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Unlock with Apple Watch not working

adam9c1

adam9c1

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 2, 2012
1,893
315
Chicagoland
I have a cMP with 10.14 and updated AC Wi-Fi BT low energy. AirDrop and handoff worked fine is High Sierra.

Tried to setup unlock with the watch and unable. I can turn on the feature and System Preferences thinks and thinks and errors out.
 
chabig said:
Apple Watch unlock is only supported on Mid-2013 or newer Macs.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206995
Click to expand...

lol...you will have to tell that to the S2 and S3 I have been using to unlock a 2009 Mac Pro for 2 years.

I had this happen a few weeks ago - I was one of the lucky people whose Apple ID was "locked for security reasons." Out of an abundance of caution I did the nuclear option to "sign off all devices" but it was a &%$# of a time to get everything logged back into the new ID and part of the collateral damage was that watch unlock didn't work no matter what I tried. I tried all the easy stuff - rebooting all devices, checking and unchecking the box, etc. In the end I had to unpair and repair the watch (S3 running latest OS) with the phone (7 running latest OS). Bad news - that was a pain too. Good news - it worked.
 
It works fine for me... Apple Watch S3..

When setting it up, your iPhone has to be nearby, connected, and unlocked. Otherwise it will timeout during activation and report that it could not communicate with your watch.
 
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flehman said:
I was one of the lucky people whose Apple ID was "locked for security reasons."
Click to expand...
I get those too. You know now that that was a phishing attack, right? It was not from Apple--they don't do that. In the future, just delete those emails without clicking on any links.
Screen Shot 2018-12-11 at 8.58.28 PM.png


Anyway, I have no further advise on the Watch unlock. Apple's support document says it shouldn't work for you. If it did, I guess that was just a bonus. Perhaps they need to update that document.
 
This is the card I have, perhaps it's not compatible?

Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x14A)

Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.61.1 AirPortDriverBrcmNIC-1305.2)





Apple Bluetooth Software Version: 6.0.9f2

Bluetooth Low Energy Supported: Yes

Handoff Supported: Yes

Instant Hot Spot Supported: Yes

Manufacturer: Broadcom

Transport: USB

Chipset: 20703A1

Firmware Version: v166 c4820

Bluetooth Power: On

Discoverable: Off

Connectable: Yes

Auto Seek Pointing: On

Remote wake: On

Vendor ID: 0x05AC

Product ID: 0x8294

HCI Version: 4.2 (0x8)

HCI Revision: 0x12D4

LMP Version: 4.2 (0x8)

LMP Subversion: 0x21A6

Device Type (Major): Computer

Device Type (Complete): Mac Desktop

Composite Class Of Device: 0x380104

Device Class (Major): 0x01

Device Class (Minor): 0x01

Service Class: 0x1C0

Auto Seek Keyboard: On
 
I didn’t receive an email about my Apple ID. It was an iOS notification that I verified by manually going into Settings where there was an alert. Not the main point of this thread though.

RE: Apple Watch unlocking, have you even read the WiFi/BT thread? If we just read the Apple Support info and called it a day then ⅔ of the threads in this forum wouldn’t exist. Apple Watch unlock doesn’t work because it’s a fluke or because I’m lucky; it works because of years of effort and discussion by people in this community who discovered wiring up iMac WiFi/BT cards into their Mac Pros to enable Continuity/Handoff and everything else it entails. Apple Support may not acknowledge it but it’s success is WELL established at this point.
 
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For me continuity and hand off worked without any mods in High Sierra thus I honestly did not know what if anything was needed for the Apple Watch to unlock.

I have followed the link and on the last post had few commands to run.

I’m able to unlock.
Now need to swap video cards again and enable SIP.

This is great.

Question: what happens if you are next to several machines...?
 
I have booted up with a with a ATI 5770
reenabled SIP
restarted

Now the computer attempts to unlock with the watch but falls back to the keyboard entry.
 
adam9c1 said:
I have booted up with a with a ATI 5770
reenabled SIP
restarted

Now the computer attempts to unlock with the watch but falls back to the keyboard entry.
Click to expand...


This is what I have happen as well. It clearly tries to use the watch, but 10 or 15 seconds later it fails and kicks over to the PW entry box. Did you ever find a solution?
 
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