My son has a cellular Apple Watch using Family Setup. He is now getting his own iPhone and we want to transfer the number from his watch to the phone and then cancel the watch’s cellular service. Is there a way to transfer the eSIM from the watch to the phone?
We use Verizon and were unsuccessful after over 4 hours on the phone with support and countless people reading from their scripts trying to get this done. They ultimately said we could not keep the number. Once we went to the Verizon store they had us up and going within 30 minutes so I would recommend you do this in person. The key at least for Verizon is to have them convert the watch account to a phone account then you can do whatever is needed to get the number assigned to the phone. In our case, the watch was on a postpaid account and we wanted to have the phone on a prepaid account. We converted the number to a phone on the postpaid and then immediately transferred it over to a new prepaid account with the new phone.
We use Verizon and were unsuccessful after over 4 hours on the phone with support and countless people reading from their scripts trying to get this done. They ultimately said we could not keep the number. Once we went to the Verizon store they had us up and going within 30 minutes so I would recommend you do this in person. The key at least for Verizon is to have them convert the watch account to a phone account then you can do whatever is needed to get the number assigned to the phone. In our case, the watch was on a postpaid account and we wanted to have the phone on a prepaid account. We converted the number to a phone on the postpaid and then immediately transferred it over to a new prepaid account with the new phone.
The phone number on a watch is for billing purposes by the carrier only. It doesn't really serve any other purpose; it can't be called nor can it make phone calls. So unless I've completely missed something, there's really no need to try and move the phone number. Just cancel the cell service for that watch. Your carrier will assign a "real" phone number to the iPhone.
Regards.
if that is possible is not an apple thing it's a question you need to ask your carrier it's their choice if they will allow it
In my experience, many carriers do not support that feature. It probably requires active participation of the carrier to perform the swap and activate the service. The carrier may also charge a fee.
There are instructions from Apple on how to transfer an eSIM from one iPhone to another independent of the carrier (as long as the carrier participates). I was hoping there were instructions on how to do the same between an Apple Watch and an iPhone.
I have the same issue as the original post. My son has cellular service on his watch, but he has no iphone yet. He can make calls and receive calls. He can also use Alexa to make calls. He is getting a phone soon, and I will be linking the watch and the phone, so I hope to be able to keep his original phone number. If I am able, I'll post how it goes.
This is really good news and I appreciate your reply: it’ll be really helpful when I go into the store! We have AT&T, so I hope it will be the same quick business transaction. I may post about it in case any others have this issue in the future.
thanks again.
I have the same issue. I'm wondering how you faired resolving this transaction.
Transfer phone number from a watch to a phone
