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How To Get The Watch On WiFi

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bothfly737

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 25, 2014
36
0
So I have a Airport Extreme, and I'm pretty sure my Apple Watch is NOT connecting to WiFi in my house.
Anyone with a Airport Extreme that has got the watch to connect want to share the steps to get this to work.
My watch looses connection to my phone when I'm out of BT range, so I have a lot of WiFi coverage at my house and would like to get the watch on the network.
Thanks
 
bothfly737 said:
So I have a Airport Extreme, and I'm pretty sure my Apple Watch is NOT connecting to WiFi in my house.
Anyone with a Airport Extreme that has got the watch to connect want to share the steps to get this to work.
My watch looses connection to my phone when I'm out of BT range, so I have a lot of WiFi coverage at my house and would like to get the watch on the network.
Thanks
Click to expand...

There are no steps or procedures to this. The Watch is supposed to use known Wifi hotspots on it's own. I'm assuming your iphone is also connected to your Airport Extreme?
 
Armen said:
There are no steps or procedures to this. The Watch is supposed to use known Wifi hotspots on it's own. I'm assuming your iphone is also connected to your Airport Extreme?
Click to expand...

Yes, I've got the iPhone 6 Plus connected and like I said I'm pretty sure the Watch is not connected
 
bothfly737 said:
Yes, I've got the iPhone 6 Plus connected and like I said I'm pretty sure the Watch is not connected
Click to expand...

From what I remember you should be able to use iMessage and get incoming notifications but not make phone calls. What is and isn't working for you?
 
Armen said:
From what I remember you should be able to use iMessage and get incoming notifications but not make phone calls. What is and isn't working for you?
Click to expand...

The phone calls are not working when I'm out of range.
I think it might have to do with my Dual Band AE.
The Watch does not use 5GHZ, so I bet my iPhone is connecting to the network in 5GHZ and the watch is not. Since there is no way to turn off the 5GHZ on the AE I could rename the 5GHZ band and then force the iPhone to connect to the 2.4GHZ band and see if the Watch jumps on then.
 
bothfly737 said:
So I have a Airport Extreme, and I'm pretty sure my Apple Watch is NOT connecting to WiFi in my house.
Anyone with a Airport Extreme that has got the watch to connect want to share the steps to get this to work.
My watch looses connection to my phone when I'm out of BT range, so I have a lot of WiFi coverage at my house and would like to get the watch on the network.
Thanks
Click to expand...

The watch only connects to 802.11b/g networks, so make sure your phone knows the name/password for your b/g access point. Better yet, use the Airport configuration software to give your b/g network and n (or n/ac) networks the same name.

Some people have had success removing the wifi network from the phone ("forget" option) and re-adding it.

The watch will only hop on the network when a BT connection is unavailable from your phone, so don't look for the watch's MAC address to always be connected (at least this is what I've noticed with my own experimentation).
 
how does the watch connect to wifi with passwords ?
do you enter the data ?
I thought it just takes it from the iphone (i.e. the iphone programs the wifi on the watch)
 
SLOVED!!
So I enabled my 5GHZ Network with the exact same name as the 2.4GHZ.
Forgot the network on the iPhone and re added it and that worked.
I just went way outside in the backyard where I know I have WiFi but more than 100 feet from where my iPhone was and tested a call and it rang on the watch!!
 
bothfly737 said:
So I CHECKED it and named it the same same as the Wireless Network Name.
Click to expand...
You should have different names for your 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks. Otherwise you can't tell them apart at a glance, and the only way you'll know which is which is if your 2.4GHz network gives you cruddy performance (for example due to neighbors using wifi, or microwave oven interference and so on.) :p
 
Weird, I have the same SSID for 2.4 and 5GHz, but the watch doesn't get on wifi at all. I also don't see it on the list of connected devices in Airport Util.

Do I need to have bluetooth headphones connected to the watch for it to ring?
 
Lennyvalentin said:
You should have different names for your 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks. Otherwise you can't tell them apart at a glance, and the only way you'll know which is which is if your 2.4GHz network gives you cruddy performance (for example due to neighbors using wifi, or microwave oven interference and so on.) :p
Click to expand...

I agree, I could name the 5GHz different then force the iPhone on to the 2.4 and that way I know it there.
What I'm not sure about is if I have both named the same, I assume the iPhone will jump to either the 5 or 2.4 band depending which has a better signal and since the watch can only use the 2.4. I wonder if the watch will drop off wifi when the iPhone get on the 5ghz band.
 
bothfly737 said:
What I'm not sure about is if I have both named the same, I assume the iPhone will jump to either the 5 or 2.4 band depending which has a better signal
Click to expand...
Nah, it doesn't seem to have any specific rules at all from my anecdotal experiences. When I had both 2.4 and 5 bands stored in my keyring, my iThings and Macbook seemed to pick and choose more or less randomly whenever I came home and they reconnected, even though I'd previously manually set them to specifically use the 5GHz network, even maybe preferring 2.4, even though at my place it gives much, much worse performance due to a ton of surrounding networks.

On my 200Mbit/s cable connection, I'd be lucky to get more than say 15Mbit/s on 2.4; 5GHz band manages 150, 160Mbit/s between my time capsule and 2011 13" Macbook Pro (both support triple stream 802.11n wifi over 5GHz.)

