Connecting to cruise ship's wi-fi?

[SamGabbay]

I am headed on a cruise in January. The cruise has 'pervasive Wi-Fi throughout the ship'. Around 45mb/s to be in fact. I need to be connected to my work at all cost and to carry around my phone is an inconvenience. If my iPhone is connected to the Wi-Fi in my room and my watch now knows the Wi-Fi, will it work no matter where I am on the ship?

 

[Night Spring]

It depends on how the wifi is set up on the ship. Hopefully, it works, but there is no way to be sure until you are actually on the ship. Well, you could find out if you could talk to the person who set up the ship's wifi system, and you knew the right questions to ask. But getting in touch with the right person seems highly unlikely.

 

[dictoresno]

Theoretically as long as you set up both the watch and phone on the same network you should be fine

 

[deany]

my apple watch didn't work on Power line adapters via wi-fi.

But does with an apple 'roaming' network with a TC & airport express.

I wonder how the ship would push the wi-fi around all corners, if they do use anything like power line it wont work as the watch picks it up as two networks. Even if its the same SSID.

I imagine it would be like a business in a large office block. How do they extend their network? Do apple watch users have issues at work when on a different floor in their office block?

 

[SamGabbay]

my apple watch didn't work on Power line adapters via wi-fi.

But does with an apple 'roaming' network with a TC & airport express.

I wonder how the ship would push the wi-fi around all corners, if they do use anything like power line it wont work as the watch picks it up as two networks. Even if its the same SSID.

My understanding is that the IP address needs to be the same, correct?

 

[Gav2k]

Generally when connecting you'll get a login screen from past experience. This will hinder your progress

 

[SamGabbay]

Generally when connecting you'll get a login screen from past experience. This will hinder your progress

My concern exactly. But if I do it once...

 

[Gav2k]

My concern exactly. But if I do it once...

It'll be tied to one device

 

[SamGabbay]

It'll be tied to one device

Heres to hoping it won't be!

 

[deany]

My understanding is that the IP address needs to be the same, correct?

I'll do a 'ios fing' test later on TC and then on airport express and update later, with a reply, when at home.

Surely someone reading this must leave their phone by their desk and walk to a different floor, how do they get on? I'm sure a ship would use a similar network as an office block.

 

[exxxviii]

I think it is a high probability that it will not work because of two reasons...

1) The network will likely have WiFi Isolation enabled which blocks two devices on the network from communicating with one another over that network. This would only allow the watch to access the Internet, but it could not receive notifications from the phone.

2) The network will likely have an HTTP logon page with terms and conditions. This type of authentication allows a specific MAC address through, only after the user clicks through the web page. Since the watch does not have a browser, it cannot complete the T&C acceptance step.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

I think it is a high probability that it will not work because of two reasons...

1) The network will likely have WiFi Isolation enabled which blocks two devices on the network from communicating with one another over that network. This would only allow the watch to access the Internet, but it could not receive notifications from the phone.

2) The network willy likely have an HTTP logon page with terms and conditions. This type of authentication allows a specific MAC address through, only after the user clicks through the web page. Since the watch does not have a browser, it cannot complete the T&C acceptance step.

You can still receive certain notifications like iMessage in 1), as the iPhone can be powered off and doesn't necessarily need to communicate with the AW. However, 2) will most likely doom the AW.

 

[phpmaven]

My understanding is that the IP address needs to be the same, correct?

It needs to be in the same IP network as your phone. (For example the phone is 192.168.1.25 and the watch is 192.168.1.26). Each network has room for 254 addresses. Certainly the cruise ship will be setup to use a number of networks across the ship. The chances of your watch working ship wide while your phone sits in your cabin are slim to none I'm afraid.

Also, as a poster above pointed out, your watch doesn't have the ability to login and authenticate on the cruise ships wifi.

 

[phpmaven]

You can still receive certain notifications like iMessage in 1), as the iPhone can be powered off and doesn't necessarily need to communicate with the AW. However, 2) will most likely doom the AW.

No you won't. Since you will be unable to login, it will have no wifi access. I'm an avid cruiser and can tell you that you have login with your cabin number and user name and password. The watch simply can't do this. Plus, even if you could, you pay for Internet access by the minute by buying a "package" of minutes, so even if you could login, you wouldn't be able to be constantly connected.

 

[SamGabbay]

It needs to be in the same IP network as your phone. (For example the phone is 192.168.1.25 and the watch is 192.168.1.26). Each network has room for 254 addresses. Certainly the cruise ship will be setup to use a number of networks across the ship. The chances of your watch working ship wide while your phone sits in your cabin are slim to none I'm afraid.

Also, as a poster above pointed out, your watch doesn't have the ability to login and authenticate on the cruise ships wifi.

