My carrier (Mint Mobile) do not support Apple Watch. Getting a Watch LTE tied up to the same phone number, I would need to switch carriers for the whole family. That would be both expensive and a huge hassle.
Can I have the watch on a different carrier? T-mobile offers $5 / month watch only plan. If I would sign up with that, what are the downsides compared to having the watch on the same operator?
Apple Watch Ultra
It will be a different number due to Mint not having an access to number sharing infrastructure (Mint owner has given cost of that infrastructure as the reason for not being able to support Apple Watch).
T-mobile has four different smartwatch plan products:
How the separate number works on Apple Watch remains to be seen.
Clearly T-mobile was willing to sell this to Apple Watch (they asked about the device and when I said Apple Watch, the said great) and connect this to Apple Watch IMEI I provided to them. Activation has not yet gone through - their rep told to expect 24h activation time due to large number of orders.
Please report back of if you are successful and what number is used.
I Googled and Mint Mobile uses T-Mobile infrastructure so it it works that is the reason, you are still using only one carrier.
I just signed up with T-mobile (while my iPhone is at Mint Mobile). Waiting for the IMEI activation to go though - T-mobile rep said it should take 24h or so.
Very curious to learn how watch will manage the situation: Will it use iPhone number for calling out when connected to phone and its own number when iPhone is not nearby?
It could be that your phone just ignores that you have cellular watch.
For a phone call people will have to call your watch number.
For Messages I do not know how that will be handled. It would seem that Messages by paired phone should still work but how will that be displayed in conjunction with messages sent via T-Mobile #.
I can see other potential problems too.
Just let us know what happens. I would create a new post vice adding to this post make sure your subject line describes what you did/tried to do.
A cellular watch must be on the same network provider as the phone as the watch uses the phone's number to make calls.
Apple Watch on a different carrier than the iPhone
