Walking Talkie Function Working For You?

[dandrewk]

I know a lot of you don't have an interest in the walkie talkie, but some of us may find it a useful feature. Any former Nextel users here?

Alas, there seems to be issues connecting WT at the rollout. There have been many reports here and elsewhere listing several bugs, most of which are preventing the function from working at all. I'd like to see is this really is a widespread issue and if there is any temporary fix while we wait for iOS 12.1.

Not working for me, at least when trying to connect with my wife's phone. I have a s4 watch with iPhone XS, and she has s2 watch with iPhone 6s. My issue is that I can see and invite my wife, but then I get the message "not available, this only works with contacts that have watches", which she does. The WT app then shows her as "inviting" (NOT "invited"). When she invites me, there is no error message but her watch then shows me as being "inviting" (again, not "invited"). Neither of ever get the invite from each other.

I've deleted the invites from both watches several times and re-invited. I've also rebooted and re-paired the watches. Sometimes at the head of the contact list I see some "suggestions", which should indicate a potential WT "match", but results are the same. I -can- however invite my son, who has an s0 watch. My WT shows him as "InivitED", but of course he will never receive it.

Two things that are needed for any of this to work: FaceTime needs to be on both user's phone, and both user's have to be using their AppleID as "can be reached at" for FaceTime. Also, the AppleID used needs to be unique - no shared AppleIDs if you want WT.

So - does Walkie Talkie work for you?

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Only tested it a couple of times, but it worked as expected. We were in the same house though. This was S4 non-LTE to S4 non-LTE.

 

[gatorknight904]

Yes, I got it working on two S4 LTE models. One was in Texas while the other was in Florida.

Took some time to get the connection set up. Had to send the invite a couple times. Left it alone for a little while then it randomly started working. I’m guessing it took some time for the server to process the request.

Once the connection was made it works like a charm.

It’s pretty useful and I see myself using this feature a lot with family and close friends.

I did activate the touch to talk/stop feature in accessibility on the watch app so I don’t have to hold the screen while talking.

 

[tromboneaholic]

Never got invites to go through. Never received the ones sent to me.

 

[caligurl]

Never got invites to go through. Never received the ones sent to me.

This. I chatted with Apple a bit, but then she wanted to pass me off to a different person... I was done and my pizza was ready (and walkie talkie isn't that important to us... more of a novelty I wanted to try) so I said we'd try back another time.

 

[tromboneaholic]

This. I chatted with Apple a bit, but then she wanted to pass me off to a different person... I was done and my pizza was ready (and walkie talkie isn't that important to us... more of a novelty I wanted to try) so I said we'd try back another time.

Same here. Wanted to try it. Won't use it though.

 

[dandrewk]

Yes, I got it working on two S4 LTE models. One was in Texas while the other was in Florida.

Took some time to get the connection set up. Had to send the invite a couple times. Left it alone for a little while then it randomly started working. I’m guessing it took some time for the server to process the request.

Once the connection was made it works like a charm.

It’s pretty useful and I see myself using this feature a lot with family and close friends.

I did activate the touch to talk/stop feature in accessibility on the watch app so I don’t have to hold the screen while talking.

Interesting. I've read this a few times about how it takes a few hours for invites to go through. But it's been a few days now.

Looks like we may have to wait for 12.01, or .02. I hope not all the way to .1.

 

[tivoboy]

Still can't get it working at all. Have tried both on same network, off network, etc.. always just says "inviting".. never resolves.

 

[oldsos]

Try deleting the contact that keeps saying inviting and send another invite. That is how I got it to work.

 

[Imola Ghost]

It’s not working on my Series R watch nor my wife’s Series 2 watch. Both have been updated to watch iOS5, FaceTime is turned on both iPhones and both phones have their respective Apple ID selected as a contact.

I’ve sent invites, canceled them, resent them numerous time without any luck.

Called Apple support and got a case number. He was,led me through s few things and he couldn’t figure it out. He finally told me to unpair both watches and then pair them back. After getting them back up and running again, I sent another invite to my wife and she still hasn’t gotten the invite nor have I.

Any other ideas?

 

[tivoboy]

Try deleting the contact that keeps saying inviting and send another invite. That is how I got it to work.

Not sure if you are replying to me or others. I've deleted all the contacts several times, doesn't work. Just same thing comes up.

One thing I HAVE noticed though is, trying to add wife. When I look up her contact and add here, it then shows it's trying to INVITE her, AND it seems to be trying to invite ME. It shows MY contact info on MY watch as "inviting". I wonder if that is because for some apps, she is logged into ITUNES (NOT icloud) with my account. She's logged into itunes for both her icloud account AND my itunes account, but in the itunes section only. NOT the icloud login section, that is just HER account. I would have thought that similar to iMessage (and other apps) the iCloud account is the only one that the system looks at - but it is odd that when I add HER to my WT contacts, I see her AND ME listed.

 

[MTShipp]

From me to 1 friend, no problem. From me to another friend, he can hear me but I can’t hear him. I get the notification that he is trying, but I don’t hear him speaking. He has rebooted his watch, his phone, nothing works. He can talk to his Siri so it isn’t a microphone problem.

