Apple Watch not getting notifications

This is a bizarro settings bug. Some interaction between two unrelated settings.

In any event, using this solution I was able to turn off cover to mute, get notifications working in the normal way..and then turn cover to mute back on and they still work.

I do not know if this will help anyone out there, but, I went through the whole I couldn't get notifications on the watch no matter what I did... After 3 watches and no help from the geniuses at the Apple store I made it a quest. It seems that because of the tattoos on my arm it messes with the way the watch detects my wrist, pulse etc. So if I turn off wrist detection everything works fine (more or less). Heart rate monitor is pretty much useless and I can not use the watch for Apple Pay nor does it lock when I take it off, but I can live with all that. It is still in the gadget fascination phase.

Problem solved, Brushstillwater, yes, but it doesn't change the fact that every new user with whom I have personal knowledge has been blindsided the by "no notifications when phone is unlocked" issue. When you first get the watch you are invariably playing with the phone at the same time, messing with apple watch app, etc.. You won't get notifications at that time, which is when you are most interested in seeing them to see how the watch works. There should be a prominent warning about this in the box. But Apple won't give you any information in the box. It's in the manual, I know, but the apple watch is more complicated and less user friendly than the iPhone in certain respects and Apple should do more to help the new user with a "quick glance" card or something.

I also find that the "mirror my iPhone" setting does not always produce the results that one might expect intuitively, not sure why.

I'm a big fan of this watch, by the way.

This was my problem. On my watch, the "Do Not Disturb" option was enabled by default. Spent an hour researching why I wasn't getting text messages. Can't imagine this is true for every new Apple Watch, or the internet would be flooded with these issues. Weird.

Fixed mine. I was getting all notifications on Watch except mail. Tried reset, restart, turning off cover to mute, etc. Finally, I realized Watch was set to Mirror my iPhone. I don't like receiving notifications on my iPhone lock screen, so I have those turned off on my phone. Apparently, that prevents the notification from coming through on Watch. To fix, do the following in Watch app on iPhone:

1. Navigate to My Watch > Notifications > Mail

2. Select "Custom" instead of "Mirror my iPhone"

3. Turn on "Show Alerts"

4. Tap each mail account and choose if you want to receive alerts, and if you do, select the type(s) you wish to receive.

Hope this helps.

Notifications are shown on the watch only if you wear it, “wrist detection” must be on to identify that the watch is on your wrist. It is set on My Watch > General > Wrist Detection

After struggling with it I have strangely enough found out that on my watch wrist detection is on when the app shows that it is switched off - the switch position is the oposite of what it should be . Once I changed it to "off" all the notifications are active, wake screen on lift wrist is functional .. etc.

To test your watch enable Passcode and see if on watch sleep it gets locked while on your wrist, if this happens change position of the wrist detection switch.

Hello,

I've not been getting any third-party notifications on my watch any more. iMessages are being pushed (Apple Mail is disabled because I have Spark managing my e-Mails). Have had this problem for a week now. No idea what happened. Tried everything from turning the cover to mute setting off and on again to completely unlink and re-link the watch to my phone. I even turned every Webapp (Groupme, Whatsapp, FB, whatever) off which hadn't been a problem anyway before. No chance. What am I supposed to do?

Thanks.

I have been having the same issue. I wasn't receiving notifications for my Calendar events.

My watch was set to notify and my phone notifications were all on too. It was driving me mad.

I made sure my watch app had alerts on and also my phone had calendar notifications on.

The last place I looked was on my phone in settings and under sounds, I scrolled down to calendar alerts and saw that there was a sound alert but vibration was set to none.

I don't remember changing this myself so I'm not sure if it's default. But anyway.... It's working now.

Hope this helps

iPhone 6 - 9.3.2

42mm sport.

I Also have the same problem. The only way to fix it is to turn off wrist detection however if you do this you can't use Apple Pay. Has anyone found a solution. I'm awaiting a call from an Apple representative.

I'm having a similar problem I only recieve vibration when I am being called. I don't revive activity updates or prompts to stand although I have them selected. I have sound disabled on the watch but it is not in silent mode. At the moment the watch is not smart at all. I do constantly have my phone in silent though but vibrations and notifications are still on.

Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance.

Anyone not getting notifications should try to switch off wrist detection in the general settings tab on the apple watch app on the iPhone. I have not been getting notifications of any sort until I switched that feature off, I am now getting all my notifications. I tried everything all sorts of resets and this is what fixed it for me. If this fix does work for you then I believe that your infra red sensor which detects your wrist is not working properly.

I tried all the suggestions here and finally got my notifications to come back on but with no haptic alert. Most frustrating!

Then I switched on the sound for the notifications that I want to receive on my apple watch and the haptic feedback came back.

I kept the sound alert off because my phone is always on mute anyway. But apparently my apple watch needs the notifications to be on sound alert before it would vibrate.

Hope this helps others who were just as frustrated as I was.

And the winner is...turned off Cover to Mute, didn't work. Rebooted phone, issue still not resolved. Found this forum. Turned off Wrist Detection and rebooted phone, and I'm getting audible text notifications again. YAY! Leaving Cover to Mute off because I recognize how easily that could contribute to this. Thanks for the posts on this issue, they definitely helped.

Sorry but what Apple support said does not work. You must have passcode turned off completely- this was from Apple support level 3 and most certainly is a design flaw. Not being able to secure your watch or use Apple Pay makes no sense. I am returning mine - too big a flaw!

chrisfromport carling wrote:

Sorry but what Apple support said does not work. You must have passcode turned off completely- this was from Apple support level 3 and most certainly is a design flaw. Not being able to secure your watch or use Apple Pay makes no sense. I am returning mine - too big a flaw!

That is certainly not a standard requirement or a design flaw on Apple Watch.

In your case, if your Apple Watch does not behave as described in my previous reply, then it is for a specific reason.

For example: passcode restrictions may be enforced on your Apple Watch (via a corporate configuration profile, mobile device management or Exchange policy on your iPhone) or Wrist Detection may not be functioning as expected (potentially due, for example, to wrist tattoos or a hardware defect).