Find My jumping between Watch Cellular and phone at home constantly

I am wondering if this is a known bug, or something that can be sorted with settings; my partner has an Apple Watch cellular (with plan, it works) and the iPhone 12. While out cycling with the watch only, Find My shows her location as Home (live) where the phone is idle, and periodically flashing over to where she IS with the watch for a second or two before flinging it back to home again. This is not of any value for safety. The watch is clearly sending a location for this to be bugging out so much - but why is it reverting to the idle phone which is not moving?


Thanks

Posted on May 31, 2023 10:43 AM

Reply
4 replies

Jun 1, 2023 1:54 PM in response to James Snook

Hi James Snook,


This isn't a bug exactly. Find My is not primarily a safety feature and all devices on Find My are capable of sharing their location so you can find the device if it's lost.


You can see where your location is shared from in Settings > [your_name] > Find My.


It's noted here:

Share your location with your family


That should help you with understanding where your location will be shared from.


Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities.

Jun 1, 2023 2:14 PM in response to Rigo_O86

Thank you for the reply, I may not have worded my question very well at the time, I should have waited until I had more time.


We are using Find My network for a large number of devices and items, also for family location sharing between family on their own accounts and in this specific case, family with shared apple services (listed family member). The functionality is familiar (too familiar, sometimes, because of numerous unsolved apple ID errors over the years ending up in engineering every time).


The location of each device is accurate, and this is where my question is. When the iPhone as the primary device of my partner for sharing location is idle at home for over an hour, the location of the cellular Watch 6 she is wearing on her bike, with full coverage, updating on the network under devices, should become the default location of the account owner; the settings are to share the user (signed in ID) from the phone, and cellular watch(s).


The error, in my mind, is that her location under People, despite constant movement for an hour plus of the watch on LTE, disconnected from the phone which at home on Wi-Fi (the known home location), is showing "live" where the phone is, at home. The idle device on the home Wi-Fi. Then every now and then shooting over to where the watch is, for about one second, before snapping back to the phone at home.


The watch is updating as a device, the phone knows it is at home, unmoving and untouched, so why does her location not remain with the watch as the location of the user ID?


This is my concern. It is not critically bad, but it is not operating as it is supposed to - unless it is known that frequent movement of the watch, with total LTE and GPS coverage, is too much and the service does not accommodate it, only working when people are mostly not moving. But the Watch Ultra would imply this is very much supposed to function as I am assuming it to.


I hope that was not too long-winded, but I do wish to explain my question better here.


More input very welcome, thanks!

Jun 1, 2023 2:38 PM in response to jdo_apple

Well, that is fair enough. I am actually at a point where I want Apple to fully delete my ID, and re-instate all the things I paid for on a new one. The last question from engineering about... various things like this, was "can we remove the @me.com details from your account, perhaps that is causing so many of the problems" - but that never went anywhere.


My Apple ID must be a study in broken sync services at this point :(


But thanks for clarifying, it is not normal.

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Find My jumping between Watch Cellular and phone at home constantly

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