Apple Watch unlock with Face ID not working on iOS 14.7.1

Try restarting your devices. Initially it didn’t work at all for me. It still isn’t as reliable as it was before 14.7 but it does work. Sometimes there is a delay, this morning it took about 4 or 5 minutes but then I saw the “unlocking watch” on my phone screen. Yesterday after putting the watch on my wrist it unlocked immediately after I unlocked my phone once I got to the home screen. So it’s quite variable but it does work. Hopefully this will be addressed in some future update to make this consistent again.

I have also found that the unlock window has gotten very narrow. I have to have the Apple Watch numeric unlock screen displayed when I unlock my iPhone, or the Apple Watch will not unlock. If the Apple Watch display goes dark before I get my iPhone unlocked, I have to start all over again.

That watchOS update was supposed to fix this. Maybe it did but still seems erratic. Interestingly just this morning I took my watch off the charger, put it on my wrist, pulled my phone off the charger, unlocked it by Face ID, swiped up to the Home Screen and immediately got the “watch unlocked” message. For whatever reason just recently this function is working much better. Try restarting both devices a few times, that’s the only thing I’ve done recently and it seems to be working better now.

Wow, no one I knew who had a watch that updated to IOS 14.7 worked with unlocking.

It was fixed with 14.7.1

Make sure that both your watch and iPhone are both updated to the most up to date OS.

Then restart both devices.

So there's a lot of confusion here. Are these two features supposed to be mutually exclusive, or not?

That is: Should we be able to have both "Unlock with apple watch" (when wearing facemasks) and "Unlock with iPhone" (on the watch itself) at the same time?

• If so, this is a bug and needs to be fixed. The temporary fix for now is to disable one feature if you want the other.
• If not, this needs to be clearly communicated somewhere, because this used to be possible and is no longer the case.

Note that I'm saying "should" above because obviously this still isn't working (e.g. watchOS 7.6.1 on Series 4 and 14.7.1 on my iPhone X) and after reading this thread, I'm still not sure what the current intended functionality is supposed to be. 😑

Maybe for some, but not all. My mask unlock is working just fine after the restart.

This issue is still present on my iPhone XS with iOS 14.7.1 and Apple Watch with latest update available installed watchOS 7.6.1

I tried to disable and re-enable the feature without any luck.

Also having this issue since going to 14.7.1 Its very difficult to get my watch to unlock and takes several tries of unlocking my phone with face ID before it unlocks my watch. Love when updates "improve" functionality. :(

Ok thanks for confirming @papjo! I thought I noticed the same thing myself but doubted my memory since I couldn't reproduce it (likely due to the variability you noted above).

Does anyone know if this specific bug variant has been acknowledged yet by Apple? That way we at least have some peace of mind knowing that they're aware that the problem persists and are looking into fixing it. 🤞

To clarify - the mask unlock is working OK on iphone once you have unlocked your watch. The face ID on iphone to unlock your watch is what isn't working with the mask detection setting 'on'

+1 rodc7

I’m running watch OS 7.6.1 and have the same issue. Since updating to 14.7.1 I’m unable to unlock Apple Watch with face ID.

I hade the same issue with my 12 Pro Max and Watch 6. Was working fine with 14.7 but stopped working with 14.7.1

Reset and re-pair your Apple Watch. That solved it for me and others. You don't get the notification on your phone that it unlocks the watch after doing that, but it unlocks just fine.

The reason that works is that iPhone mask detection is off by default when you te-pair your watch.

Everyone, don’t waste your time with repairing, just switch off mask detection if you want your watch to automatically unlock via Face ID.

Leave it on if you want your watch to unlock your iPhone when you are wearing a mask.

On my devices, iPhone 12 Max Pro and watch 5, this does not work at all if I have Unlock With Apple Watch enabled, both are on the latest updates. With that function turned off it works intermittently. This is not a critical feature but if they plan to continue it a further update should be planned. When watchOS 7.6.1 was first released I could get this to work if I could keep the number pad on the watch screen while unlocking my phone. That no longer works. Just a lot easier to enter the passcode.