Apple Watch Notifications During Dimmed Display

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Level 1

8 points

Apple Watch Notifications During Dimmed Display

I'm having trouble getting notification previews on my series 5 watch.

The documents say I should get notifications if the phone is locked and the watch is unlocked.

But I only get the previews if the watch display is both unlocked and awake. If the display unlocked but is dimmed, I don't get them, that is, the notification won't wake the display and show the preview.

I have the watch (latest watchOS) set to mirror my phone (iPhone 11 latest iOS) and the phone settings say allow notifications, lock screen and notification center.

I chatted with tech support who confirmed I should get the notification when the display is dimmed (didn't say anything about the preview) and immediately wanted me to erase the watch and start over (a.k.a Hail Mary solution).

I don't have this problem with Google Nest. It alerts me with both Haptic and sound and when I raise my wrist, the preview is there. With email, I get no indication at all. When I raise my wrist I do see the red dot though.

It's a brand new watch and if I need to erase it, that means to me it's defective and I should return it.

But before doing that, I thought I'd check to confirm that incoming email and texts should wake a dimmed display and show the preview.

Can anyone please help?

Apple Watch

Posted on Jun 28, 2020 7:44 AM

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Answer 1

MoonJ.

Community Specialist

Jul 1, 2020 5:08 PM in response to franks6439

Hey there franks6439,

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. We understand you’re having an issue receiving Mail notifications as expected on your Apple Watch. We’ll be happy to help with this.

You’ve done some excellent troubleshooting so far. The only other option I can think of besides unpairing and erasing your watch would be to change the notification settings for Mail on your watch and see if this has any impact on the issue. To do this, open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, then tap the My Watch tab. Tap Notifications > Mail and set to Allow Notifications. See if this has any impact on the issue.

If that doesn’t help, the next thing that comes to mind is if you restored your Apple Watch from a backup of another watch, erasing it and setting up as new may have an impact on this. If you do want to try this route before looking into any return options, you can do this using the steps here:

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch

Set up your Apple Watch

Then change your notifications once more on your watch and see if the issue is resolved:

Notifications on your Apple Watch

We hope this helps.

Take care.

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Answer 2

chris_g1

Community Specialist

Jul 2, 2020 6:03 AM in response to franks6439

Hey franks6439,

Thanks for going through those steps. You may want to turn off notifications for Mail in Settings > Notifications on your iPhone and then restart your iPhone:

Restart your iPhone

Turn notifications back on after restarting and see if this has any impact on the issue with how notifications on your Apple Watch.

Regards.

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Answer 3

franks6439 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 1, 2020 5:19 PM in response to MoonJ.

I tried unpairing and erasing the watch, but the behavior is the same.

I went into the watch settings and removed the "Mirror Phone" and manually set everything to Allow Notifications, Lock Screen and Notification Center.

The watch now alerts me with mail but does not un-dim or show a preview unless I raise my wrist as soon as I get the notification. If I do, I will then see the preview.

I think maybe it's actually a phone problem. I could swear that when I got mail, I used to get either a ding (or a vibrate if I have it muted). I don't seem to get that anymore. Not sure if it happened after getting the watch or after a recent iOS update.

I checked all the phone settings and they are correct as far as I can see.

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Answer 4

brenden dv

Community Specialist

Jul 3, 2020 8:07 AM in response to franks6439

Hey franks6439,

Thanks for the update. If the issue is still occurring after completing all those steps, you’ll want to reach out to Apple Support at the following link to continue to look into this with you:

Get Support

Take care.

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Answer 5

franks6439 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 2, 2020 2:02 PM in response to chris_g1

Thanks, but that didn't work. I get iPhone email previews now but no sound even though it's enabled. I used to get both.

Watch still needs to have custom notifications, not mirroring the iPhone.

Frank

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Apple Watch Notifications During Dimmed Display

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