Any way to get an Apple Watch to connect to an iPad for possible calls/texts?

There is no way to just transfer cellular service to a watch from an iPhone directly. The iPhone shares its service with the watch, but cannot simply transfer it to it.

The iPad gets messages and calls from a working iPhone. It will not get them on its own. Same thing happens with a watch.

Apple can forward the calls from an iPhone to a watch while its working, but if its not working then the calls simply won't be received.

You can set up a watch to have its own cellular service separate from that of an iPhone, through family setup, but you still need a working iPhone to set that up and it will have some limitations.

click here ➜ Set up Apple Watch for a family member - Apple Support

If you can borrow a working iPhone from someone you can use it to set up the watch. But you will need to erase the watch first.

click here ➜ Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

coluch5 wrote:

...but I'm looking to see how much functionality I can retain while mainly pulling the phone out of the equation.

You can, remove a personal iPhone out of the equation, but you still need one to do anything with the watch.

Like I said, you can set one up through Family Setup, but that will be limited and still need access to an iPhone (does not need to be yours) to do that, and a carrier that supports stand alone watches.

Otherwise, no, the watch is not designed to work without an iPhone.

SMS requires the more power hungry cellular radio, that is in the iPhone. The Apple Watch just has an LTE data only cellular radio (much less power needed). The iPhone will act as a gateway for the Apple Watch with respect to SMS messages. The iPhone and the Apple Watch use Apple's iMessages to transfer the SMS messages between them. The iPad does the same thing for SMS messages, it uses an iPhone to do the heavy lifting and iMessages as the iPhone to iPad transfer medium.

Internet based messaging, such as iMessage the Apple Watch and iPad can do without the iPhone. And if there is a 3rd party Internet based messaging service that provides an app that runs on the Apple Watch (or iPad), then the Apple Watch and iPad can use that Internet based messaging service without the iPhone.

Bottom line, as everyone else has mentioned, you need an iPhone.

If that is not how you want to use your Apple Watch, then consider one of the other smart watches on the market. Some of them can be totally independent from any other devices.

coluch5 wrote:

My question really is can I transfer my current iPhone phone number to an Apple Watch? At that point, would the watch allow me to get SMS messages/non-Apple phone calls on my cellular enabled iPad in the same way that my iPhone allows my iPad to receive them now? The lack of a Watch app on the iPad shouldn't really factor in. There is no app to connect the cellular signal on my iPhone to the one on my iPad yet it works. To my understanding, they align simply based on the shared account.

If you have already enabled cellular service on the watch, I believe you should be able to continue using it even if the phone is physically not working. However, if you haven't already done that, I don't know that you can while the phone isn't working. All the documentation seems to indicate you need to initiate the process from the app on the iPhone:

Set up and use cellular service on Apple Watch - Apple Support

You should be able to continue to use Facetime audio and iMessage while on WiFi.

No, sorry. You cannot use the watch with an iPad.

You should be able to get the iPhone out of recovery mode though.

click here ➡️ how to exit recovery mode on iphone - Apple Community