Haptic not working on Apple watch messages

It's December 2017 and I just got my apple Watch 3 (cellular) and I noticed when I get text messages, they show up on the watch, but the haptic does not work. After two years (since the orig. post here), I'd think that would be fixed, so I tinkered. I found that if my apple watch is connected to my iphone's bluetooth signal, my apple watch and iphone get the visual notification of text messages, but there is no haptic signal on the apple watch like I expect to get. If I my apple watch is connected to wifi or to cellular (but is out of range from my iphone's bluetooth signal, the apple watch's haptic does work when I get text messages. Also, If I lock my iphone while my apple watch is in bluetooth range, I get haptic with text messages on my apple watch.

So, it's only when my iphone is unlocked and in bluetooth range of my apple watch that my apple watch's haptic signal doesn't work. I think the watch was designed that way. Maybe this is the experience that many others have had as well?

Personally, I wish Apple would let me choose to get haptic signal whenever I want - even if I'm right next to my iphone, but at least I know what situation causes the imessage haptic signal not to work.

Regards to everyone - I hope this is helpful to others.

Dennis

i have same sort of problem. mail messages not giving haptic. generally finding the haptic way too light. got it on max setting and still don't feel much. wondering if my watch is faulty. can feel it if i'm sitting still and focused on it...

let me know if you work it out.

thanks.

HHad the same issue I turned off and on my watch and it worked fine after that

All seems to be working ok now. Generally speaking i still find the haptic a bit weak even with the 'prominent' feature enabled. But at least i'm getting feedback for all messaging...

thanks for your suggestions.

Yeah, mine is not working either. I did the whole restart thing. It worked briefly, then it went back to not working. I'm so frustrated with this watch right now, I'm very close to just returning it and telling everyone the Apple Watch is horrible.

This worked for me!When I initially set it up, I forced it to turn off because i thought it was bootlooping for some reason. At any rate resetting it cleared the issue for me (I didn't turn off all my macs, iPad, and other phones and this trick worked for me)

This happened to me as well. I unpaired and did a reset. Worked for a day and text taptic quit working again.

When you go to the Watch app on the iPhone, then in Sounds and Haptics, when you change the haptic strength settings, does it run a sample on the watch? I don't feel anything on the watch when I changed around the strength.. is that normal?

Also, what is "Prominent"?

do either of you have tattoos and do you have the password set on your watch and if you do have the password set on your watch do you have to unlock it everytime you roll your wrist to check the time? the only reason i ask this is because i have a tattoo on my left wrist and because of this the wrist detection on my watch won't work which causes it to not send me my alerts and all. I switched to my other wrist where i have no tattoos and now i have no problems i get all my alerts heart beat sensor works great and i don't have to keep unlocking it unless i take the watch off. I was also reading something about the watches coming out of china having a haptic feedback issue.

While my Apple Watch notified me (e.g., sound, and wrist tap) of emails, the iMessage was not working. After ensuring that the iPhone and Watch settings had the appropriate notifications turned on, I reset both devices (but did not unpair), as recommended in this thread.

All is working now after the simple reset.

I also bumped up the taptic, which provides a bit more force/touch on your wrist. Seems to be user preference and what gets your attention enough to lift the watch. I also upped the alerts to notify me 3 times of any unread text message (i.e., if you don't respond, it'll tap your wrist again).

Still experimenting, but if the Apple Watch serves as a 2nd display to your iPhone, then it serves the purpose well. Instead of pulling your phone out of your pocket, unlocking, and going through buttons to see emails and texts, the Watch does well to provide the same "glance" information by lifting your wrist.

I'm having the same problem also. Mine stopped working over the weekend and did not work Saturday-Monday. I called Apple Support on Monday and a restart fixed the haptics. Then Tuesday morning it stopped working again. Another call to Apple Support, another restart. I think the problem comes and goes, I feel iMessages strongly now, but emails, Activity alerts, and other things seem rather weak - even with prominent on. Bummer that the watch is not working as expected! I really hope this isn't a daily issue!

Julie

Hi everyone,

Here is a simple thing which happened to me. Maybe you will also find it helpful.

A text came in to my phone, but I didn't receive a haptic on my wrist. So I realized I had the watch notifications on mute.

I was thinking originally to mute the sounds, but seems it may also mute the haptic, as well.

When I turned off the mute, then I wanted to test, so I sent a text message or two to myself: nothing. But that's by design! Turns out the haptic doesn't signal if you're already looking at the phone. Sending a text message to myself thus didn't signal the haptic b/c the phone was already open. Lock the phone, carry on with your day, and new messages will haptic on arrival.

One other observation: I'm in a few separate conversations by text message at the moment. Some of them haptic on arrival & some don't. The ones that do signal a haptic on arrival are the conversations from which I've already sent at least one message from the watch. To test it out, I sent a reply from the watch to the conversation that wasn't signaling the haptic on arrival and sure enough: the next reply was haptic indeed.

So, to summarize:

- unmute the watch notifications

- lock the phone & put it away

- send a text to someone from the watch

- receive a haptic on their reply

Thanks!

I had the same problem and took my watch to the Apple store. The "geniuses" there knew absolutely nothing about the watch or it's workings, which was a surprise to me.

They finally brought out a watch that they knew was working and compared the pulse to my watch. All agreed that mine was virtually non-existent. So, they sent my watch off to repair, sort of like sending it off to "the black hole of Calcutta." Once it goes there, there's virtually no way to speak to anyone to find out how the repair is going, are they going to replace it or try to fix it, when will I get my watch back, etc.

Here's what I learned: Early failures are being replaced, albeit on Apple's timeline. Typically, that takes 3 -7 working days. I got mine back in 7 days, but only after raising quite a pronounced stink - never rude or mean, just letting them know that I wasn't going away without some useful information The Apple store manager stepped up and went to bat for me with Support, trying everything he could to get an approximate ship date. Then, finally, I got a message that my watch had been shipped to me. Now, it was a matter of waiting for it to surface at the store. It showed up at days after I turned it over to Apple and within 1 hour of arriving via FedEx..

Here's a critical piece of info: The haptic pulse will not work unless the iPhone is in locked mode. You'll still l get the message on the watch in text form, but no haptic pulse or buzz.

My hope is that this will be a fix in the next software or firmware update.

Good luck if you send your watch out for repair, and don't hesitate to be persistent in your inquiries. Squeaky wheel, etc.