Do WhatsApp’s come through on Cellular when phone switched off ?

[GC251114]

Ok guys , hope I make sense here.

Activated my cellular on EE this evening. All sorted & activated within about 2 mins. Just a question about what comes through & what wont.

Now as an experiment I turned my phone totally off. When I did my watched switched over to my home WiFi network as it should’ve done. My wife called me from her mobile & the home phone & as expected my watch rang. Perfect.

I then turned my WiFi off to experiment if out somewhere & no WiFi. As soon as I did the EE reception kicked in (good signal). My wife called from both phones again & again rang each time. Perfect.

I then kept WiFi off & remained on Cellular & my wife sent iMessage & WhatsApp. The iMessage came through (perfect) , but the WhatsApp didn’t.

I then turned WiFi back on & wife sent iMessage & WhatsApp. Again the iMessage came through no problem (Perfect), but the WhatsApp didn’t.

So do I conclude from this , that if i want WhatsApp messages to come through when I don’t have my phone with me , my phone needs to be switched on still to receive WhatsApp messages wherever I am ?

If this is correct behaviour , why is this different to iMessages ?

Cheers for clarification guys. I’m new to Apple Watch Cellular & just working it all out.

 

[Brookzy]

Not all notifications will appear when your phone is off, especially if the app doesn't have a native Apple Watch app. In this case it is simply because WhatsApp is not running when your phone is off.

The same applies to SMS text messages: you can't send or receive SMS messages from your watch unless your phone is connected to your carrier's network, either by cellular or Wi-Fi. (It could be miles away, sure... so you could leave your phone on and at home and you would still get all your notifications and send and receive SMS messages... but the phone has to be on.)

Apple says this in the small print:

To receive SMS, MMS, or push notifications from third-party apps on your Apple Watch with cellular, your paired iPhone must be powered on and connected to Wi-Fi or cellular.
​

If you want to test this, you can turn Bluetooth off on your phone, thus simulating your watch and phone being connected to the carrier network but not connected to each other by Bluetooth.

​

 

[Scott G.]

Not all notifications will appear when your phone is off, especially if the app doesn't have a native Apple Watch app. In this case it is simply because WhatsApp is not running when your phone is off.

The same applies to SMS text messages: you can't send or receive SMS messages from your watch unless your phone is connected to your carrier's network, either by cellular or Wi-Fi. (It could be miles away, sure... so you could leave your phone on and at home and you would still get all your notifications and send and receive SMS messages... but the phone has to be on.)

Apple says this in the small print:

To receive SMS, MMS, or push notifications from third-party apps on your Apple Watch with cellular, your paired iPhone must be powered on and connected to Wi-Fi or cellular.
​

If you want to test this, you can turn Bluetooth off on your phone, thus simulating your watch and phone being connected to the carrier network but not connected to each other by Bluetooth.

​

Are you talking about just 3rd party app sms messages? I can still send and receive texts from my watch with the phone off. I have the Cellular/GPS S4..

 

[Nozuka]

Since iMessage is also installed on your Apple watch you will get the messages even without the phone.

But whatsapp messages are never actually delivered to your watch directly. They are sent to your phone and the phone just sends the notification to your watch. But if the watch is off, this will obviously no longer work.