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Scared the hell out of Apple employee in shop - Wifi Calls

M

Mic2904

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 22, 2011
516
118
Hi,

just been to the shop to get my Apple care and do an Apple Watch Basic session.

All was good, up to the point when they tried to call me with their calls. The watch would not present the calls, no matter what the settings were. They tried everything for about 15 minutes.... no luck.

One guru came along and asked if I have Wifi Calls enabled, which I have. He asked me to switch this off and all of a sudden it worked. The Apple employee took a deep breath and was happy we got it to work.

However, bit of a bummer that I can not use Wifi Calls when its offered by the network provider. The calls would not be passed through.

Didnt know that at all, tuens out the employee neither...

Apart from that: Love it :)
 
Mic2904 said:
Hi,

just been to the shop to get my Apple care and do an Apple Watch Basic session.

All was good, up to the point when they tried to call me with their calls. The watch would not present the calls, no matter what the settings were. They tried everything for about 15 minutes.... no luck.

One guru came along and asked if I have Wifi Calls enabled, which I have. He asked me to switch this off and all of a sudden it worked. The Apple employee took a deep breath and was happy we got it to work.

However, bit of a bummer that I can not use Wifi Calls when its offered by the network provider. The calls would not be passed through.

Didnt know that at all, tuens out the employee neither...

Apart from that: Love it :)
Click to expand...

Seriously!? It can't do wifi calling?
Another reason I'm starting to wonder if I should cancel my order and wait for v2
 
joshcls said:
Seriously!? It can't do wifi calling?
Another reason I'm starting to wonder if I should cancel my order and wait for v2
Click to expand...

I believe the OP is referring to their carriers 'Wifi Calling' feature which allows cellular calls to be placed using the local WiFi connection. When this is enabled the continuity based wifi calling is disabled automatically so calls cannot be made on a Mac or :apple: Watch using an iPhone's cellular connection over Wifi.

I'm confused even explaining this. These features and their names are confusing.
 
LewisChapman said:
I believe the OP is referring to their carriers 'Wifi Calling' feature which allows cellular calls to be placed using the local WiFi connection. When this is enabled the continuity based wifi calling is disabled automatically so calls cannot be made on a Mac or :apple: Watch using an iPhone's cellular connection over Wifi.

I'm confused even explaining this. These features and their names are confusing.
Click to expand...

I'm well aware of what Wifi calling is :)
 
LewisChapman said:
I believe the OP is referring to their carriers 'Wifi Calling' feature which allows cellular calls to be placed using the local WiFi connection. When this is enabled the continuity based wifi calling is disabled automatically so calls cannot be made on a Mac or :apple: Watch using an iPhone's cellular connection over Wifi.

I'm confused even explaining this. These features and their names are confusing.
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what I meant :D
 
LewisChapman said:
Then why did you think it would be able to do Wifi Calling when it cannot even make a cellular-based call?

I don't understand your comment.
Click to expand...

Because it should be able to take phone calls from your phone by using wifi to connect the watch to your phone.

Emails and phone calls do not work when the watch is not within the 30 feet bluetooth range, not including walls.
 
LewisChapman said:
Then why did you think it would be able to do Wifi Calling when it cannot even make a cellular-based call?

I don't understand your comment.
Click to expand...

I guess I didn't realize that the Watch used Apple's continuity features to handle phone calls, and since it was originating from the phone, that it would still be able to.


My impression was that it was an extension of the phone, and could in theory handle the same calling that the phone could.
 
joshcls said:
I guess I didn't realize that the Watch used Apple's continuity features to handle phone calls, and since it was originating from the phone, that it would still be able to.


My impression was that it was an extension of the phone, and could in theory handle the same calling that the phone could.
Click to expand...

I can see what you mean. In the UK, EE offer Wifi calling and they kept delaying the release. When it finally came out and everybody was looking forward to using it, it was soon discovered that this feature disabled some Handoff capabilities which is really disappointing.

I guess this means that when you are in a signal-weak area but you have Wifi, you would enable Wifi calling which would effectively disable your watch.
 
Kent01 said:
Because it should be able to take phone calls from your phone by using wifi to connect the watch to your phone.

Emails and phone calls do not work when the watch is not within the 30 feet bluetooth range, not including walls.
Click to expand...

I'm not too sure how this is relevant. It was always evident that bluetooth would be the main method of communication between phone and watch. There seems to be some grey area though as users are reportedly receiving calls using a WiFi connection.

This thread discusses this as well as this page from the :apple:Watch manual.
 
Kind of annoying that WiFi calling disables handoff.

Does anyone know the technical reason behind it? WiFi calling was one of the reasons I picked an iPhone 6 on my particular network, but I've found being able to take calls on my other devices to be far more useful.
 
Tsuchiya said:
Kind of annoying that WiFi calling disables handoff.

Does anyone know the technical reason behind it? WiFi calling was one of the reasons I picked an iPhone 6 on my particular network, but I've found being able to take calls on my other devices to be far more useful.
Click to expand...

I completely agree.
 
There is a warning that pops up about this when enabling Wifi calling the first time. But why can't the watch just act like a BT headset in this case??
 
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