I can't receive a call on my Apple Watch 7 with cellular when my iPhone is turned off

By systemwide, I meant Verizon, not Apple.

Anyway, i finally figured out how to fix it myself without having to restore the watch from a factory reset. Inside the Apple Watch app on the iPhone, in cellular, I removed the Verizon cellular plan. Then I added it back. It took a little while for activation and two separate tries, but all is working now.

Pushing Verizon harder is worthless because the Verizon rep kept telling me repeatedly that he was the expert and the only thing to do was to reset the Watch to factory and restore it like a new watch. I could have kept calling different reps, but it’s hit or miss on finding anyone who knows any more than just that everything has to be a factory reset. The rep even started out telling me that I couldn’t do what I knew I could—that in order to ring the Watch people had to know the watch’s hidden number and the watch couldn’t be reached on the main number without being directly attached to the phone at the time. Pure lunacy and lack of any real training.

I just realized I had the same issue in not receiving cellular call on series 6 watch with verizon service. I tried tortugonal's suggestion about removing the cellular plan on iphone apple watch app and re-adding it back. The process was seamless for me. Immediately after it all came back, I turned my phone off and made a call to my number from a different line. Sadly, no luck :(. I tried again a few more times to no avail.

About 30 to 60 minutes later, I was about to chalk it up to a lost cause, but decided to try one more time. It worked and now consistently receives calls on cellular with iphone off. Thanks tortugonal!

If you haven't tried this and you are using Verizon, give it a shot. Just be patient and give it some time after adding the plan back. It might have been up to an hour before it started working for me, but now it's back to reliably receiving calls.

Note - I do use Verizon's call filter + app, but it was not the issue.

Strange.

Anyway, my Watch cellular still work even if my iPhone is switched Off and I never have to switch Bluetooth OFF.

I have an Apple Watch Series 7 and I use Verizon's shared numbered (pay an extra $10 a month and your calls go to your Apple watch when someone dials your number - even if the phone is not present). I can leave my phone at home and just use my watch while I'm out jogging. Trouble is, my watch was unable to make outgoing calls to some while the phone was home. Turns out, I have call blocking on my phone and when I call someone from my watch using *82 to unblock my number so they can see it's me calling, the watch is unable to make the call. Or I should say Verizon doesn't make the call. I get a message "your feature update can not be completed." It took me forever to figure it out. Now when I leave my phone at home, and I'm out jogging with my watch, I can make a call using my watch to someone but I can't use the *82 in front of their number to unblock the call. If I do, the call won't go through. When I just dial the person's number and leave out the *82, the call goes through. (The funny thing is, the person on the other end is able to see it's me calling, even though I didn't dial *82 to unblock my number. There must be a glitch in the coding somewhere).

One thing that definitely helped me and the Verizon rep was to have them add an older phone you once had to the watch line.

She added the old phone to the watch line, then refreshed it, then took it off and added the watch back and it worked.

They may have you turn your phone/watch on and off throughout this process, but it worked for me.

You are correct. While the Watch is assigned a number, it is not a number to be used to call, it is only designed for account purposes, so you get billed. They are supposed to have the Watch handle calls to and from your iPhone's number, even if the phone is off, or you are no where near it.

Well, normally Watch cellular share the same phone number as your iPhone.

The carrier must be the same for both iPhone and Watch to enable number sharing.

The Watch do not have a unique number, you should talk to your carrier about this.

Activate cellular service

You can activate cellular service on your Apple Watch during setup. If you don’t wish to, you can activate it later in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. See Use Apple Watch with a cellular network.

Your iPhone and Apple Watch must use the same cellular carrier. However, if you set up an Apple Watch for someone in your Family Sharing group, that watch can use a cellular carrier different from the one used on the iPhone you manage it with.

Cellular service not available in all regions.

Quicknap wrote:

Oh, that’s interesting. What model watch and iPhone do you have? And again, it’s not a question that the watch can’t make or receive calls without the iPhone bring on, it’s just that it can’t receive calls using the standard iPhone cell phone number. But you guys are saying that you can do that, right?

Yes, we can make and receive calls on a Watch cellular with iPhone OFF and using the same phone number (number sharing)

FWIW: We have cellular Watch Series 4, 5 & 6 paired with iPhone 8 plus, XR, XS and 12 Pro in our household.

Did this ever get resolved with Verizon? Having the same issue. Worked fine for 6 months but now I have over 50 hours in with Verizon tech support. I can call out from watch but no calls come in on numbershare when phone is off or just out of range of the watch

I wonder if this is something systemwide that happened with provisioning?

I have this exact problem (but cellular Apple Watch 6): Phone completely off, Apple Watch on cellular (green) service with plenty of bars, WiFi off (and Bluetooth on or off, doesn't matter). Calls will come in if I dial the "hidden" number but not my main cell number. All calls to main number go to voicemail rather than ringing watch. Calls go out fine; SMS texts sent and received fine.

If phone is on and connected to Apple Watch, of course calls come in to both phone and watch. But the idea is, if you leave your phone behind, cellular Apple Watch should be able to work independently and get calls that your phone normally would.

I've spent hours with Verizon tech support. Of course I've restarted phone, made sure phone is set up right in Apple Watch app on iPhone (has been for many, many months), re-started Watch, etc.

The only suggestion Verizon has is to completely restore watch to factory settings and then re-pair with phone. I'll do that, but it takes quite some time and I'm trying to avoid it if it won't fix the problem.

Sigh.

I'm can understand your frustration. But if this was some system-wide change, it would effect everyone. And that is certainly not the case. With my phone powered off, my Apple Watch 7 Cellular receives and makes calls just fine. I'm on AT&T however. And in my home we have two Series 7 watches on AT&T, neither of which are having any problem with phone calls with our iPhones powered off.

This has to be an issue with Verizon. I will tell you that when I first set up my new Series 7 watch, it too wouldn't work with my iPhone powered off. It took some time for AT&T to figure out there was a programming error with the IMEI number assigned to my watch. Once they corrected the number, calls worked with my phone powered off.

You need to push harder on Verizon.

Sorry.

Edit: Do you pay for call blocking software with Verizon or another service? I have a friend who figured out the call blocking service he paid for caused his watch to not receive or make calls if his iPhone was powered off. Once he deleted and stopped paying for the service, his watch worked as expected.

I can tell you this probably won’t work. Didn’t for me at least. I am too the point that the number I want to select for number share is not even available to select. And Verizon cannot fix it. It is my main iPhone phone number for years and the one that was previously paired/number shared for months before this happened. Super frustrating figuring to just cancel or figure out a nuclear option as I cannot change that primary phone number as I have had it for over 15 years no it has many work contacts associated with it.

Google “NumberShare” and sign into your Verizon account to see if your Watch is shared on the right line or if it’s “standalone”. Apparently they have migrated some accounts and missed some (or otherwise screwed them up). I agree that they have not provided enough training for this service. One of the support reps even insisted that I need a sim (didn’t know about esim)