Watch text messaging working despite leaving phone at home!

[GreyMattR]

When I got to work today I realised I'd left my iPhone at home.

So I was very surprised to receive an SMS text message (not an iMessage) on my Apple watch.
And, I then replied.

In the left-most of the "glances" (that contains the flight-mode, do-not-disturb and silent mode toggle switches) it has the green "Connected" text, and to the right an iCloud icon.

How cool!

Nb. I have "known" wifi networks at work and home.

 

[naasrd]

Sweet! Great to know. I knew it hooked up to wifi but that it could still receive an sms when away from the phone is pretty impressive.

 

[Gav2k]

Yep it's great

 

[exxxviii]

So I was very surprised to receive an SMS text message (not an iMessage) on my Apple watch.
And, I then replied.

Want to know what else is super-cool? If you are on T-Mobile (or another carrier that fully supports WiFi calling), you could make and receive phone calls on your watch also.

 

[davygee]

That is pretty cool.

 

[rigormortis]

several things to mention are

1) tmobile suports wifi calling , sprint also. so if you leave your phone at home or powered off, the watch still works
2) the iPhone gives the apple watch all the wifi passwords it has via bluetooth, and tells the watch your on your own buddy. this means the watch can now connect to wifi networks that the iPhone / i cloud knows about
3) the cloud icon means the watch is connected to iCloud via a known wifi network
4) some stuff won't work, like voice dictation when it is in cloud mode
5) you cant tell the watch to connect to a wifi network manually. if it knows of one the you connected to previously, using the iphone, it can now connect to it


i think each time the watch connects to the iPhone, or each time the watch is turned on, the phone gives it all its wifi passwords

 

[rigormortis]

if you take an iPhone and connect it to wifi, the password is given to the watch
if you forget the wifi network in the iPhone, the password lives on in the watch
if you reboot the watch, the password is lost
if you turn off bluetooth on the iPhone and connect it to wifi, the watch connect to wifi until you turn bluetooth back on the iPhone.

 

[douglasf13]

I have ATT WiFi calling turned on, but I can't make calls on my watch when my phone is turned off.

 

[GreyMattR]

Want to know what else is super-cool? If you are on T-Mobile (or another carrier that fully supports WiFi calling), you could make and receive phone calls on your watch also.

I can't reproduce the WiFi calling using my watch when my phone's at home (or switched off :-( )

 

[exxxviii]

The full wifi calling option may not be fully turned on. Here is a post with a screen shot of he settings when you have it right.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/att-wifi-calling-on-watch-without-iphone.1929277/#post-22106824