Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple says that you should pick ‘remove plan’ when migrating. That removes the plan from the Watch, not your account. [link]

Screenshot 2021-10-15 at 16.42.55.png
 
Thanks guys, a second call sorted it.

Also I have made things worse by trying to add the mobile plan while on wifi.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mzanker
I’m facing real issues in transferring my data plan from my series 5 over to the series 7. Been on the phone with EE and they keep doing this in the background but now I’m being told to only do the pairing via the EE network ( not wifi ) but now some sort of issue in connecting to EE network 🤷🏻
 
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!

I'm collecting a cellular modal tomorrow. Do you have to have a certain plan type with EE or even Vodafone to enable the £7 p/m smart watch add on?
 
The process I went through today was as follows (and works this way every year).

1. unpair my old watch. Select ‘remove plan’ when requested (this removes the plan from the old watch, it doesn’t cancel the plan itself).
2. Pair new watch
3. When the new watch asks if you want to setup cellular, follow the process. If it works, great, if not move to step 4.
4. You’ll be presented with a code to quote when you call EE, call them and explain you’re moving your data plan from one Apple Watch to another. Tell them you’ve removed it from your old watch. They’ll then ask you for your EID number (Watch app on your phone > General > about).
5. that’s it, you may need to wait up to 4 hours for activation but that’s all you need to do.
 
The process I went through today was as follows (and works this way every year).

1. unpair my old watch. Select ‘remove plan’ when requested (this removes the plan from the old watch, it doesn’t cancel the plan itself).
2. Pair new watch
3. When the new watch asks if you want to setup cellular, follow the process. If it works, great, if not move to step 4.
4. You’ll be presented with a code to quote when you call EE, call them and explain you’re moving your data plan from one Apple Watch to another. Tell them you’ve removed it from your old watch. They’ll then ask you for your EID number (Watch app on your phone > General > about).
5. that’s it, you may need to wait up to 4 hours for activation but that’s all you need to do.

same process here. One thing to note that whilst waiting for the plan to activate you will still see the option to add a data plan and underneath that it will show EE under Data Plan but 'Not in use'

That will change once the process completes
 
  • Like
Reactions: fezzzer
The process I went through today was as follows (and works this way every year).

1. unpair my old watch. Select ‘remove plan’ when requested (this removes the plan from the old watch, it doesn’t cancel the plan itself).
2. Pair new watch
3. When the new watch asks if you want to setup cellular, follow the process. If it works, great, if not move to step 4.
4. You’ll be presented with a code to quote when you call EE, call them and explain you’re moving your data plan from one Apple Watch to another. Tell them you’ve removed it from your old watch. They’ll then ask you for your EID number (Watch app on your phone > General > about).
5. that’s it, you may need to wait up to 4 hours for activation but that’s all you need to do.

Thanks for this - I have a new S7 watch coming from EE soon and need to transfer my S4 data plan from old Watch to new. There’s SO much conflicting info on the correct procedure for this but you’ve said above makes the most logical sense!!

Hopefully by following your advice and choosing the ‘Remove’ option will work best.
 
Anytime, a few years of trial and error helped define that little piece of advice :)
Thanks for this - I have a new S7 watch coming from EE soon and need to transfer my S4 data plan from old Watch to new. There’s SO much conflicting info on the correct procedure for this but you’ve said above makes the most logical sense!!

Hopefully by following your advice and choosing the ‘Remove’ option will work best.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dino F
Attempted to migrate the contract on my wife’s watch yesterday and got 003; we’ll be phoning EE to get the process completed on the back end.

I meant to switch off WiFi whilst doing the process - there are credible reasons that this might help (your mobile provider gets more info when you are using their network than over WiFi). I’ll try that when I migrate my own watch, hopefully in the next few days.
 
My watch arrived today, so I tried activating the data plan with Woody turned off - made no difference, still got 003
 
...so is there absolutely no way that this would be automated then ? It would always require a call to EE ?

Only reason I ask is that when I recently upgraded my S4 watch to the S7 with EE, they took my S4's EID details as it was a trade in, so I am wondering if the new S7 watch will come already 'tagged' with my account info..?
 
...so is there absolutely no way that this would be automated then ? It would always require a call to EE ?

