Watch Family Setup on WatchOS 9

faengelm,

After years of frustrating neglect of this feature/function, HomeKit control for Family Setup watches was supposed to be possible in WatchOS 9.

A home run for home devices4

Your children can be invited to the Home app as members and can control your HomePod speakers and smart home accessories like thermostats and lights. More power to them.

And then 9.1.

So, following updating to 9.1 this Monday, I was expecting to have my kids finally be able to open the house doors with their watches... but it still appears that this feature is delayed. Again. Because, unless I'm missing something, it still doesn't see to be working, and now on this page (watchOS 9 - Apple), it's been labelled as "Coming later this year."

So hopefully that helps. 🤷‍♂️

Now as for Shortcuts, I don't have an answer for you on that function... but I generally believe that no answer is more helpful than a confidently-stated wrong or misinformed one. ☝️🙄😒

Hello faengelm,

The Home app and Shortcuts app are unavailable when setting up an Apple Watch using the Family Setup option.

This page will help out with providing info on which apps/features are unavailable: Set up Apple Watch for a family member

In particular, the "Availability of features and apps" will help to detail the needed info:

Health and fitness features:

High and low heart rate notifications are available for users 13 and older.

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is available for users 18 and older. 

Walking steadiness and fall detection are available for users 18 and older.

Users under the age of 13 can use move minutes, rather than active calories, for their Move goal in the Activity app.

Apple Pay features:

Apple Cash Family is available to users under the age of 18, allowing them to make purchases and send and receive money in Messages with Apple Pay (United States only).

You can use Apple Pay to top up a Transit card on your family member's Apple Watch.

Apple Pay using a credit, debit, or transit card in the Wallet app is not available with Family Setup.

The following features and apps are not available: Health data sharing, respiratory rate, irregular heart rhythm notifications, ECG, Cycle Tracking, Sleep, Blood Oxygen, Podcasts, Audiobooks, Remote, News, Home, and Shortcuts.  

Cheers.

Happy to share what I've learned. I'll keep this thread updated... if Apple doesn't prematurely lock it, as they so frequently readily do. 🫤