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Unlock with apple Watch

dbrewood

dbrewood

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 8, 2018
691
232
Manchester, UK
Okay a mystery for you to solve..... I have a Series 5 Apple watch and a Mac Mini running Catalina. The watch has been set to unlock the Mac when needed. This stopped working.
I've gone through the various fixes including turning the unlock function off, rebooting the Mac (and watch), turning it back on. Restoring the watch from a backup, and rebuilding it from scratch. No fix. The only fix that works is: log out of the iCloud account on the Mac, restart the Mac, restart Apple Watch. Login to iCloud on Mac. Then turn it on the unlock. The problem is this only last for 2-3 days then it stops working again. This driving me insane! So anybody have any ideas of how to fix it permanently? I'm close to wiping the entire Mac and rebuilding it from scratch.
 
Progress made. The iPhone was connected to the 5GHz network whereas the Mac was connected to the 2.4Ghz network. I forced the iPhone on to the same network and re-turned on unlock with Apple Watch and it unlocked! Now to plug back in the ethernet...... yep still unlocked.
 
Hello, I think that is the normal behaviour. I have the mac mini connected via ethernet cable so I don't need WiFi, but if I disconnect it, I get a warning that I need to be connected to the same WiFi of my phone/watch in order to get the unlock working with the watch
 
Your watch was connected to 2,4Ghz and the Phone to the 5Ghz? I don't remember when I configured my watch if I could change the network, I think it was taken from the Phone... Anyways, in my opinion, all your devices (Phone, Watch and Mac) should be connected to the same WiFi band and all of them are 5Ghz capable, so connect all your devices to 5Ghz band and all will be work fine
 
The watch I think initially does/did take the WiFi choice from the phone, but the phone had obviously ignored the setting to not automatically join the 5Ghz network. I can't use the 5Ghz alas on all devices as the Eve smart Bulb's we use in a number of lamps will only connect to 2.4GHz networks and therefore the Home Hub's (HomePod & iPad Pro) have to be on that same 2.4Ghz network.
 
None of the Apple Watches support 5 GHz. They're 2.4 GHz only, maybe something to do with the lack of antenna room inside the tiny case.

I also found Unlock-with-Watch unreliable when I tried it back on Mojave. Haven't had it enabled since then.
 
This is curious for me. In my case it's working with no issues. I checked it and my watch is not connected to 2,4Ghz band but it's true that it can't see the 5Ghz band either, so I guess that it's connecting trough the iPhone WiFi wich it's connected to the 5Ghz band, the same that Mac Mini is connected to.
I don't know if the watch use bluetooth or WiFi to unlock the Mac, I thought it was using both of them but now I'm not sure...
 
Watch 5 series, same as yours. I checked it out and the Mac doesn't need to be on any WiFi network to get unlocked by the Watch, but it need to have the WiFi turned on. I guess it's due because the bluetooth and wifi would share the same internal card like most of the laptops do.
In addition, my watch is not connected directly to any WiFi, I checked it out with my router connections table so i assume it's sharing the iphone connection. If I disconnect the iPhone of the WiFi, the unlocking from the Watch still working, so the Mac an iPhone WiFi network has nothing to do a part of have to be turned on on the Mac side.

If it's not working stable for you, I think that is what frou says, it could be a bluetooth range problem, there are a lot of posts about that, but in my case it's working fine about 99% of the cases, although it's true that sometimes (very very rarely) fails too.
 
Thanks for the further reply. I've tested here again and it definitely fails if I use the 5Ghz network and works if I use the 2.4Ghz net. Bluetooth range is not an issue the Mac, phone & watch are all within 3 feet of one another.
I do think the Mac Mini has Bluetooth issues though as my Magic Trackpad 2 constantly disconnects so that I ten to use it plugged in most of the time. Strangely enough the Magic Keyboard has no such issues.
 
I think Apple's use of Bluetooth has some kind of physical distance estimation that's distinct from the normal Bluetooth concept of being in-range.

This can be seen in action when opening the AirPods case right up close to the iPhone, and the 3D charge level graphic appears. If the AirPods case is opened when even a hands length away from the iPhone, the graphic doesn't appear.
 
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I don't think the wireless network has any effect on Apple Watch unlock. I have my Mac mini connected via ethernet and Apple Watch unlock works great for me.
 
As you can see my Mac prompts me as follows:

1591609252770.png
 
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