Apple Watch unlock with Face ID not working on iOS 14.7.1

They issued a new watch update - 7.6.1 - which fixes it somewhat. If you keep “Unlock With Apple Watch” enabled you have to get the numeric keypad to appear on the watch and then wake the phone, swipe up to unlock and the watch will unlock. This is on my Face ID iPhone 12 Pro Max. If you turn off Unlock with Apple Watch you only have to wake and unlock the phone, you do not have to have the keypad onscreen on the watch. This is still inconvenient and they need to try again.

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.

The two features do work when both are enabled. However something in ios 14.7 impaired the feature that unlocks the watch when unlocking the phone. When that was initially implemented it worked almost instantaneously for me. Now on 14.7.1 and watchOS 7.6.1 I’ve now realized that it does work but with a variable delay. At first I thought it didn’t work at all because I would unlock my phone in the morning after putting my watch on and when rotating my wrist a few times I would still get the keypad appearing on the watch. For about a week now I’ve continued the same routine - put on watch, unlock phone - check a few notifications, emails, etc. and within a few minutes, sometimes 5 or more, I will see the watch unlocked notification at the top of my phone screen. Sometimes it’s not until after I get a cup of coffee, with my phone unlocked, that I see that the watch has been unlocked. So it does work but if you check immediately upon unlocking the phone you will think it does not.

I have not figured out what affects the variability of the time involved in the feature - some position of your wrist, some activity on the phone or the position of Aquarius in sky, who knows - but now that I just ignore it instead of immediately checking it has worked almost every time. But if you need it to be unlocked immediately you’ll just have to enter the code.

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. 🤞

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.

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.

Tested it myself. rodc7 response is correct. Turn mask detection off, Phone unlocks Watch. Turn mask detection on Phone/Watch unlock fails. I am using a iPhone 12 mini with a Apple Watch 4.

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

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'

Go back and turn on the mask detection setting on your iphone and see what happens. I did this too and it worked bc the mask detection gets turned off after an unpair/restore

unpair your Watch and iPhone and repair them. I’ve read that some people are having success with that. It doesn’t show that it’s unlocking the Watch, it just does.

Hope this helps

+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.

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.