Cellular Use Cases

[Itinj24]

It’s better to have and not need then to need and not have.

That said, cellular service came in handy for me a few times. Yes I do bring my phone with me practically everywhere but never know when I won’t have it anymore. One notable scenario was when my iPhone just bricked out of nowhere while I was on my way home from work. My wife happen to be stuck in traffic that day and needed me to pick up the kids from school. Got the call on my watch. Crisis averted.

Unlike the phone, the watch is always on my wrist and can’t wander off. The cellular service on my watch is basically a backup phone for me and I have no issue paying for the peace of mind. Also, my Ultra way outlasts my 14P battery wise.

I know you were looking for other use cases but I don’t know any other than what was mentioned so I’m sharing my reason for having it.

 

[cubodado]

Of course, I took for granted as a use a backup of the phone if the battery dies down and no charged powerbank or charging comes at hand. Happened to me yesterday evening. Just to know, Whatsapp notifications arrive if the phone is off or not?

 

[hanser]

As somebody who does not want to have the iPhone always with me, cellular is great. I first had a Watch without cellular, but soon wished I had chosen otherwise. So when I had the opportunity to pass my watch on to my wife I bought the 7 cellular. I have provider in Germany (sim.de) that offers Watch support for 3 Euro/month, so I did it. I use it for phone calls when outside, for streaming radio or podcasts when cycling to work, for managing HomeKit products when not at home, for sending and receiving messages or FaceTime audio calls, even for getting directions in maps when driving.

 

[macphoto861]

Unlike the phone, the watch is always on my wrist and can’t wander off. The cellular service on my watch is basically a backup phone for me and I have no issue paying for the peace of mind. Also, my Ultra way outlasts my 14P battery wise.

I know you were looking for other use cases but I don’t know any other than what was mentioned so I’m sharing my reason for having it.

This is actually the most sensible use case that would apply to me... I'm almost never without my phone, except in the rare instances mentioned in my OP, so it's hard to justify the expense based on that. But having a backup way to communicate is potentially worth it.

 

[Armeniandave]

I would only have a cellular watch. I use it everyday for either
walking the dog, going to the gym, or mountain biking. I cannot
stand people at the gym siting on their phone in between sets
taking 3 times as long to do there workout so I make sure I'm
not one of them. It's actually liberating leaving the phone behind
and enjoying what your doing rather than feeling like you need to
look at everything instantly on your phone. Most people seem
very addicted to there phone so I'm sure this wouldn't work for
everybody.

 

[Howard2k]

I would only have a cellular watch. I use it everyday for either
walking the dog, going to the gym, or mountain biking. I cannot
stand people at the gym siting on their phone in between sets
taking 3 times as long to do there workout so I make sure I'm
not one of them. It's actually liberating leaving the phone behind
and enjoying what your doing rather than feeling like you need to
look at everything instantly on your phone. Most people seem
very addicted to there phone so I'm sure this wouldn't work for
everybody.

Why not just leave your phone in your pocket and pull it out when you need it?

I don’t have a cellular watch but when I go to the gym I’m not sitting at the machines checking my phone. That annoys the snot out of me too. I just put it down and leave it.

I’m not saying don’t get cellular, but I am saying that relying on technology to avoid being tied to technology seems a bit odd.

 

[Howard2k]

I will likely get cellular but leave it inactivated for my next watch. That way it can still make emergency calls if my phone is not around but I’m not paying for the plan. Even better though, I hope to convince my employer to pay for the plan, that would be even better.

 

[1rottenapple]

I’m on visible and it’s $5 A month so it’s worth it for me. I sometimes leave my phone when I walk my dog.

 

[BenGoren]

First, if you can’t afford the $5 or $10 per month for cellular, you can’t afford the watch to begin with.

That aside … have you ever made it out the door and down the street without your phone? With a cellular watch, there’s no urgent need to turn around and get it.

Even that aside … I guarantee you, the next time you lock yourself out, your phone will be next to your keys. But your watch will probably be on your wrist. Which would you prefer: to have to go find somebody who’ll let you borrow a phone, or just make the call on the watch? Don’t forget to consider your potential state of dress when this incident would be most likely to occur.

And let’s go ahead and set that aside. You’re a perfectly thoughtful person, never would do anything as stupid as I just described. But somebody picks your pocket or does a snatch-and-run, possibly even after just observing you enter your passcode. You can use Find My on your watch to lock and / or locate your phone, and you still have a fully-functioning communications device in the form of your watch.