So to fix this I deleted the 2.4GHz network, and after that all my stuff always picks 5GHz band. Of course, the watch won't be able to use this (once I actually manage to buy a watch that is), but my place is tiny so bluetooth will suffice, and I typically takes off my watch when I get home anyway.

and since the watch can only use the 2.4. I wonder if the watch will drop off wifi when the iPhone get on the 5ghz band.
Click to expand...
Well, only experience can teach us that! Do an experiment and report back on what happens! :D
 
Lennyvalentin said:
Nah, it doesn't seem to have any specific rules at all from my anecdotal experiences. When I had both 2.4 and 5 bands stored in my keyring, my iThings and Macbook seemed to pick and choose more or less randomly whenever I came home and they reconnected, even though I'd previously manually set them to specifically use the 5GHz network, even maybe preferring 2.4, even though at my place it gives much, much worse performance due to a ton of surrounding networks.

On my 200Mbit/s cable connection, I'd be lucky to get more than say 15Mbit/s on 2.4; 5GHz band manages 150, 160Mbit/s between my time capsule and 2011 13" Macbook Pro (both support triple stream 802.11n wifi over 5GHz.)

So to fix this I deleted the 2.4GHz network, and after that all my stuff always picks 5GHz band. Of course, the watch won't be able to use this (once I actually manage to buy a watch that is), but my place is tiny so bluetooth will suffice, and I typically takes off my watch when I get home anyway.


Well, only experience can teach us that! Do an experiment and report back on what happens! :D
Click to expand...

The AE will not allow you to delete the 2.4, you can rename the 5GHz and then tell your phone to connect to the 2.4 only

----------
a.y.n said:
Weird, I have the same SSID for 2.4 and 5GHz, but the watch doesn't get on wifi at all. I also don't see it on the list of connected devices in Airport Util.

Do I need to have bluetooth headphones connected to the watch for it to ring?
Click to expand...

I think your Watch won't show up on the WiFi list unless you force it to get on WiFi by either turning off BT on your iPhone or taking the watch out of BT range. If you checked your client list while your watch is near your phone then the watch should be on BT and not WiFi.
Right now my watch is right next to my phone so it doesn't show up on the wifi list at the moment.

----------
a.y.n said:
Weird, I have the same SSID for 2.4 and 5GHz, but the watch doesn't get on wifi at all. I also don't see it on the list of connected devices in Airport Util.

Do I need to have bluetooth headphones connected to the watch for it to ring?
Click to expand...

Quoted the wrong guy.

I think your Watch won't show up on the WiFi list unless you force it to get on WiFi by either turning off BT on your iPhone or taking the watch out of BT range. If you checked your client list while your watch is near your phone then the watch should be on BT and not WiFi.
Right now my watch is right next to my phone so it doesn't show up on the wifi list at the moment.
 
bothfly737 said:
The AE will not allow you to delete the 2.4, you can rename the 5GHz and then tell your phone to connect to the 2.4 only
Click to expand...
You can delete the network from the keyring (like I said) just fine, then your devices can't connect to it anymore (since they don't know about it).

You can't delete it from the time capsule, which is kind of weird, but I have other devices which can only use 2.4, so it's not something I want to do anyway, heh. :)
 
bothfly737 said:
I think your Watch won't show up on the WiFi list unless you force it to get on WiFi by either turning off BT on your iPhone or taking the watch out of BT range. If you checked your client list while your watch is near your phone then the watch should be on BT and not WiFi.
Right now my watch is right next to my phone so it doesn't show up on the wifi list at the moment.
Click to expand...

Ya, I turned off BT, ⌚️ doesn't ring when it received calls, and I don't see it on the list of devices on wifi at the AEBS.
 
A number of people have found that they need to delete and re-add their wifi networks on the iPhone for the watch to pick them up.

Bug...I'm sure it'll be fixed in an upcoming release.
 
OP instructions worked for me like a charm. When you turn off the BT on your phone you have to wait a minute or so for the watch to reconnect to WiFi. It works though, and I took a call!
 
Here is more info.
So it seems that when the watch is connected to the phone via BT it takes a while for it to get on WiFi when out of BT range.
For example I walked outside and tried to make a call from the watch to the house phone I was holding. The call failed.
So I went back to the iPhone and turned OFF BT. Tested a call to the watch and again it rang, so I knew it was now on WiFi.
Then walked outside again and called the house, this time it went right through.
Did a Text message to myself and it went out and came right back to the watch.
Sooo
I think if you get this working and your going to be home in your WiFi network then I would turn OFF BT while your in WiFi that way your watch will stay on WiFi and not keep switching back to BT.
You will just need to remember to turn BT back on when you leave.
But this seems to work great and extend the range of the watch.
 
The wifi thing is definitely working for me. I turned BT off on my watch this morning to test something, got distracted and forgot to turn it back on. Just noticed 9 hours later, but my watch continued working as normal. I've been all over the house while my phone stayed in one room all day.

I see my wifi address on my watch under settings > general > about
 
Weird, I just turned off BT again, and now the ⌚️ is definitely on the wifi, I see it in Airport Util and everything. Wasn't working before, maybe it does take a few minutes for it to connect after losing BT.
 
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