Find My says kid's Apple Watch is still at home "now", several hours after she left for school

Question

Find My says kid's Apple Watch is still at home "now", several hours after she left for school

Sometimes Find My says that my daughter's Apple Watch is still at home, several hours after she took it to school. The Find My app very confidently says that the location fix is "Now", which is completely wrong!

My daughter has an Apple Watch SE 3 with gps+cellular, set up with "Apple Watch for Kids", it is correctly set up with her Apple ID, location sharing is on, cell coverage is good where she is, etc etc. watchOS 26.2.

It usually works as expected, and sometimes it is completely wrong. Is this a known bug? Being able to come meet my daughter, and also to find the watch should she lose it, are key features and half the point of getting the watch in the first place.

Any ideas?

Posted on Feb 10, 2026 1:16 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Feb 10, 2026 2:29 AM in response to jacobengstrand

Did you try to send a text message to the watch, to make it connect actively to the cellular or Wi-Fi network?

The latest watchOS version is 26.2.1, in case it worked before upgrading to watchOS 26.2, and Apple fixed this in the newer version.

Reply

Answer 2

Feb 10, 2026 2:57 AM in response to Ingo2711

Hi Ingo2711, thanks for your input! Yes I did actually send a message, asking if my child was at school, and she answered that she was (iMessage conversation) so cell connectivity was definitely working! Still, Find My kept saying the watch location was here at home, and saying the location was fixed "Now".

Not until I went to pick her up at school an hour later, Find My started showing the correct location.

I will update to 26.2.1 and hope for the best.

Reply

Answer 3

Feb 10, 2026 3:44 AM in response to jacobengstrand

Good Luck 🙂

Reply