Q: Bluetooth Interference - Apple Watch and iPhone 6

I posted this on the Apple Watch Hardware board as well:
There seems to be conflicts with the Apple Watch, iPhone6 Bluetooth and car connectivity.  The iPhone is the hub that Bluetooth goes through for both the watch and the car, the watch itself is not pairing to the car.  I have an iPhone 6 Plus that has no problem connecting to my Toyota RAV4 EV audio and phone system via Bluetooth.  I recently paired an Apple Watch to the phone, and all was well until the next time I got into my car.  The automobile Bluetooth would no longer automatically pair with the phone, and when I forced a connection, the result was that my watch would no longer receive calls.  I left it alone, and a few days later I realized that my watch had ceased other operations as well: it would no longer charge with the provided dock, and sending taps, heartbeats and on-watch texts immediately failed.  Ultimately, I had to remove the car Bluetooth connection from my iPhone and reset the watch to "out of the box" settings before it became functional again.  At this point I cannot connect the iPhone to the car via Bluetooth without impacting the watch.  Apple Watch devs: software fix, please!

Can I suggest you post this to the Apple feedback site (link below) - the dev won't see it her (Apple doesn't participate directly). Or call Apple support - this is the first instance I've seen of Bluetooth interference.

It might be that a restart would fix it - worth a try

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Sent my comments in to Apple Feedback, thanks for the suggestion!  (And no, doing a restart of the watch and the iPhone did not fix the problem. Had to reset the watch to factory settings before I could get it working again. Now I'm just avoiding pairing my iPhone with the car, which is inconvenient to say the least!)

nick101 wrote:

 

Can I suggest you post this to the Apple feedback site (link below) - the dev won't see it her (Apple doesn't participate directly). Or call Apple support - this is the first instance I've seen of Bluetooth interference.

 

I personaly haven't experienced it, either, fortunately. I use a BT keyboard with my iPad and BT speakers or headphones much of the time. So far, no issues.

No issues here, several watches, keyboards and trackpads here, but also a few BT speakers jotted around the place. I suspect it to be something specific to the OP and probably not suitable for feedback.

I am having a similar problem as RickH except my issue is with a house phone. I use an AT&T detec6 house phone with wireless handsets in every room. The AT&T has a great Bluetooth feature that allows you to connect up to two iPhones so that if either my land line or one of the iPhones has an incoming call then you can answer the call from any wireless handset as long as your phone is within the Bluetooth distance requirement from the base station. It also allows you to use a handset to call out on your iPhone line. This is good for people withou a land line.

Here is the issue. When the Apple Watch is paired with the iPhone at the same time as the AT&T base station, the Apple Watch will not answer the incoming iPhone call. I can answer on the iPhone but not the watch. Interestingly though is that I can start an outgoing call with the watch, just not receive. If I remove the bluetooth pairing from the AT&T base station, then the Apple watch will answer and works fine.

i Hope this was just an oversight by Apple. We should have the option to connect to any attached voice enabled device paired with the iPhone. Wheat her it is your automobiles Bluetooth hands free device, a Bluetooth house phone or a Bluetooth headset. Which I don't have one to try. They should all be available as an option depending on your situation.

floyd0 wrote:

 

 

Here is the issue. When the Apple Watch is paired with the iPhone at the same time as the AT&T base station, the Apple Watch will not answer the incoming iPhone call. I can answer on the iPhone but not the watch. Interestingly though is that I can start an outgoing call with the watch, just not receive. If I remove the bluetooth pairing from the AT&T base station, then the Apple watch will answer and works fine.``

I suspect your problem may actually be different than the OP's. You may be running into competing BT profiles. Both devices may be trying to use the same BT profile on the watch, which wouldn't work.

I am having a similar problem.  I received my Apple watch yesterday and within 10 minutes of opening and syncing had to take a drive.  I listen to podcasts almost exclusively in my car and immediately notice that every 5-10 seconds the audio began cutting out in the  podcast for just a fraction of a second in my 2014 Toyota Highlander streamed from my iPhone 6 Plus.. It has been doing that all weekend.... Hoping there is actually a fix for it capable of being patched and not a hardware issue.

So if two devices of the same BT profile are connected then you are saying there is a conflict and only one device will work? Is there a way to prioritize the devices so that one will connect and disregard the other? How can I determine what profile the watch is using? All I found was this iPhone supported profile linkiOS: Supported Bluetooth profiles - Apple Support.

I Am also having these issues. My Motorola Bluetooth headset and Bluetooth beats headphones cut out now that I've got the apple watch. Figured I'd post here as well.

I'm having this issue too, with a Plantronics bluetooth headset. Audio cuts out or signal is lost all together when using it with my iPhone or Mac while Apple Watch is nearby. I have never had issues with it in the past and the audio comes back when I turn off the apple watch OR switch to the internal speaker on my phone/mac. I called applecare and they are having an engineer look into the case. Will post an update when I hear back. Would encourage others to do the same if you're having bluetooth issues so Apple looks into it.

Update, I finally made an appointment at the Apple Store.  We reset the watch to factory and unpaired all devices.  We then added the watch back and then added the bluetooth devices afterwards. This seemed to fix it for about a week.  Had the issue pop up again so I went back.  This time it was suggested that I perform a restore on the phone.  This is a very labor intensive process as you guys know, but I am at my wits end.  Will report back. 

I too am experiencing a problem in which my mouse will not connect (or remain connected) to my Macbook Air when the Apple Watch is active.  Putting the watch into Airplane mode immediately makes the mouse workable.  I have not had any issues with my iPhone 6, watch and bluetooth in my car.  These have worked flawlessly.