Furious with Apple (lack of) support

The US and China are the two outliers here, when it comes to LTE frequency coverage.

iPhone - View countries with supported LTE networks - Apple

The rest of the world has their act together.

Grumble at your congressional reps and the US FCC while you’ve venting, in other words.

No, they are not using the same channels of LTE and there is no software fix around this. Your only other choice would be to return it to and Apple Store in the EU and get your money back then purchase one in the US. Or don’t use the cellular function on the one you were given. (What cell carrier do you use on your iPhone, not all are Watch compatible).

Same thing would have happened if they had purchased an iPhone, brought it to you and then you needed warranty service.

Grumbling about the FCC relates to their allowing/disallowing specific frequencies for cellular use in the U.S., which happen to be different from other regions of the world.

Apple using different cellular radios, is a space/power saving measure for the Apple Watch. A chip that covers all the LTE frequencies used by all the cellular providers around the world is larger and more power hungry than chips that cover just a subset used in specific regions of the world.

Chances are that around the time a cellular chip vendor reduces the size and power for a universal LTE radio chip, the cellular standard will have moved on to the G5. But today G5 is so short range and extremely power hungry on phones that if you use only G5, the phone battery will be dead in hours. It may be years before the size/power needs of a G5 radio chip is reduced enough for an Apple Watch.

And if case you are wondering if reduced power can be ignored by maybe some fancy new battery technology. Remember just about every bit if battery power used by the Apple Watch is turned into heat. Ignoring power consumption will just turn the Apple Watch into a "Branding Iron". All that improved battery technology can do for the Apple Watch is let it run longer on a single charge. I cannot really be used to support more power hungry chips.

I'm not sure why are are directing this to me, grumbling about the frequencies allowed for use in this country has nothing to do with the thread so grumble away if you want but it isn't pertinent. As to the rest of your post thank you captain obvious.

It is the start of the new year and a new decade, you can work on it! Assuming Mrs. BobHarris is OK with that otherwise it is a no go and we will have to move on to a different cultural reference :-)

deggie wrote:

I'm not sure why are are directing this to me, grumbling about the frequencies allowed for use in this country has nothing to do with the thread so grumble away if you want but it isn't pertinent. As to the rest of your post thank you captain obvious.

Please re-read the original question. This is exactly the result of the different bands dictated by the US regulators at the FCC. Without this parochial approach toward equipment and allocations, we’d have one fewer set of LTE bands in use world-wide, rather than the three presently in use, and the parallel hardware those require. Of all the countries Apple supports with the Apple Watch, this watch works in all but two places. The US being one of those two. This being a mess that all traces back to the US FCC. So... for those of us here that are “furious” about this and similar broadband-related messes, also do remember to vent at the US FCC.

I've read the original question and it has nothing to do with the FCC and the cellular Watch. As I stated unless you are aware of some information that I don't have I don't believe that the FCC regulates Canada nor Mexico and the "rest of the word" cellular Watch works in China.

Yeah, my bad. Three countries with weird requirements, two of which very likely made the best of a bad situation and followed the FCC. The regulators across the rest of the world managed to settle on an LTE configuration that can be supported with one Watch model; the one that the poster here now has. Which works everywhere but in the US, Canada and Mexico.

deggie wrote:

You do know it is possible this was Apple's choice?

You do realize that if there were one set of bands, there’d be one set of devices. World-wide. Which would mean lower costs and more competition, and would mean an Apple Watch from Switzerland would work in the US. Again, grump at the FCC.

My understanding is there is one set of bands and this was established by a consortium and not set by the FCC. But as to this particular issue Apple could have chosen a different band to use for the North American model or for the rest of the world model. They had many to choose from. I've not read anything that said the FCC demanded that Apple use one for North America and another for the rest of the world. Can you share a link?

This is a user helping other users with tech questions forum, you are not addressing apple here just fellow users

use

Feedback - Apple Watch - Apple

For the holiday period, Apple allows returning purchases by Jan 8th if they were purchased after the middle of November.

Maybe the place your watch was purchased has a similar holiday policy.

You saw Apple Watch parts swapped? Where?