No iPhone Notifications with Apple Watch Connected and on wrist?

What I've been able to read it is be design and unless I can override this functionality so notifications go to both the watch AND iPhone at the same time, I'll be returning the watch. The haptic feedback set to max is not sufficient.

Thank you for the excellent reply. My view on the situation is clear. Purchasing an Apple Watch for nearly as much as an iPhone should offer me the choice to select the watch, phone, or both for alerts!!! Considering the many responses, there is an obvious desire for these options and a small amount of work from Apple would rectify the situation.

I HAVE THE SOLUTION TO THIS ISSUE. I TESTED IT AND IT WORKED.

Go to the Watch app on the iPhone.

Go to Notifications

Go to Message Notifications

Switch it to custom if it is not already

And turn the show alerts OFF

You will not get the alert on your watch and will get them on you phone again. However, once you receive or hear the alert from your phone you can immediately see it on your watch by simply going to messages from the watch. You can still reply to all messages also.

This is a very old thread, but in WatchOS 4.0, released in September 2017, there still is not an option to have notification sounds go to both the Watch and the iPhone simultaneously (which was the main topic of this thread).

However, DougsPlace mentioned a different problem (that I experienced too) where his watch notifications would simply stop working after a few minutes. Even after resetting his Watch and iPhone, the CSR and Apple Store personnel would believe it was fixed, but then the Watch notifications would stop minutes or hours later.

This was happening to me quite often, and I discovered my Watch was frequently in mute/Silent Mode, even though I did not knowingly place it into Silent Mode. I discovered that the "Cover to Mute" feature (under My Watch > Sounds & Haptics) was turning off my notifications by placing my Watch into Silent Mode when I would cross my arms. I tend to sit back and cross my arms while sitting in a chair or on a couch, and my right forearm would cover over the Watch face on my left wrist, thus activating the "Cover to Mute" feature. I noticed many times I would "swipe up" and see my watch was in mute (Silent Mode) and I did not mean to mute it. Then I realized it was when I was crossing my arms and covering the watch face that was doing it. I have simply turned off the "Cover to Mute" under Sounds & Haptics and that solved the problem. Note: Even with "Cover to Mute" disabled, you can still cover your Watch face to turn off the display when a notification comes in, but it doesn't permanently mute your Watch. The next notification will come in with an audible chime. I hope this helps solve the mystery for you too (albeit two years after your post!) Best wishes.

If you would like to send feedback or suggestions to Apple, then you can do so here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html

Do you have your haptic feedback turned to Max? You should feel the vibration if so.

If you screen is dark on the phone, you get the notifications on the watch. If you are wearing your watch and on your phone, you get the notifications on your phone and not the watch.

About Notifications on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Apparently its by design and super annoying. I'm actually thinking about returning my watch also. If I wanted my phone to se silent I would have set it that way. I have also missed alerts even though my watch alert is set to max haptic and max volume.

[Supposed to be a reply to mbellis]Is your watch not on tight enough? I have haptic on max but prominent haptic off and it is VERY noticeable to me and I like it. I couldn't imagine missing it. I think even if I was asleep it would wake me up. If the band is looser however, it is much less noticeable. Try tightening your band so it fits snugly. Maybe it would take a day or so to get used to wearing it tightly but I think you would get used to it pretty fast.

Add me to this list. It is a poor idea from apple to prevent the phone alerting. I want both to make audible alerts for similar reasons. We should have the choice on how the alerts happen. Personally I don't always hear or feel the watch (most of the time I do) but mostly I still want to hear my custom tones from the phone. This way I know who a message is from even without having to look at my watch.

I have had two support calls with Apple re:when and how notifications appear on watch. I wasn't getting notifications and did the reset everything (including my home wifi which makes no sense), twice. Erasing all data and apps on the watch, twice. Got one notification and first CSR proclaimed the issue resolved (nonsense), refused to escalate, we hung up, and watch stopped notifying 5 minutes later. if you make genius Apple Store appointment, they will reset phone, reset watch, and if they get a few successful notifications while they're using it for a minute or two, they will say it's resolved. If you're having the notification issue, it will not really be resolved, and notification will stop working shortly after the appointment.

After reading through all the comments on this issue I tried tightening the wrist band a bit and was pleasantly surprised to see notifications have improved. Not perfect, but better. Which I think in my humble opinion with some IT experience debugging, seems to now point to the infra red sensor's functionality.

Classic question - is it the infra red hardware, or is it an infra red software bug?

We won't know definitively until watch OS2 software upgrade this fall.

I don't need 200 daily email notifications - just text and my news apps would be fine.

SO...important to note as others have three most important variables must be met for notifications -

1. iPhone must be dark screen & LOCKED

2. Watch must be UNLOCKED

3. You must be WEARING the UNLOCKED watch (snugly enough) on your wrist so infra red sensor detects you're wearing the watch.

Apple will likely rethink and hopefully tweak above criteria causing quite a bit of confusion and way too many support calls. As watch OS2 purportedly has "horizontal" nightstand mode, it seems customers want functionality while NOT wearing the watch. It seems we ALL want watch notifications whether the phone is locked or not, or whether the watch is unlocked or not. Or at least let us CHOOSE the criteria ourselves.

I just got my watch and I was struggling with this. Apple just needs to make a setting for both the watch and the phone to alert. It baffles me why they wouldn't.