Now consider all the other sorts of ways that something could happen to your phone … including something as trivial as the battery running down. Or as horrific as a car crash. With a cellular-enabled watch, all these hypotheticals are little more than minor inconveniences.

Finally … suppose you only have one such incident happen the entire time you own the watch. Is it so hard to imagine that you might be happy, then and there, to whip out your credit card and pay an entire year’s worth of cellular charges (or more, perhaps much more) to have cellular access enabled on your watch? Except, of course, for the fact that no amount of money is going to turn it on when you need it.

b&

 

[macphoto861]

First, if you can’t afford the $5 or $10 per month for cellular, you can’t afford the watch to begin with.

I can afford it, but I also don't want to throw money away. $5/month is cheap enough that I'd pretty much do it without even really thinking about it. But $10/month (plus whatever taxes/fees they tack on) puts it in the category of something I need to feel like I'm benefiting from.

That aside … have you ever made it out the door and down the street without your phone? With a cellular watch, there’s no urgent need to turn around and get it.

Actually, no. Well, at least not within the past two decades or so (I did occasionally forget my Motorola Flip Phone at home, back in those days).

But the points about my phone possibly becoming disabled, lost, or stolen, are certainly valid in my case. I've never had any of those things happen to me, but these scenarios are plausible enough to have me seriously considering activating the service. 20 years ago it wouldn't be too hard to find a pay phone if the need arose, but not now. Though my wife almost always has the kids with her (each of whom have phones), I often am traveling alone, so an emergency backup communication device is potentially useful.

 

[Djones96]

Probably a stupid question and I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never been 100% clear on it, do I need a standalone plan on my Apple Watch to be able to receive notifications that would be sent to my phone, on my watch instead? Or would numbershare be what I want? I tried setting up a standalone service on my watch last night, but when I would turn my phone off, I wouldn’t get any notifications sent to my watch. I hardly ever don’t have my phone with me, but on occasion it’d be nice to be able to leave my phone at home while I run into town or something, but still receive the notifications on my watch that would otherwise be sent to my phone.
Again, sorry for the probably dumb question, but any help would be appreciated. Verizon wasn’t much help in clarifying.

 

[Armeniandave]

Why not just leave your phone in your pocket and pull it out when you need it?

I don’t have a cellular watch but when I go to the gym I’m not sitting at the machines checking my phone. That annoys the snot out of me too. I just put it down and leave it.

I’m not saying don’t get cellular, but I am saying that relying on technology to avoid being tied to technology seems a bit odd.

Not really. Using technology to avoid other technology is the way.

 

[d3vp0ll]

I rarely, like 5% of the time, leave my house with my phone. I’ve gotten so used to having a cellular Apple Watch I could never go back to using a dumb watch. The features and advantages a cellular watch give me are truly game changing.

I have Visible service and pay $5/mo as an add on for the Watch and it’s so worth it.

 

[BenGoren]

Probably a stupid question and I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never been 100% clear on it, do I need a standalone plan on my Apple Watch to be able to receive notifications that would be sent to my phone, on my watch instead? Or would numbershare be what I want? I tried setting up a standalone service on my watch last night, but when I would turn my phone off, I wouldn’t get any notifications sent to my watch. I hardly ever don’t have my phone with me, but on occasion it’d be nice to be able to leave my phone at home while I run into town or something, but still receive the notifications on my watch that would otherwise be sent to my phone.
Again, sorry for the probably dumb question, but any help would be appreciated. Verizon wasn’t much help in clarifying.

There are two parts to this, and it gets confusing; don’t be embarrassed.

A cellular watch with an active plan can talk to anything on the Internet the same as if it was on WiFi.

With few exceptions, this means that anything your watch can normally do when your phone is nearby you can also do without the phone.

The exceptions fall into two categories.

The first big one is SMS. While Apple Messages works fine without the phone, the watch (for whatever incomprehensible reason that nobody has ever even seriously tried to explain) cannot directly send and receive SMS messages. Instead, it uses your phone as a relay. What this means is that your phone must be on; your phone must be able to send and receive SMS messages; and your phone and your watch must be able to communicate. You could be on opposite sides of the planet, and the one or the other or the both could be using WiFi or cellular data, but they must be able to communicate in real time as you send and receive SMS from the watch.

The other exception is that a number of third-party watch apps are only frontends to their phone apps and won’t work at all without the phone present. The software that controls my hearing aids is like that, as is the University’s 2FA software.

