t prevent the LTE watch from making a Wi-Fi call. I don’t have a developer account to test beta software and neither do I want to. I’m too busy to tinker with betas.
[doublepost=1507632445][/doublepost]The problem with Apple advisors - even senior ones - is the fact that they don’t own devices that they advise on. Many a time have I asked to be transferred to an advisor who specializes in watches just to find out that the person has no clue about basic Apple Watch features. Such as, “Apple Watch can’t connect to apple services if the iPhone is turned off or in the airplane mode.”

It’s so sad that Apple can’t figure out that they should supply their advisors with the products in which their employees provide advice to customers.

It’s obvious that those who make - $20 / $25 per hour can’t afford the Apple Watch, but Apple should give each of them a free Watch just to improve their knowledge of the product.

 

[sirozha]

I can prove that when I turn off my iPhone or place my iPhone in the Airplane Mode, the LTE Series 3 Apple Watch can make or receive calls via Wi-Fi without having to go to the carrier's portal.

With WatchOS 4, Apple introduced the new watch face called Explorer. If you install this watch face on your LTE Series 3 Apple Watch, you will see a cellular signal indicator in the center of the watch face when the LTE Series 3 Apple Watch is using LTE for connectivity. I believe this is the only way to determine if your Apple Watch is using LTE or Wi-Fi for calls. So, upload this watch face from the Apple Watch app to your LTE Series 3 Apple Watch, flip to this watch face, then turn off your iPhone and try to make and/or receive phone calls. If you don't see the LTE indicator in the center of the watch face, your call is over Wi-Fi. If you do see the LTE indicator, your call is over LTE.

 

[deadworlds]

I can prove that when I turn off my iPhone or place my iPhone in the Airplane Mode, the LTE Series 3 Apple Watch can make or receive calls via Wi-Fi without having to go to the carrier's portal.

With WatchOS 4, Apple introduced the new watch face called Explorer. If you install this watch face on your LTE Series 3 Apple Watch, you will see a cellular signal indicator in the center of the watch face when the LTE Series 3 Apple Watch is using LTE for connectivity. I believe this is the only way to determine if your Apple Watch is using LTE or Wi-Fi for calls. So, upload this watch face from the Apple Watch app to your LTE Series 3 Apple Watch, flip to this watch face, then turn off your iPhone and try to make and/or receive phone calls. If you don't see the LTE indicator in the center of the watch face, your call is over Wi-Fi. If you do see the LTE indicator, your call is over LTE.

If this is true, then why does the carrier website continue to log my calls as Cellular calls? On my phone when I place a Wifi Call its logs as WiFi Call. Also if I remove the cellular plan form the watch, then add the cellular plan again, and quickly make a "WiFi" call, the carrier logs that as a proper Wifi Call over the watch. After two wifi calls, the watch refuses to place any more calls over wifi and instead makes Cellular calls.

Also, when you're making a phone call, you cant return to the watch face so theres no way of knowing if the watch switched over to LTE for the call.

 

[sirozha]

Well, my carrier, T-Mobile, shows nothing under call detail for the numbers assigned to LTE Apple Watches. It shows the total number of minutes, but no call detail. It shows call detail under the numbers assigned to my iPhones. So, I'm not so sure that the information on the carrier portals is correct.

By the way, it may help if you restart your Apple Watch and your iPhone.

Additionally, I found out that I had another iPhone (my old iPhone) with a Verizon SIM that is logged in to the same iCloud account. So, the Wi-Fi Calls on Other Devices feature was enabled on that iPhone too. I had to buy a pre-paid Verizon SIM when I traveled to the mountains two weeks ago where where T-Mobile has bad coverage. So, I think Wi-Fi calling on my LTE Series 3 watch was confused because it was enabled on two different iPhones on the same iCloud account, with the iPhones being on two different carriers. So, I turned off Wi-Fi Calls on other devices on my old iPhone. Then, I restarted my LTE Series 3 watch and while it was restarting, I also restarted the new iPhone. After they both came on, I turned off my iPhone, and my LTE Apple Watch was using Wi-Fi for calls since I saw no LTE indicator in the center of the watch face on the Explorer watch face.

