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EE eSIM data plan migration to new Apple Watch

D1G1TALR0B0T

D1G1TALR0B0T

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 13, 2008
796
1,196
Hi,

Thanks to the forums I went with an eSIM on my iPhone this year, which was very easy to set up.

I was just wondering once you have an eSIM with EE on an Apple Watch what is the process of migrating that data plan to a new watch?

I can't see anything on the EE website showing this process.

Thanks.
 
D1G1TALR0B0T said:
Hi,

Thanks to the forums I went with an eSIM on my iPhone this year, which was very easy to set up.

I was just wondering once you have an eSIM with EE on an Apple Watch what is the process of migrating that data plan to a new watch?

I can't see anything on the EE website showing this process.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
I normally phone them. Twice. Once to ask them, then 24 hours later when it hasn't worked and they do it again :)

Seriously though, I think you can do it all on the watch/web, but I find EE customer service excellent and normally get it done within an hour of the first phone call. All they need is the eSIM number on the new watch.
 
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BillGates1969 said:
I normally phone them. Twice. Once to ask them, then 24 hours later when it hasn't worked and they do it again :)

Seriously though, I think you can do it all on the watch/web, but I find EE customer service excellent and normally get it done within an hour of the first phone call. All they need is the eSIM number on the new watch.
Click to expand...
Great to hear it is an easy process. I usually go with the GPS only version of the watch, but this year I'm tempted by the cellular, it would be very useful for marathon training.
 
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This process is a bit hit-and-miss in my experience, having migrated watches on EE for myself three times, twice for my dad and once for my wife. In theory it works but the reality is you need to phone them up and they will change some info in the backend systems linking the new eSIM to your account.

Maybe this time it will work well out of the box? The iPhone migration is certainly a lot smoother, but that is completely in Apple’s control whilst the back end systems belong to the mobile provider…
 
They are pretty hopeless in my experience. Each time I've bought a new watch, EE screw up the migration and I'm left without a working data plan for a few days. Going from my S3 to my S5 was the worst experience. Spoke to 5 different people and none of them got it right. I finally got through to somebody who knew exactly what the issue was and it was working within 10 minutes.

Just hoping it goes better this year. I found this on the EE forum, though:

Transferring Watch Data Plan

1) Wait for your new watch to arrive
2) Unpair your current watch but keep the plan (this will create a current back up)
3) Re-pair your current watch with your current plan
4) Using the back up, set up your new watch ensuring that WiFi is turned off on your phone
5) When the screen comes up asking to connect your data plan, it will take you to a white screen.
6) Call EE and ask them to transfer the plan to your new watch - They will ask for the EID number
7) Reboot the watch and within an hour or two (normally), your new watch will have your transferred data plan
8) Don't unpair your old watch but instead, use the settings on your watch to factory reset the old watch and delete the plan when it asks you. This will remove it completely for resale
9) Log on to the cloud using a PC or Mac and ensure that your new watch is listed and if your old watch is still on there then delete it. This will ensure that activation lock is disabled so you can sell it on
 
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I think people have better results by not keeping the plan. My understanding is that this doesn’t cancel the plan, it is intended to disconnect it from that specific Watch.

But there guidance is vague on this!
 
danmart said:
I think people have better results by not keeping the plan. My understanding is that this doesn’t cancel the plan, it is intended to disconnect it from that specific Watch.

But there guidance is vague on this!
Click to expand...

More confusion :(

You'd think after all this time that EE would have a clear process in place but even their forum reps can't agree on how it should best be done.
 
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The main thing to watch out for is that, if you speak to a call centre person, tell them explicitly not to cancel your contact and add a new one. My contract is the £5 one and they tried to move me to a £7 one as a ‘fix’ for the technical issue. Cheeky blighters!
 
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danmart said:
The main thing to watch out for is that, if you speak to a call centre person, tell them explicitly not to cancel your contact and add a new one. My contract is the £5 one and they tried to move me to a £7 one as a ‘fix’ for the technical issue. Cheeky blighters!
Click to expand...
^^ This
 
danmart said:
The main thing to watch out for is that, if you speak to a call centre person, tell them explicitly not to cancel your contact and add a new one. My contract is the £5 one and they tried to move me to a £7 one as a ‘fix’ for the technical issue. Cheeky blighters!
Click to expand...
Absolutely! Last time I was told that the old one had to be cancelled and a new contract had to be taken out. I immediately hung up :)
 
I was just going to open a thread on the right way to migrate data plan to a new watch and found this one earlier.