Since you mention “notifications” I should also note that Apple has a fine-grained preference for notification routing that always confuses the bejeezus out of me and often seems to get it worng. It probably should work the same way regardless of whether or not you have your phone with you, but I personally have very little trust in it.

(What I really want, that I haven’t found a way to configure, is for every notification to go to the watch and to nothing else when the watch is unlocked, which is all the time except for when I take it off to shower and charge. But if the watch is locked, it should go to all unlocked devices. And if everything is locked, it should go to the Notification Center. I also want an unified Notification Center; plus, the red dot on the watch should always show if there’s anything in the Notification Center, whether or not I’ve looked at it — only when the Notification Center is empty should the dot go away.)

b&

 

[Djones96]

There are two parts to this, and it gets confusing; don’t be embarrassed.

A cellular watch with an active plan can talk to anything on the Internet the same as if it was on WiFi.

With few exceptions, this means that anything your watch can normally do when your phone is nearby you can also do without the phone.

The exceptions fall into two categories.

The first big one is SMS. While Apple Messages works fine without the phone, the watch (for whatever incomprehensible reason that nobody has ever even seriously tried to explain) cannot directly send and receive SMS messages. Instead, it uses your phone as a relay. What this means is that your phone must be on; your phone must be able to send and receive SMS messages; and your phone and your watch must be able to communicate. You could be on opposite sides of the planet, and the one or the other or the both could be using WiFi or cellular data, but they must be able to communicate in real time as you send and receive SMS from the watch.

The other exception is that a number of third-party watch apps are only frontends to their phone apps and won’t work at all without the phone present. The software that controls my hearing aids is like that, as is the University’s 2FA software.

Since you mention “notifications” I should also note that Apple has a fine-grained preference for notification routing that always confuses the bejeezus out of me and often seems to get it worng. It probably should work the same way regardless of whether or not you have your phone with you, but I personally have very little trust in it.

(What I really want, that I haven’t found a way to configure, is for every notification to go to the watch and to nothing else when the watch is unlocked, which is all the time except for when I take it off to shower and charge. But if the watch is locked, it should go to all unlocked devices. And if everything is locked, it should go to the Notification Center. I also want an unified Notification Center; plus, the red dot on the watch should always show if there’s anything in the Notification Center, whether or not I’ve looked at it — only when the Notification Center is empty should the dot go away.)

b&

Ah okay, gotcha. Thank you for actually being help and explaining it much better than Verizon itself could. I appreciate you!

 

[macphoto861]

Though the SMS thing gave me pause, I did end up deciding to go ahead and activate cellular.

 

[ssampath]

The other exception is that a number of third-party watch apps are only frontends to their phone apps and won’t work at all without the phone present. The software that controls my hearing aids is like that, as is the University’s 2FA software.

It is even worse than that - many useful apps - Uber and Lyft foremost have stopped supporting the Watch. The two that I use and like most are workoutdoors and myQ.

 

[macphoto861]

So, I just got back from Universal a few days ago, and this was my first experience actually using (in a non-testing manner) cellular on my watch. As I mentioned in a previous post, having a way to communicate in emergencies (phone malfunctions or is stolen) was one justification for activating cellular service, and theme parks / water parks where I can't have my phone with me was another. At least in terms of the latter, I must say I'm rather disappointed.

What I found was that it probably only worked about half the time... I'd be in line for a ride, and wanted to let a non-riding family member know that we were about to get on, and in some cases it was fine, but numerous times the LTE thing would not light up, and I had no connectivity. Tried restarting the watch, which I think did help once or twice, but not every time.

I don't believe it was a matter of a weak signal... I had a strong signal in the parks, while here around my house I get terrible cell reception) just one bar on my iPhone, and if I shut my iPhone off, the Watch does link up with LTE. I considered that maybe it was the result of being inside in some cases (and surrounded by metal), but the problem occurred even when was out in the open.

What I'm wondering is if perhaps cellular providers only allocate a certain number of "channels" (I'm sure that's not the proper terminology) to be reachable by the older LTE standard, reserving more of each tower's capacity for more modern 5G devices. So, IOW, perhaps there was ample signal, and plenty of (5G) capacity, but limited capacity for LTE?

 

[jz0309]

So, I just got back from Universal a few days ago, and this was my first experience actually using (in a non-testing manner) cellular on my watch. As I mentioned in a previous post, having a way to communicate in emergencies (phone malfunctions or is stolen) was one justification for activating cellular service, and theme parks / water parks where I can't have my phone with me was another. At least in terms of the latter, I must say I'm rather disappointed.

