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Taking calls only works 50% of the time

iBlazed

iBlazed

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 27, 2014
1,594
1,249
New Jersey, United States
This has become increasingly annoying. As if its not bad enough the call volume is too low, about half the time I try to accept a quick call on my watch just to tell the person I'll call them back it doesn't go through. It says connecting for about 5 seconds and then says call failed. Of course, it always happens at the moments where it would be very convenient for me to answer a call on my watch. Anyone else?
 
I've only taken about a dozen short calls in the 3+ weeks I've had the watch and haven't had a problem other than sometimes I have to hit the answer button a couple of times before it answers.
 
There's an update for the watch v1.01. You might also want to reboot your watch by holding the crown and button at the same time for 10 seconds or whenever the :apple: pops up.

iBlazed said:
This has become increasingly annoying. As if its not bad enough the call volume is too low, about half the time I try to accept a quick call on my watch just to tell the person I'll call them back it doesn't go through. It says connecting for about 5 seconds and then says call failed. Of course, it always happens at the moments where it would be very convenient for me to answer a call on my watch. Anyone else?
Click to expand...
 
pragmatous said:
There's an update for the watch v1.01. You might also want to reboot your watch by holding the crown and button at the same time for 10 seconds or whenever the :apple: pops up.
Click to expand...

Did both of those yesterday. Did a soft restart today. Happens sometimes when taking a call on a Mac or iPad as well.
 
That is really weird. I'd call apple maybe they've seen that before and know of a fix. Maybe it's the carrier? Who do you have? Sprint?

iBlazed said:
Did both of those yesterday. Did a soft restart today. Happens sometimes when taking a call on a Mac or iPad as well.
Click to expand...
 
With ATT its probably ATTs fault. I swear they are quickly becoming the worst cell phone carrier in the US.
 
AdonisSMU said:
With ATT its probably ATTs fault. I swear they are quickly becoming the worst cell phone carrier in the US.
Click to expand...

Not really. I have incredible service here in Jersey. Would never consider switching to the abusive ex-husband that is Verizon, no matter how good the sex was. And t-mobile and sprint are crap here.
 
iBlazed said:
Not really. I have incredible service here in Jersey. Would never consider switching to the abusive ex-husband that is Verizon, no matter how good the sex was. And t-mobile and sprint are crap here.
Click to expand...

Tmobile works great in nj. My friend p and I compare speeds all over ny and nj and his tmobile iphone speed is an order of magnitude faster than my Att Iphone. Not to mention it holds the calls better when we are not in a big city. It doesnt matter where we go its the same story in every place. Atts service has gotten so bad Ive had to complain to ATT on multiple occasions. I pay my bill on time and im paying $260/month.
 
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I have sprint and aside from not getting 4G (in a college town of about 100,000), and having spotty reception - I've never had a call from handoff drop off.
 
AdonisSMU said:
With ATT its probably ATTs fault. I swear they are quickly becoming the worst cell phone carrier in the US.
Click to expand...

That's an absurd generalization. Many of my friends have Verizon in many different areas and have dropped calls all the time. ATT is rock solid for me. I guess from this I could conclude that ATT is the best and Verizon is the worst. But that would also be absurd.
 
No problems answering calls so far...

It took me a minute... But, I actually am appreciative of the low volume when answering calls. It forces appropriate behavior. If I'm at home, on my back porch, with my iPhone inside, I can take a call on my Watch... In public? Never ever. I'm kinda grateful we don't have to have Apple Watch users labeled as douchebags for constantly taking calls in public.
 
Tycho24 said:
It took me a minute... But, I actually am appreciative of the low volume when answering calls. It forces appropriate behavior. If I'm at home, on my back porch, with my iPhone inside, I can take a call on my Watch... In public? Never ever. I'm kinda grateful we don't have to have Apple Watch users labeled as douchebags for constantly taking calls in public.
Click to expand...

Yeah but honestly it's too quiet to even use in my quiet house. I can barely hear it. It sounds like if you turn your iphone volume all the way up and hold it away from you.
 
FaceTime was about the same when it first came out. Now it's muuuuuch better. I think that's mostly a software thing that can be fixed over time. If there was any rush to fix software, I'm guessing the phone calls were at the bottom of the list since most people aren't "OOH, I can make a call from my wrist!" Neat feature, but I think it's more of a convenience thing just in case you can't pick up your phone. I love to use my Beats headphones to get insanely better call quality, so the itty bitty speaker on that thing -- especially after listening to speakerphone calls on my iPhone -- isn't really making me drool.
 
iBlazed said:
This has become increasingly annoying. As if its not bad enough the call volume is too low, about half the time I try to accept a quick call on my watch just to tell the person I'll call them back it doesn't go through. It says connecting for about 5 seconds and then says call failed. Of course, it always happens at the moments where it would be very convenient for me to answer a call on my watch. Anyone else?
Click to expand...

Unpair and Pair your watch again. This should correct the problem. You can also do a hard reset if that doesn't work
 
I didn't see this asked. Are you in bluetooth or wifi range when this happens? (if you're in bluetooth range, we can eliminate your WAP from suspicion).

If BT, the re-pairing is certainly the most logical first step.

For those with really old WAP's (that don't support 802.11n), you may want to upgrade to a new one if you're planning on using watch over wifi as you're moving about your house (and possibly outside).
 
bbeagle said:
Same here. In 2 days with the watch, I've taken 6 calls, and made 2 outgoing calls. All have worked - 100%. The person on the other end said the voice quality wasn't very good, but the calls worked.
Click to expand...

I asked my wife how I sounded one day--she said it just sounded like she was on speakerphone.

We're both kind of spoiled because the quality on FaceTime Audio as well as voice over LTE on Verizon is good enough where it almost sounds like you're in the same room, but the Watch call audio seems to be "good enough" in my experience.
 
BillyTrimble said:
That's an absurd generalization. Many of my friends have Verizon in many different areas and have dropped calls all the time. ATT is rock solid for me. I guess from this I could conclude that ATT is the best and Verizon is the worst. But that would also be absurd.
Click to expand...

ATT has the 3rd worst service rating of all of there carriers. That doesn't happen because the service is great no matter how you try to spin it. That's years of lousy service. You don't get that reputation because a few people had a few dropped calls. :confused:

You have to work hard at failure to earn the reputation AT&T has.

link

VZN clearly has the fastest network when compared in real world usage tests according to CNET 08/2014

Phonearena

T-Mobile is the fastest LTE according to Phonearena's tests as of 12/2014.

VZN has the best coverage and AT&T falls somewhere in between. AT&T used to have the fastest data with almost as much coverage as VZN. Now it's losing to TMobile in LTE speed and they don't seem to be doing anything to improve the network in areas where there are tons of paying customers.
 
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I haven't had any issues with calls on the watch (besides wishing the volume was louder), so I hope the repairing works out for you. I have vzw if that actually matters. HD voice definitely does not carry over to the tiny watch speaker! ;)
 
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