My last two watches had data plans and I have always failed to move it to a new watch.

With the S4 to S5, I unpaired the S4 by making its copy and then paired the S5 using that copy. Finally I deleted the S4. As a result the plan did not migrate. So the normal thing to do is to register it on the new watch, but it gave error. I had to call Movistar and apparently the plan "slot" was still occupied by the other watch and they had to do it via phone.

With the S5 to S6 it was similar. In this case I used the apple migration tool. That is, I did not touch the S5 and turned on the S6 next to my iphone. I follow the steps and it lets you migrate it and erase the S5 with hardly any hassle. Superb. However, the result was the same as the previous year: I did not have the plan and I could not register it because in the system it was still linked to the other watch. And again call ....

Does anyone know what the procedure is?
 
Luis0180 said:
I was just going to open a thread on the right way to migrate data plan to a new watch and found this one earlier.

My last two watches had data plans and I have always failed to move it to a new watch.

With the S4 to S5, I unpaired the S4 by making its copy and then paired the S5 using that copy. Finally I deleted the S4. As a result the plan did not migrate. So the normal thing to do is to register it on the new watch, but it gave error. I had to call Movistar and apparently the plan "slot" was still occupied by the other watch and they had to do it via phone.

With the S5 to S6 it was similar. In this case I used the apple migration tool. That is, I did not touch the S5 and turned on the S6 next to my iphone. I follow the steps and it lets you migrate it and erase the S5 with hardly any hassle. Superb. However, the result was the same as the previous year: I did not have the plan and I could not register it because in the system it was still linked to the other watch. And again call ....

Does anyone know what the procedure is?
Click to expand...
This thread is specifically about the EE network in the UK. Different networks will have different ways of handling this.
 
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Following this one eagerly. I'm with EE and have had the cellular Apple Watch yearly since release, I'm still none the wiser! Every year I pray it's not going to involve a phone call but to be honest with their systems I guess its a given that there has to be one.

I never understand whether I have to keep the plan when unpairing the old watch... In my head it shouldn't make a difference as that action has nothing to do with my data plan at EE's end.

Every year they have me unpairing, re-paring, pairing the old watch, un-pariing, pariing the new one again...

...and each back-up and re-pair takes an absolute age when you're on a call with nothing to say....

I'm down with the fact I can't get out of the call, but when is the best time to call them? is that before I've un-pared my current watch (with data plan), is it wise to pair the series seven alongside the current series 6 and then call them?

(Sorry if this is unclear, the confusion is setting in the more I type!)
 
mzanker said:
They are pretty hopeless in my experience. Each time I've bought a new watch, EE screw up the migration and I'm left without a working data plan for a few days. Going from my S3 to my S5 was the worst experience. Spoke to 5 different people and none of them got it right. I finally got through to somebody who knew exactly what the issue was and it was working within 10 minutes.

Just hoping it goes better this year. I found this on the EE forum, though:

Transferring Watch Data Plan

1) Wait for your new watch to arrive
2) Unpair your current watch but keep the plan (this will create a current back up)
3) Re-pair your current watch with your current plan
4) Using the back up, set up your new watch ensuring that WiFi is turned off on your phone
5) When the screen comes up asking to connect your data plan, it will take you to a white screen.
6) Call EE and ask them to transfer the plan to your new watch - They will ask for the EID number
7) Reboot the watch and within an hour or two (normally), your new watch will have your transferred data plan
8) Don't unpair your old watch but instead, use the settings on your watch to factory reset the old watch and delete the plan when it asks you. This will remove it completely for resale
9) Log on to the cloud using a PC or Mac and ensure that your new watch is listed and if your old watch is still on there then delete it. This will ensure that activation lock is disabled so you can sell it on
Click to expand...
So do you think that you can give EE the EID number so that they can transfer it before you start setting up the watch?
 
Bazooka-joe said:
So do you think that you can give EE the EID number so that they can transfer it before you start setting up the watch?
Click to expand...
I don't know but the guy who finally sorted out my last transfer said he had always set the new watch up first. I hope more of them have the knowledge that he did by now (he admitted that he was an Apple nerd!).
 
I have just spent 60 minutes on the phone with EE trying to transfer my data plan from my old watch (Series 4) to the new watch (Series 7) without success.

Did anyone have success with it?