What I found was that it probably only worked about half the time... I'd be in line for a ride, and wanted to let a non-riding family member know that we were about to get on, and in some cases it was fine, but numerous times the LTE thing would not light up, and I had no connectivity. Tried restarting the watch, which I think did help once or twice, but not every time.

I don't believe it was a matter of a weak signal... I had a strong signal in the parks, while here around my house I get terrible cell reception) just one bar on my iPhone, and if I shut my iPhone off, the Watch does link up with LTE. I considered that maybe it was the result of being inside in some cases (and surrounded by metal), but the problem occurred even when was out in the open.

What I'm wondering is if perhaps cellular providers only allocate a certain number of "channels" (I'm sure that's not the proper terminology) to be reachable by the older LTE standard, reserving more of each tower's capacity for more modern 5G devices. So, IOW, perhaps there was ample signal, and plenty of (5G) capacity, but limited capacity for LTE?

Having good signal strength does not equal good bandwidth, esp in theme parks or crowded areas.
I was at one of my Doctors yesterday, and every time I visit them I am noticing that I have 2-3 bars and sometimes I can reach websites easily and then can't connect for like 2-3 min any website at all. This is on my phone.
Who is your provider?

 

[mk313]

So, I just got back from Universal a few days ago, and this was my first experience actually using (in a non-testing manner) cellular on my watch. As I mentioned in a previous post, having a way to communicate in emergencies (phone malfunctions or is stolen) was one justification for activating cellular service, and theme parks / water parks where I can't have my phone with me was another. At least in terms of the latter, I must say I'm rather disappointed.

What I found was that it probably only worked about half the time... I'd be in line for a ride, and wanted to let a non-riding family member know that we were about to get on, and in some cases it was fine, but numerous times the LTE thing would not light up, and I had no connectivity. Tried restarting the watch, which I think did help once or twice, but not every time.

I don't believe it was a matter of a weak signal... I had a strong signal in the parks, while here around my house I get terrible cell reception) just one bar on my iPhone, and if I shut my iPhone off, the Watch does link up with LTE. I considered that maybe it was the result of being inside in some cases (and surrounded by metal), but the problem occurred even when was out in the open.

What I'm wondering is if perhaps cellular providers only allocate a certain number of "channels" (I'm sure that's not the proper terminology) to be reachable by the older LTE standard, reserving more of each tower's capacity for more modern 5G devices. So, IOW, perhaps there was ample signal, and plenty of (5G) capacity, but limited capacity for LTE?

That is kind of how it works. 5G is more efficient & you can cram more calls onto the same amount of bandwidth. But most of the companies are pretty good about keeping enough bandwidth in high usage areas (like theme parks). Did you have your phone with you guys, but with someone else who was kind of far away? I guess if you were seeing a cellular signal this isn't the issue, but with my watch, I've seen it hold onto the bluetooth connection to the phone to a point where it wasn't really able to connect, but it wouldn't give up and move to cellular.

 

[alongdingdong]

I use it since the AW4.

I go skateboarding, and its just perfect to listen to music, being able to answer calls, reply to messages without having a phone with me in my pocket which to me sucks when skateboarding.
I dont put it in a backpack because you have to keep a eye on it the whole time.

Running outdoors or taking walks (except hiking trips) super convenient without a phone on me.

Beside that whenever i can i leave the phone at home and only use my watch, living in the moment, going offline mostly, no doom scrolling etc.

I pay 5 euro per month for the service a lot cheaper then in the USA i heard which is around 20 USD per month?

 

[alongdingdong]

I had two absolute needs Apple had to provide for before I opted in for the Apple Watch; cellular and AOD, so the S5 was my first AW. Cellular service in Sweden is about €6 and that’s really fair I think.

I use the cellular service every day on my Watch. Running, going to the beach, going for a walk, I leave my phone at home quite often, I don’t really need it when I’m not working. I have music, iMessage and calls on my wrist. What about the camera I hear you ask, well, I discovered long ago that I don’t need or want a million photos of everything all the time.

The Apple Watch is one of my favourite personal devices ever, and cellular is a major part of that.

Yes the same, you will learn to adapt to the limitations and that it sucks battery BUT you must have a offline mentality and not glued to social media on your phone to have it work, its really like dumbphone on your wrist, a small percentage love it most hate that experience as their phone is always on them.

 

[alongdingdong]

Lastly, i may in the future step over to garmin watches with LTE a week battery life is for me a must as LTE standalone usage suckss battery on the AW10 and even the Ultra that i have owned.