When I drive away from my home while leaving the iPhone at home, the LTE indicator turns on in the center of the Explorer watch face as soon as the Watch loses its Bluetooth connection to the iPhone and its Wi-Fi connection to my home network. So, I know for a fact that this LTE indicator in the center of the Explorer watch face is accurate.

When I turn off my iPhone and I drive back towards my home so that the LTE Watch can see my Wi-Fi network, the LTE indicator in the center of the Explorer watch face turns off.

So, when I'm at home with the iPhone turned off, my LTE Apple watch is connected to my home Wi-Fi, and the LTE indicator doesn't show up in the center of the Explorer watch face.

 

[dave006]

If this is true, then why does the carrier website continue to log my calls as Cellular calls? On my phone when I place a Wifi Call its logs as WiFi Call. Also if I remove the cellular plan form the watch, then add the cellular plan again, and quickly make a "WiFi" call, the carrier logs that as a proper Wifi Call over the watch. After two wifi calls, the watch refuses to place any more calls over wifi and instead makes Cellular calls.

Also, when you're making a phone call, you cant return to the watch face so theres no way of knowing if the watch switched over to LTE for the call.

I had some time this afternoon to test Wi-Fi calling further. I have a room in my house the does not get a Cellular signal (We have a MicroCell) that I disabled for my tests. I was able to make 2 Wi-Fi calls from this room. Again, Cellular must be enabled on the Watch, I checked the Control Center and only Wi-Fi is shown on the top left status area. Also the Explorer Watch Face showed no signal.

Calls worked well but as you have indicated, when I look online, the calls are being logged against the Watches phone number as Cellular calls instead of being logged as Wi-Fi calls, code PVWIFI (Wi-Fi calling).

Back to the drawing board and more testing to see if it can work with the MicroCell.

Dave
[doublepost=1507764007][/doublepost]Hey @deadworlds, I have now moved to your Camp!

I caught it using LTE when it should have been making a Wi-Fi Call. I was able to reproduce the behavior by quickly switching to the Explorer Face as soon as the Call ended and it showed 3 green dots. I will have to wait a couple of hours to confirm what AT&T saw on their end.

A random point, using the MicroCell drove the Watch to a solid 4 Dots "all the time", I had to remove the phone number to get it to go back to the normal "broken" behavior.

Dave

 

[deadworlds]

I had some time this afternoon to test Wi-Fi calling further. I have a room in my house the does not get a Cellular signal (We have a MicroCell) that I disabled for my tests. I was able to make 2 Wi-Fi calls from this room. Again, Cellular must be enabled on the Watch, I checked the Control Center and only Wi-Fi is shown on the top left status area. Also the Explorer Watch Face showed no signal.

Calls worked well but as you have indicated, when I look online, the calls are being logged against the Watches phone number as Cellular calls instead of being logged as Wi-Fi calls, code PVWIFI (Wi-Fi calling).

Back to the drawing board and more testing to see if it can work with the MicroCell.

Dave
[doublepost=1507764007][/doublepost]Hey @deadworlds, I have now moved to your Camp!

I caught it using LTE when it should have been making a Wi-Fi Call. I was able to reproduce the behavior by quickly switching to the Explorer Face as soon as the Call ended and it showed 3 green dots. I will have to wait a couple of hours to confirm what AT&T saw on their end.

A random point, using the MicroCell drove the Watch to a solid 4 Dots "all the time", I had to remove the phone number to get it to go back to the normal "broken" behavior.

Dave

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

 

[dave006]

OK, here is the 9 PM EDT Update.

AT&T has recorded all calls from the Watch as "Talk", even the 2 from the room that has absolutely zero Cellular signal. It is a concrete Hurricane room. The iPhone was in Airplane mode for all calls so no chance of it actually using the iPhone's connection(s). I can't trust AT&T to report correctly activity on the Watch's line just yet without further testing to see if I can get any Wi-Fi calls recorded for the Watch.

It is still a waste of time trying Apple, the reps that we can talk to don't have a clue as to how the Watch is actually designed to work. Things do seem to be improving with the watchOS 4.1 beta that added a Wi-Fi toggle to the Control Center so maybe someone at Apple really knows what needs to be done!

Dave