Let's ignore the login issue for now. Just for the sake of argument.

Let's say I walk around the ship and my phone connects to every possible IP address. Hypothetically would it work?

 

[deany]

My understanding is that the IP address needs to be the same, correct?

Hi

On my 'roaming' network when connected to Airport express 'fing' says iphone is attached to TC (which is attached to router with wireless off) so same IP on my home network thoughout.

 

[phpmaven]

Let's ignore the login issue for now. Just for the sake of argument.

Let's say I walk around the ship and my phone connects to every possible IP address. Hypothetically would it work?

No. Since every IP network has only 254 addresses available, they would have dozens of of them setup across the ship and your phone and watch would be on different networks. Also, they do very aggressive port blocking on these cruise ship networks, so even if you were on the same network, there's a good chance it still wouldn't work. The last thing the techs on the ship would want personal devices sending data to each other accross their networks.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

No you won't. Since you will be unable to login, it will have no wifi access. I'm an avid cruiser and can tell you that you have login with your cabin number and user name and password. The watch simply can't do this. Plus, even if you could, you pay for Internet access by the minute by buying a "package" of minutes, so even if you could login, you wouldn't be able to be constantly connected.

Re-read my post. That's why I said 2) would doom the AW, since you'd be unable to log-in. However, 1) won't necessarily prevent the AW from getting certain notifications, if 2) isn't an issue.

 

[SamGabbay]

No you won't. Since you will be unable to login, it will have no wifi access. I'm an avid cruiser and can tell you that you have login with your cabin number and user name and password. The watch simply can't do this. Plus, even if you could, you pay for Internet access by the minute by buying a "package" of minutes, so even if you could login, you wouldn't be able to be constantly connected.

Your "minutes" argument is moot point. I buy the unlimited package . So let's say I carried my phone around with me everywhere. Still wouldn't work?

 

[Night Spring]

Let's ignore the login issue for now. Just for the sake of argument.

Let's say I walk around the ship and my phone connects to every possible IP address. Hypothetically would it work?

Another variable that hasn't been mentioned is whether the ship's wifi is 5ghz or 2.5ghz. If it is 5ghz, your watch won't be able to connect.

 

[SamGabbay]

Another variable that hasn't been mentioned is whether the ship's wifi is 5ghz or 2.5ghz. If it is 5ghz, your watch won't be able to connect.

While the ships wifi is incredibly speedy. It won't have 5GHz networking.

 

[exxxviii]

It needs to be in the same IP network as your phone. (For example the phone is 192.168.1.25 and the watch is 192.168.1.26). Each network has room for 254 addresses... Since every IP network has only 254 addresses available, they would have dozens of of them setup across the ship and your phone and watch would be on different networks.

The IP addresses are not a limitation in a typical network. The subnet mask defines the range of IP addresses that devices consider a unified network. It is not limited to just the last octet.

Let's ignore the login issue for now. Just for the sake of argument.

Let's say I walk around the ship and my phone connects to every possible IP address. Hypothetically would it work?

Yes, if the Watch can log in to the network with just SSID and passcode credentials, and the ship network does not have WiFi isolation turned on, then it will likely work. The IP address range is not likely to be a limitation.

 

[phpmaven]

The IP addresses are not a limitation in a typical network. The subnet mask defines the range of IP addresses that devices consider a unified network. It is not limited to just the last octet.

Yes, if the Watch can log in to the network with just SSID and passcode credentials, and the ship network does not have WiFi isolation turned on, then it will likely work. The IP address range is not likely to be a limitation.

The whole discussion is moot anyway since the watch is not going to be able to login to a html login page.

 

[phpmaven]

Your "minutes" argument is moot point. I buy the unlimited package . So let's say I carried my phone around with me everywhere. Still wouldn't work?

Assuming you carry your phone with you, then I would assume it would work, but no guarantees. You will have to wait and see. I would suggest you checkout some of the cruise forums such as cruisecritic.com and see if anyone has any experience with this.

 

[phpmaven]

Re-read my post. That's why I said 2) would doom the AW, since you'd be unable to log-in. However, 1) won't necessarily prevent the AW from getting certain notifications, if 2) isn't an issue.

If the AW cannot connect to WIFi and is out of bluetooth range of the phone then it could only be notifications that come from the watch itself. Since I haven't tested this scenario myself, I'm not sure if the watch will still pop up reminders when it's completely disconnected. Perhaps it caches them and will still pull up the last reminders it received.

Regardless, I think we can pretty much assume that on a cruise ship if you leave your phone in your cabin, the watch will for all intents and purposes just be usable as a watch. It will be interesting to hear back from the OP after the cruise to see how it worked out.