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

kishdude

Level 1

9 points

Apr 25, 2015 4:22 PM in response to Tony Welch

As an update,

I went to my father's house and he has only a netgear router connected directly to a cable modem and the router has wi-fi built in and runs dhcp. My watch connected to the wi-fi there without an issue. So The issue is only at home but I have a pretty standard configuration so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 8:36 PM in response to kishdude

Okay guys I have sorted out the problem 🙂, although I don't understand why 😕.

My original set up was Netgear (bridged) -> AEBS -> devices.

I changed it around so the Netgear, NAT enabled -AEBS (bridged) ->devices.

Once I reconfigured Netgear, I opened Airport Utility and restored to default settings. I started again and set up a new base station with different name and password from before (to avoid any confusion for the devices).

Low and behold the watch now connect to wifi and I can see it's MAC address in the Netgear settings.

Thanks for your help, particularly to Nick101 who spent ages online with me last night.

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 25, 2015 9:31 PM in response to Tony Welch

PS: I also have Wireless Access Point enabled on the router. If this is not on, then the watch will not access wifi. Right now I have switched off the phone and am talking to Siri with no probs.

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

Apr 25, 2015 11:01 PM in response to Tony Welch

Good news

golazzo

Level 1

10 points

Apr 25, 2015 11:33 PM in response to Geraintj

I also have a Sky Hub but im struggling to use the watch over WiFi only. If i reboot the Sky Hub and press the WPS button should this do the trick.

And should i unpair then pair the watch back up with the iphone

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

Apr 25, 2015 11:36 PM in response to golazzo

I don't know whether the WPS button makes any difference. As I understand it (this is new to all of us, so there's bit of exploring going on), the watch inherits the wifi settings from the phone. Unpinning and re-pairing may help. It my be easier to call Apple support

Apr 26, 2015 2:40 PM in response to nick101

So I just got off the phone with Apple Care and they told me that this functionality does not exist on the phone and that it must be connected via Bluetooth at all times in order to access Siri and all other wifi activities. How is it then possible for you to connect to the wifi through the phone with Bluetooth turned off?

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 26, 2015 2:54 PM in response to stevenpj777

This is what the manual states:

“Apple Watch can’t configure new Wi-Fi networks on its own, but it can connect to Wi-Fi networks you’ve set up on the paired iPhone. If your Apple Watch and iPhone are on the same network but aren’t connected by Bluetooth, you can also do the following on Apple Watch without iPhone:

Send and receive messages using iMessage
Send and receive Digital Touch messages
Use Siri”

Clearly AppleCare don't know what they are talking about.

Marc007@

Level 1

43 points

Apr 26, 2015 3:57 PM in response to Tony Welch

I too have been on chat with Apple for 2 days on various connection issues and more recently the same issue here. After much deliberation the tech acknowledged that Bluetooth is required at present to use Siri. after many tests and resets and repairing it became obvious that the Apple user manual page 18 is incorrect at this time. they are escalating and will be calling me back on Tuesday to follow this up, with the assurance that it will get passed up to the Apple Watch Team. I did say that there was very little point in having this device if I can't use it outsidde of Bluetooth range for Siri and imessaging, which is the main reason I got it. Good job the Blood pressure monitor was working after all the stress!

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 26, 2015 4:07 PM in response to Marc007@

Marc007 - how do you explain that I have just asked Siri to show movies near me, received an email, and a reminder. My phone's bluetooth is switched off.

I do not think that the support team are sufficiently competent to deal with comms issues.

Marc007@

Level 1

43 points

Apr 26, 2015 4:16 PM in response to Tony Welch

HI Tony, I agree with you, I have had 3 techs since Friday on this and notification issues. I have a simple network with both 2.4 and 5 GHz wireless broadcasting on a single router, no bridging. It seems they were not aware of the manual that stated that wifi could be used for the stated functions without Bluetooth, which was the whole point of the call. The tech I spoke yo hadn't had his own Watch delivered yet! I'm going to wait till Tuesday and see what they say, as I'm not happy with the way this has been left.

Tony Welch Author

Level 1

125 points

Apr 26, 2015 4:26 PM in response to Marc007@

I sympathise - this can be very frustrating. I can only suggest that you have the wireless access point enabled on your router. Failing that delete everything and start again with new passwords and network names, which is what I landed up doing. It is a pain, but it sorted out the problem.

May 1, 2015 7:57 PM in response to Tony Welch

On my Netgear router, I set up the Guest network and toggled SSID on and off. When on, Watch connected right away, even when BT was enabled on phone. When off, it would not.

Annoying since I do not want to broadcast SSID.

May 7, 2015 12:00 AM in response to Tony Welch

I tried most of the methods here, but nothing worked.

I always wondered how the Watch is able to get the password from the phone, if the phone doesn't store plaintext password. After one connects to a wifi by typing in the password, that password can't be recovered.

So, it seems that the Watch cannot connect to an existing wifi network that the iPhone remembers. What one needs to do is to "forget the network" on the iPhone, and reconnect to that wifi network while the Watch is connected to the iPhone via bluetooth. Then the password that's used to connect to the wifi would be passed to the watch and the watch can then connect to wifi.

nick101

Level 5

5,150 points

May 7, 2015 12:10 AM in response to dacheng81

That's not what's happening for me. The watch remembers WiFi networks (at least, the ones I use).

The wifi password may not be recoverable, but the phone retains it to be able to reconnect to a known network. How the phone passes info to the watch I don't know. A support document would be nice

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