Only reason I ask is that when I recently upgraded my S4 watch to the S7 with EE, they took my S4's EID details as it was a trade in, so I am wondering if the new S7 watch will come already 'tagged' with my account info..?
They have to transfer the same to the new EID number and there is no way to do that automatically which is a shame really
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dino F
The process I went through today was as follows (and works this way every year).

1. unpair my old watch. Select ‘remove plan’ when requested (this removes the plan from the old watch, it doesn’t cancel the plan itself).
2. Pair new watch
3. When the new watch asks if you want to setup cellular, follow the process. If it works, great, if not move to step 4.
4. You’ll be presented with a code to quote when you call EE, call them and explain you’re moving your data plan from one Apple Watch to another. Tell them you’ve removed it from your old watch. They’ll then ask you for your EID number (Watch app on your phone > General > about).
5. that’s it, you may need to wait up to 4 hours for activation but that’s all you need to do.

Thanks for this - I have a new S7 watch coming from EE soon and need to transfer my S4 data plan from old Watch to new. There’s SO much conflicting info on the correct procedure for this but you’ve said above makes the most logical sense!!

Hopefully by following your advice and choosing the ‘Remove’ option will work best.


Looking through several EE threads - they're saying to choose the 'Keep Data Plan' option....?!

Another EE thread is saying you have to call EE first on 0800 079 5330 before unpairing your current watch (the old one).
 
Looking through several EE threads - they're saying to choose the 'Keep Data Plan' option....?!

Another EE thread is saying you have to call EE first on 0800 079 5330 before unpairing your current watch (the old one).
I find it amazing that that EE have not published a step by step guide for such a popular product. Even if we always have to call them, it would great to know what their recommended way of doing this would be.
 
I find it amazing that that EE have not published a step by step guide for such a popular product. Even if we always have to call them, it would great to know what their recommended way of doing this would be.
From what people have written here, it doesn’t appear to make any difference whether you keep the plan or not. Keeping it worked OK for me, deleting it worked for others. The important thing is that you call EE when you get the 003 code so that they can download your eSIM to your new watch.

I don’t see why, by now, they couldn’t have just provided a web page where you could submit the new watch’s EID (and IMEI, if necessary) and cut out the need to talk to them.
 
I’ve just finished a call with EE to sort this out for my Watch— their answer was to try removing my old plan and adding a new one; since I am on the £5 tariff and the new one is £7 that is something I object to!

In summary - if you are already paying £7 it’s simple but if you are on the £5 tariff and want to keep that then you have to tell them not to cancel your contract under any circumstances before you do anything else with them!
 
I deleted my old plan when unpairing my series 6, it really doesn't matter, when you try to add plan on your new watch you'll get error 003. I then phoned EE, talked to a very helpful woman who knew exactly what she needed to do, just took my EID, which then showed as a EE plan 'not in use' on my watch, I then went back to add data plan which said wait up to 4 hours and I had a EE plan shown as activating, I rebooted my phone and watch a couple of times and my plan was active.

I wasn't told I had to cancel my plan or add a new one or any of that, I'm still paying the original £5.xx tariff from my series 4 from years ago.

78GJs6N.png
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: danmart
I took the decision to cancel my order for the S7 - simply too much conflicting info on what exactly is the correct procedure to move your number and plan from one watch to another and a headache I just could do without!

I'll be sticking with my S4 until EE pulls their finger out and makes this process automated using an online tool.
 
I took the decision to cancel my order for the S7 - simply too much conflicting info on what exactly is the correct procedure to move your number and plan from one watch to another and a headache I just could do without!

I'll be sticking with my S4 until EE pulls their finger out and makes this process automated using an online tool.

You cancelled the watch because you wouldn’t make a simple phone call? You do you.
 
Just to be clear - this wasn't the only reason.

I don't think EE will automate the process anytime soon :( I genuinely believe the outbound call to EE every year to sort out the watch is the only non-family call I ever make on my iPhone (and I don't call family much either!) not a fan of telephone calls which may be surprising given my love of iPhone and an actual want to have cellular on the watch. Not quite sure why I find it so traumatic, but really wish calling them wasn't a part of the process.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dino F
A year on and you still have to call EE to manually transfer the data plan to your new watch. At least it's a pretty painless process now.

It took around 10 minutes after the call for the data plan to activate and it's working fine now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: D1G1TALR0B0T
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.