Cellular Watch cannot call if the paired iPhone is in airplane mode

Question

Cellular Watch cannot call if the paired iPhone is in airplane mode

In our family there is an Apple Watch 5 cellular that can make calls without wifi or the paired iPhone Xs being nearby.

However, if the paired iPhone is switched to Airplane-mode, the Watch becomes unable to make calls. Why does this happen?

The mirroring of Airplane-mode is OFF. The Watch doesn’t show being in Airplane-mode, and in cellular settings it says “Connected”, but still can’t make a call if the phone is in Airplane-mode.

Both the watch and phone are running latest OS.

Am I missing something?

Posted on Jan 8, 2024 5:04 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

famous-wrapper Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 8, 2024 6:54 PM in response to famous-wrapper

Thank you for your replies.

I did more testing. The cellular connection status in the watch settings seems inconsistent. Sometimes it tells “Connected”, but the watch is still unable to make calls.

The cellular button in Watch’s Control Center stays white if I don’t disable both wi-fi and bluetooth. With disabled wi-fi and bluetooth, the watch finally becomes independent from the paired phone, and properly connects to 4G network with the green indicator.

Maybe the watch tries to call over wi-fi when the paired phone is switched to the airplane mode. Calls over wi-fi are not supported here.

I will still need to verify tomorrow that the watch is able to switch to cellular when the watch user leaves home without the phone, and phone was in airplane mode when leaving.

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Answer 2

GeeZ06

Level 4

3,216 points

Jan 8, 2024 5:24 PM in response to famous-wrapper

Hello famous-wrapper, Does you watch show the cell green signal strength or is it white? See this support page the section use cellular network.

About Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

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Answer 3

KaeBFly

Level 6

8,647 points

Jan 8, 2024 5:37 PM in response to famous-wrapper

You stated you had a cellular watch that can make calls without the phone nearby but you never clarified that you have an active plan which is why I asked. Also, you mentioned having airplane mode disabled/not mirroring. I asked if you have Phone (in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone going to the Phone setting) set to Mirror iPhone or Custom. I was not referring to Airplane mode that you can select via settings on the watch itself. The suggestion was to check the setting mentioned and see if changing it to Custom helped. Worse case scenario it doesn’t but it is worth trying to see.

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Answer 4

KaeBFly

Level 6

8,647 points

Jan 8, 2024 5:16 PM in response to famous-wrapper

You have an active cellular plan on the watch? Under settings do you have Phone set to mirror your iPhone? If so, try changing that to custom. You can do it via the Watch app on your iPhone.

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Answer 5

Jan 10, 2024 1:25 PM in response to famous-wrapper

In the end my main wish is that the Apple Watch could be reachable for cellular calls even when it is connected to wi-fi.

If the phone and watch are both home, and phone is set to Airplane-mode, there is no way to call from/to the watch. The watch can be used for calls only outside known wifi networks and while being disconnected from the phone.

When I wrote the original post, I had the impression that the watch didn’t connect to cellular even after leaving home, if the phone was set in Airplane-mode last time it communicated with the watch. However I couldn’t repeat that behavior, and the watch moved to cellular nicely after getting outside the wi-fi reach.

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Answer 6

BobHarris

Level 9

56,819 points

Jan 10, 2024 3:08 PM in response to famous-wrapper

Just wondering if

A) your cellular carrier supports "WiFi Calling"?

B) you have enabled WiFi calling on your iPhone?

C) you have enabled WiFi calling on your Apple Watch?

The Apple Watch always uses the iPhone's radios when it can see the iPhone. It saves power on the Apple Watch, as the cellular radio can be rather power hungry, especially if in a weak cellular signal area.

Putting your iPhone in Airplane mode, generally also puts the Apple Watch into Airplane mode.

If you take the Apple Watch out of Airplane mode, and the iPhone is still in Airplane mode, then if in WiFi range or Bluetooth range of the iPhone, the Apple Watch is going to defer to the iPhone with its larger battery, and better cellular antennas.

Those might be some of the reasons the Apple Watch is not switching over to WiFi calling or using its own cellular radio.

NOTE: It is not really expected that the iPhone will be put into Airplane mode when not on an Airplane, and thus also expect that the Apple Watch would also need to be in Airplane mode. Granted users find all kinds of interesting ways to use features that were not as the designers intended, and as a result find flaws in the implementation. This maybe your situation.

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Answer 7

Jan 8, 2024 5:32 PM in response to KaeBFly

As I described, the watch has active cellular plan and mirroring the Airplane-mode is disabled in the Watch app.

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Cellular Watch cannot call if the paired iPhone is in airplane mode

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