Apple Watch 3 LTE – SMS message issues

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Level 1

23 points

Apple Watch 3 LTE – SMS message issues

Starting last week when I went to send an SMS text message through LTE, it failed to send the message. If someone sends me an SMS message I will not receive it until I come back into range of my iPhone. If I restart the watch it will temporarily fix the problem, but the problem with that I have no way of knowing if it is working or not (in another words if someone is sending me an important text). Has anyone else had this issue and a possible solution? If I do a complete reset on the watch (restore it to factory) will that mess up my cellular activation?

Just a few extra notes;

When it fails to send a message, I am still able to send iMessages and make phone calls fine (very clear in fact), which means it is not an LTE signal problem.
I have the latest 4.3 installed.
My iPhone is always turned on 24/7 (I am aware if it is off the sms messages will not work).
I have restarted my iPhone.
My iPhone is an iPhone X with the latest iOS.

Thanks for your help!

watchOS 4.3

Posted on May 28, 2018 3:15 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Carolyn Samit

Level 10

165,615 points

May 28, 2018 3:18 PM in response to jessemooney

Hi,

See if there is something you haven't tried in this Apple support article > If you can’t send or receive messages on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

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Answer 2

jessemooney Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 2, 2018 2:36 PM in response to jessemooney

I unpaired and repaired the watch plus followed all those steps, I am still having the problem. One thing I have noticed is that when the message does fail to send, it will eventually send over the LTE. This process might take 20 plus minutes. Once that first message does send, it will send SMS messages fast after that (up to a certain time).

My theory why this happens. When you send an SMS message through the Apple Watch, it has to send it through the iPhone. When the phone is in range and is connected to Bluetooth it is always fast since it has a direct connection the the phone. However if the phone is not in range and it has to send through Wi-Fi or LTE it will essentially have the internet as the bridge or middle-man between the two devices. That seems to be where the problem is that bridge. For some reason that first text takes an extra long time to communicate with the iPhone, so when it says that the message failed to send what has really happened is that it timed out.

That being said, I am not sure if it is a problem with the bridge in between the devices, or it is a software issue on the devices themselves (acting almost like a firewall).

So in short, hopefully a future update will improve this SMS message delay (and unfortunately 11.4 and 4.3.1 did not address this).

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Apple Watch 3 LTE – SMS message issues

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