mbellis

Q: No iPhone Notifications with Apple Watch Connected and on wrist?

I have noticed that when the Apple Watch is connected and on my wrist that my alerts, specifically messages and iMessages (possibly all alerts), are not causing my iPhone to alert at all. I believe this is by design since the second I take the Apple Watch off my wrist my alerts return to normal on my iPhone. The Apple Watch is great however in a noisy/busy environment I have missed multiple notifications because they are only alerting on my Apple Watch... Has anyone found a way to force the notifications to alert on both the Apple Watch and the connected iPhone?

Apple Watch

Posted on Apr 28, 2015 7:32 AM

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Q: No iPhone Notifications with Apple Watch Connected and on wrist?

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  • by hardyjc,

    hardyjc hardyjc Apr 28, 2015 7:56 AM in response to mbellis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 28, 2015 7:56 AM in response to mbellis

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

  • by mamosley,

    mamosley mamosley Apr 28, 2015 8:12 AM in response to mbellis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 28, 2015 8:12 AM in response to mbellis

    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

  • by FogCityFrank,

    FogCityFrank FogCityFrank Jun 7, 2015 5:09 PM in response to mbellis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 7, 2015 5:09 PM in response to mbellis

    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. 

  • by Gardens257,

    Gardens257 Gardens257 Jun 7, 2015 8:24 PM in response to FogCityFrank
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 7, 2015 8:24 PM in response to FogCityFrank

    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.

  • by Shanesnh,

    Shanesnh Shanesnh Jun 8, 2015 12:05 AM in response to FogCityFrank
    Level 2 (170 points)
    Jun 8, 2015 12:05 AM in response to FogCityFrank

    [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.

  • by Scottyboy99,

    Scottyboy99 Scottyboy99 Jun 18, 2015 3:30 AM in response to Gardens257
    Level 1 (84 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jun 18, 2015 3:30 AM in response to Gardens257

    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.

  • by DougsPlace,

    DougsPlace DougsPlace Jun 18, 2015 12:49 PM in response to Scottyboy99
    Level 2 (230 points)
    Jun 18, 2015 12:49 PM in response to Scottyboy99

    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.