 

[Robberk]

I got my S4 today, so I gave my S2 to my wife. We tried to do the walkie talkie and got it to work finally. Turned out she deleted the FaceTime app some time back and had to load that back on. However, after that, it worked once and then when we were done talking, you could hear that the speaker was still on or activated on the S2, even though we were not talking to each other. Thought that was weird. Also on my S4, whenever I look at my watch, at the very top where the red dot is, it flashes the WT icon quick. I forced closed the app, so not sure why it shows the icon. Thanks for any help.

 

[xCarbonSteelx]

I have a S4 and gave my S3 to my girlfriend. Works fine for us.

 

[dandrewk]

Not sure if you are replying to me or others. I've deleted all the contacts several times, doesn't work. Just same thing comes up.

One thing I HAVE noticed though is, trying to add wife. When I look up her contact and add here, it then shows it's trying to INVITE her, AND it seems to be trying to invite ME. It shows MY contact info on MY watch as "inviting". I wonder if that is because for some apps, she is logged into ITUNES (NOT icloud) with my account. She's logged into itunes for both her icloud account AND my itunes account, but in the itunes section only. NOT the icloud login section, that is just HER account. I would have thought that similar to iMessage (and other apps) the iCloud account is the only one that the system looks at - but it is odd that when I add HER to my WT contacts, I see her AND ME listed.

Same here. I invite one person, and then I see two or three as "inviting". I think it's because we share the same land line phone and/or address?

Anyway, my wife just got an s4 watch, so I'll see tonight if upgrading from an s2 changes things. Then (if needed), later when she sets up here new iPhones XS, I'll see if -that- makes a difference.

My hunch is we may have to wait for 12.1

 

[tgara]

I have a S4 and gave my S3 to my girlfriend. Works fine for us.

Same with mine and the wife’s S3 models. Works great and beats texting...
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Also on my S4, whenever I look at my watch, at the very top where the red dot is, it flashes the WT icon quick. I forced closed the app, so not sure why it shows the icon. Thanks for any help.

According to the manual that flashing walk-in talkie icon indicates you are available to receive WT communications.

 

[dandrewk]

New watch (s4) arrived along with new XS for wife. After setting both up, problem (as described above) is the same.

I did take my wife's old s2, updated to WatchOS5 and gave it to my son. Walkie Talkie DOES work between his s2 and both my wife's and my s4. When that same s2 was connected to my wife's account, it would -not- work.

There seems to be some issue with communicating between certain accounts, for whatever reason. This does not seem to be hardware related. This may explain why WT works for some, but not others, and even if it DOES work, it may not work for all contacts - regardless of the phone/watch being used.

Clearly, really buggy atm. I wish Apple would fix it soon.

 

[Medicman67]

I had problems setting up my wife’s phone to work correctly. Apple rep got it working. First make sure the contact has area code in the phone number (10) digets. What she had me do was delete face time and reinstall it. Restart both devices and it worked. Good luck.
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Not sure if you are replying to me or others. I've deleted all the contacts several times, doesn't work. Just same thing comes up.

One thing I HAVE noticed though is, trying to add wife. When I look up her contact and add here, it then shows it's trying to INVITE her, AND it seems to be trying to invite ME. It shows MY contact info on MY watch as "inviting". I wonder if that is because for some apps, she is logged into ITUNES (NOT icloud) with my account. She's logged into itunes for both her icloud account AND my itunes account, but in the itunes section only. NOT the icloud login section, that is just HER account. I would have thought that similar to iMessage (and other apps) the iCloud account is the only one that the system looks at - but it is odd that when I add HER to my WT contacts, I see her AND ME listed.

It won’t work if both people use same Apple ID

 

[edhchoe]

Mine only works with my fast home wifi with my wife wearing her watch at home.
Basically, we both have to be connected to super fast wifi.

 

[tivoboy]

I had problems setting up my wife’s phone to work correctly. Apple rep got it working. First make sure the contact has area code in the phone number (10) digets. What she had me do was delete face time and reinstall it. Restart both devices and it worked. Good luck.
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It won’t work if both people use same Apple ID

But, it's only the apple store ID, not the icloud ID that is being logged in to a same device. It seems odd that apple would key on the app store ID and not the Icloud ID (like with imessage, sms forwarding, etc.)

 

[dandrewk]

Finally, success! It's not that this is such a critical feature, but dammit it should work, and I can get possessed. Anyway, here is my roadmap to getting Walkie Talkie to finally work for all contacts. YMMV.

It is best if both you and your contact(s) perform the steps, but it may be required only for your phone.

• Remove any/all outstanding invites that aren't getting through
• Delete the FaceTime app from phone
• Force quit both phone and watch
• Both phone and watch should reboot

Note - at this point, I noticed my watch still had the Walkie Talkie app. As this is a companion app for FaceTime, it should NOT have been there at this point. My solution was to unpair/re-pair the watch. This fixed it.

• Download and reinstall FaceTime app on phone
• Go to phone settings and check to see if your -AppleID- is being used under "you can be reached by FaceTime at", AND that this AppleID is -not- shared by anybody else

Hopefully, it should work at this point.

Also hopefully, let's hope a future OS update will make this all unnecessary.