These are the steps I followed:

1. Unpair old phone (keep data plan when asked).
2. Pair new phone.
3. Click on set up data plan, when the option appears from the EE website, clicked "Replace data plan". I showed me an error message and to call 150 with error code 003
4. Called 150, spent 60 minutes, gave them my EID etc. and at the end she goes and says that I need to restart both devices, unpair the watch and pair it again, and click "set up new mobile plan for £7", which I'm not happy with as I'm paying £5 now.
5. In any case, I'm trying to click on set up new mobile plan and now I get "connection failed, the connection to the server was lost. Please try again later".

Did anyone manage to sort out EE with series 7 today?
 
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erpetao said:
I have just spent 60 minutes on the phone with EE trying to transfer my data plan from my old watch (Series 4) to the new watch (Series 7) without success.

Did anyone have success with it?

These are the steps I followed:

1. Unpair old phone (keep data plan when asked).
2. Pair new phone.
3. Click on set up data plan, when the option appears from the EE website, clicked "Replace data plan". I showed me an error message and to call 150 with error code 003
4. Called 150, spent 60 minutes, gave them my EID etc. and at the end she goes and says that I need to restart both devices, unpair the watch and pair it again, and click "set up new mobile plan for £7", which I'm not happy with as I'm paying £5 now.
5. In any case, I'm trying to click on set up new mobile plan and now I get "connection failed, the connection to the server was lost. Please try again later".

Did anyone manage to sort out EE with series 7 today?
Click to expand...
Yes - did the same as you (with a Series 5), called EE with error code 003, she took the new EID, told me it could be up to 24 hours, and 10 minutes later it was all working.

First time that it's ever gone that smoothly.
 
mzanker said:
Yes - did the same as you (with a Series 5), called EE with error code 003, she took the new EID, told me it could be up to 24 hours, and 10 minutes later it was all working.

First time that it's ever gone that smoothly.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I guess I'll need to call again...
 
I think it depends who you’re talking to at EE. 8 have transferred my plan every year from the series 3+right through to the series 7 with no issues.
I’ve just picked up my Series 7 from the Apple Store and paired it whilst I was there. Called EE and spoke to a lovely and knowledgeable young lady who transferred my data plan. Took just 15 minutes and it started working straight away.
My process was to
unpair from my old watch
keep data plan
pair new watch with Wi-Fi switched off on phone
When I reached the mobile plan bit, called EE and provided EID number
Finished pairing process
EE then told me to reboot watch
open data plan using phone app….reported error code 12
reboot phone
Check data plan using app on phone….data plan showed as connected
switch off phone, disable Wi-Fi on watch to test
Nice green reception icon
 
Last edited:
Bazooka-joe said:
I think it depends who you’re talking to at EE as I’ve just picked up my Series 7@ from the Apple Store and paired it whilst I was there. Called EE and spoke to a lovely and knowledgeable young lady who transferred my data plan. Took just 15 minutes and it started working straight away.
My process was to
unpair from my old watch
keep data plan
pair new watch with Wi-Fi switched off on phone
When I reached the mobile plan bit, called EE and provided EID number
Finished pairing process
EE then told me to reboot watch
open data plan using phone app….reported error code 12
reboot phone
Check data plan using app on phone….data plan showed as connected
switch off phone, disable Wi-Fi on watch to test
Nice green reception icon
Click to expand...
Forgot to mention that I got error code 12 in the watch app, but I just ignored it and left it a few minutes. I have the mobile data complication on the watch face and it suddenly turned white, indicating that the watch is connected. Then walked down to the bottom of the garden just to check it would switch to EE :)

It wasn't a Welsh girl with a name beginning with R, was it?
 
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Mentioned on another thread that I did mine too.

I am keeping my S5 so it did error (003) initially when I paired the new one. The EE guy was really helpful and said unpair the AWS5 (he even 'reassured' me that it backs up automatically lol and I won't lose data) then gave him the EID and 5 mins later My new AW Hermes S7 has my plan. re-paired the SSG S5 and that is working fine too (obv no Cellular)
 
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mzanker said:
Forgot to mention that I got error code 12 in the watch app, but I just ignored it and left it a few minutes. I have the mobile data complication on the watch face and it suddenly turned white, indicating that the watch is connected. Then walked down to the bottom of the garden just to check it would switch to EE :)

It wasn't a Welsh girl with a name beginning with R, was it?
Click to expand...
No she was called Kelly but charming even though she had a cold. She kept calling me lovely lol
 
I don't understand why I would choose to 'keep' the data plan on the old watch (which I am currently unpairing)? Is there a logic to this?
 
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