Apple Watch not updating location while on LTE

Question

Apple Watch not updating location while on LTE

My wife and daughter, both runners, have Apple watched with LTE. Ever since they got them, when they’d go out for a run and leave their phones at home, Find My realizes this and starts updating their location based on the watch. Lately, this has stopped working. The watch location is only updated when it’s on WIFI or when it’s near the phone. If I look under the Find My Devices tab, the watch location shows up as the last reported location when it was on WIFI or near the phone, and the information box says “X minutes ago” instead of now. It will stay this way until they come back and get near their phones. They have Apple 4th Generation watches, and an iPhone SE (2020) and a 12 Pro.

Like I said, it worked fine before. Tried rebooting, doesn’t fix it.

Posted on Nov 21, 2020 11:05 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Brian_P7

Community Specialist

Nov 29, 2020 6:38 PM in response to publicpersona31

Hello publicpersona31,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. It looks like you're unable to locate your Wife, and daughter when they go out for a run as their Apple Watches stopped updating location when connected to cellular data. We understand the importance of getting this issue resolved, and we'd be happy to help.

To get started, let's make sure that both their iPhones and Apple Watches are updated to the most recent iOS and watchOS versions. It’s a good idea to backup their iPhones before updating:

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Update your Apple Watch

We hope this information is useful. Kind regards.

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Answer 2

Joseph_S.

Community Specialist

Dec 6, 2020 2:47 PM in response to publicpersona31

Hi publicpersona31,

Thanks for getting back to us with those additional details. We understand that there are issues with cellular connections on their Apple Watches. Let's continue working on this together.

Next, please check out the information in the following link:

Use your Apple Watch without your iPhone nearby

They can also, try the steps in the following link:

Calibrating your Apple Watch for improved Workout and Activity accuracy

If the issue persists, please contact Apple Support to investigate this issue further. You can reach out to them here:

Get Support

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. Have a nice day.

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Answer 3

Nov 30, 2020 2:19 AM in response to Brian_P7

Both of them are on the latest OS on all devices. Sometimes, rebooting the watch resolves this, but not always. Other times, toggling the cellular connection on and off will fix it. This happens about every other time they go out without their phones. Also, I've been able to determine that even though the watch says it's on cellular, it is not connected. If you try to stream something, for example, you can't.

The have had these watches for over a year. This started happening a week or two ago.

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Apple Watch not updating location while on LTE

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