Can a cellular Apple Watch for a Family Member (standalone) keep its cell number if paired with another phone with no cell service?

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Level 1

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Can a cellular Apple Watch for a Family Member (standalone) keep its cell number if paired with another phone with no cell service?

Here's the situation, my daughter is using:

Apple Watch Series 5 Cellular, set up "For a Family Member" from my phone to establish Verizon standalone service (single account with watch line only)
iPhone 8 with no SIM, essentially working like the old ipod touch because we don't want her to have a fully phone enabled phone yet. The original idea was to pair the watch with this.

I have an iPhone with cell service through Mint (who doesn't support Apple Watch), which I used to do the Family Member setup, since that required my Apple ID on the phone and my daughter's Apple ID on the watch.

Now that the watch has been all set up and has the cell number, we're seeing that a lot of things are missing or aren't working right. Watch faces in the phone app, shared purchases, etc. This experience seems to be not as good or reliable as a regularly paired Apple Watch.

Has anyone tried unpairing from the current phone and re-pairing to a phone not "for a Family Member", that has the same Apple ID as the watch (in my case, my daughter's)—and kept the cellular service still working? Or does that wipe the eSIM.. or cause some other trouble?

Apple Watch Series 5

Posted on Sep 28, 2023 6:51 PM

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Answer 1

Hobyx Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 29, 2023 3:53 PM in response to BobHarris

Thanks for the info.

It seems to me that if it works like that and Family Plan mode is such a degraded experience, it doesn't sound like a technical reason but a commercial one—to push people toward spending money on a watch line and a phone line.

Similarly, the necessity for cellular Apple Watches to be paired to an iPhone seems to be mainly for increasing iPhone sales.

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Answer 2

BobHarris

Level 9

53,735 points

Sep 29, 2023 12:33 PM in response to Hobyx

You cannot do what you are suggesting.

The Apple Watch is either part of a Family Plan and has a separate phone number and cellular plan.

Or it is paired to an iPhone, and shares the iPhone's phone number. Since the iPhone does not have a cellular plan, neither will the Apple Watch.

Consider giving the iPhone a cellular plan with someone like T-Mobile that has less expensive plans, or Xfinity, or Spectrum, or another NVMO that supports the Apple Watch and offers less expensive plans.

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Answer 3

BobHarris

Level 9

53,735 points

Oct 7, 2023 1:18 PM in response to Hobyx

The degrading is because those features work in conjunction with the paired iPhone using personal information on the iPhone.

Since the Family Plan involves 2 individuals, Apple does not allow the child to have full access to all the Parent's personal data.

Also SMS/MMS TEXTing requires a full featured cellular radio, not the LTE only data radio in the Apple Watch. So what the Apple Watch does is it uses its LTE radio to contact the iPhone via iMessages over the Internet, and asks the iPhone to send/receive SMS/MMS TEXT messages.

In a parent/child relationship, there is only 1 full featured cellular radio in the parent's iPhone, and if the child uses it to send SMS/MMS TEXT messages, it will look like it comes form the parent. And if the parent receives SMS/MMS TEXT messages, so will the child.

This is not a money grab, it is a privacy thing.

Now maybe you are the kind of parent that does not care if your child sees all your personal business, but most users would not want to share all their SMS/MMS TEXT messages and other personal information on their iPhone with their child.

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Can a cellular Apple Watch for a Family Member (standalone) keep its cell number if paired with another phone with no cell service?

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