Yes, that is the impression I got from the quote on the website.
Quite possibly. The worrying thing is from the site it says you have to be in the purchasing country to activate the ECG function... I wouldn't mind another trip to Australia but expensive way just to activate it!
So basically then your stuffed? Unless you go to Oz and activate it there. But then of course there is no guarantee it will keep working long term over here when you’re back.
Good work on getting the response on twitter- at least we have some hope that when it is released in Oz we can activate in the UK. Not a big deal for me as I would rarely use it, but it's more that I don't want it to affect resale when the AW5 is released!
Same here. Bought in Italy. Trying to activate without success in an unsupported country.
You do need to get back to the UK (or any other supported country). Along with the update, Apple included a new location check via the carrier to be performed when you set up ECG for the first time. That's why you still get the region not supported error while in the Maldives (but once you set up the app while back in the UK you won't lose it again when you travel outside again afterwards). Apple no longer allows to set up ECG for the first time while located outside the supported countries, which it did before (that's how I got ECG here in Mexico last December after buying a US series 4).
That is correct. You won't need to travel back to where you bought the watch to activate ECG, but you still will need to be located in a supported country.
Once ECG is available in the UK you can activate it in any other supported country too.
I can confirm he’s not entirely right: you do have to be in a supported country (any, not necessarily the same where the watch was purchased) to ACTIVATE ECG the first time you try to use it, but once it’s been activated it will remain functional regardless of physical location (i.e., once the ECG app has been activated in a supported region you will continue to be able to use it even when you travel to an unsupported region). And that location verification (checking the location via the wireless carrier during first time ECG setup) was a change only implemented with the iOS 12.2 and watchOS 5.2 software updates. Before those updates, users were still able to activate ECG with no problem regardless of physical location as long as the watch was purchased in the US (only supported region at first). Like myself. I had my apple watch series 4 brought over from the the US to Mexico last December, activated it here in Mexico and have been using ECG since then without ever having been to the US or any other supported country with it during all this time. And my ECG app and irregular rhythm notification weren’t even deactivated upon updating to iOS 12.2 and watchOS 5.2 either, which I was afraid could happen, so clearly the new location check via carrier introduced in the latest updates is only performed during the first time setup of ECG, rather than it being a constant check.
Thank you thats actually quite informative. Do you know if there is a way to disable the location check. I was thinking blocking gps and removing SIM while dialling in via VPN hoping they would have some sort of a layered approach to location verification. Thoughts?
Well according to an article on 9to5mac someone already tried to set up ECG using a paired iphone without a SIM in it; he wasn’t allowed to set it up and got an error saying that a SIM is required. That being the case, it means the location is checked through the carrier not using GPS, and if so I doubt disabling the gps and/or using a VPN would make any difference at all. Here’s the error and the article. https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/11/ios-12-2-nasty-surprise-for-ecg-users/
