Level 1

125 points

Watch not connecting to wifi when bluetooth on iPhone is switched off

So, I just want to check that the watch can connect to my home wifi.

I cannot create a situation where the watch accesses my home wifi instead of bluetooth on my phone.

I have switched off bluetooth and all I get is the red icon on the watch. I have Airport Extreme and the setup utilises both 2.4 and 5ghz rather than a separate 5Ghz as I lose too much speed if I move around the house.

Anyhow, how can I prove that the watch is able to use wifi?

Posted on Apr 24, 2015 11:35 PM

60 replies

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 6:29 AM in response to nick101

Yeah I have actually rebooted the AEBS and the Netgear - no change. I have listed all the devices using IP Scanner and the watch does not appear.

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

Apr 25, 2015 6:32 AM in response to Tony Welch

OK, so the problem originates with either the watch or the phone.

Try restarting them both. If that doesn't work, unpair the watch from the phone, restart them both, then re-pair. If that doesn't work, reset the watch to factory settings, restart, re-pair

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 6:41 AM in response to nick101

I did that earlier (reset the watch) and it made no difference.

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 6:38 AM in response to Tony Welch

I did see this thread --> http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1872288

where someone had a similar problem to mine but it looks as though he has used an additional router to solve the problem.

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

Apr 25, 2015 6:43 AM in response to Tony Welch

Ouch.

So - the fact that the watch isn't appearing on the router's list of IP addresses means either that its wifi isn't active, or the router's not giving the watch an address

Looking at the thread you posted, when you do (on the watch) Settings, General, About, what does it say about wifi and Bluetooth?

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 6:54 AM in response to nick101

wifi - c0:ce:cd:d2:56:63

BT - c0:ce:cd:d2:56:64

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

Apr 25, 2015 6:48 AM in response to Tony Welch

OK - so it has the MAC addresses it's supposed to have. Does whichever device you use for DHCP have a way of showing the addresses of connected devices? DHCP table or similar. If so, does the watch wifi address you posted show up on the list?

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 6:53 AM in response to nick101

The only way I know to see the addresses is by using other software such as IP Scanner and the watch (actually we have 2) do not show up. I think that it is unlikely that both watches have issues so it must be down to the router I think.

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

Apr 25, 2015 7:13 AM in response to Tony Welch

I agree - not likely to be both watches. Not really sure where to go from here, unless you want to try having the Netgear do DHCP (put the AEBS into Bridge mode) Not sure how much of that kind of tinkering you feel like doing

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 7:25 AM in response to nick101

Yep Nick, I'm happy to try anything and I do appreciate your help. However it's 12:30am almost and I need to go to bed, so I will resume tomorrow and let you know the outcome!

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

Apr 25, 2015 7:44 AM in response to Tony Welch

Sure - have a good night

kishdude

Level 1

9 points

Apr 25, 2015 8:45 AM in response to Tony Welch

I'm having the exact same issue. No Wi-Fi connection on my Apple Watch. My configuration is Internet -> cisco router -> AEBS. The AEBS is in bridge mode and the router is using DHCP. My SSID is broadcast. The phone connects fine to the Wi-Fi, but the watch never connects. I tried restarting the router and AEBS, unpairing the watch and re-pairing, restarting the phone and watch and the watch never connects to wi-fi so when I turn bluetooth off on the phone, I can't ping the phone from my watch and I can't use Siri.

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

Apr 25, 2015 9:22 AM in response to kishdude

I think, unfortunately, that you're going to have to call Appel support and take advantage of the free support period. You'll see from this thread and your own efforts that we haven't been able to pinpoint the cause of this problem.

Sorry

Geraintj

Level 1

4 points

Apr 25, 2015 1:41 PM in response to Tony Welch

Hi!

I had the same problem!

My watch was not connecting to my iphone over wifi. It turns out the watch could not connect to the wifi at all. I have sky broadband here in the uk. But i have turned off the wifi transmitter on the sky hub as I have an apple airport express cabled into the sky router and all my devices connect to the airport express.

A bit of googling implied that the people with similar setups to mine have issues with the wifi of their apple watch.

I decided to turn back on the wifi on my sky router (which is the dhcp server) entered the password and connected to the sky router on my iphone. Opened the apple watch app and waited for a few minutes and hey presto my watch connected to the wifi!

I can see the mac address of the watch on the dhcp table in my sky router, and switching bluetooth off on my iphone now still allows me to ping the phone from the watch!

Downside: I now have two wifi routers switched on and close to each other.

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 2:53 PM in response to Geraintj

My current set up is Netgear Cable modem -> AEBS -> devices and the AEBS acts as the dhcp server. The Netgear is set to bridge mode.

I changed Netgear to NAT Ipv4 only and connected to it's ssid. Unfortunately the watches did not show up on the Netgear DHCP table and when I switched off bluetooth on the phone, the watch would not connect to wifi.

It could be that I'm doing something wrong here- as I am not a comms specialist! Called Apple support but they are closed 😟

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Watch not connecting to wifi when bluetooth on iPhone is switched off