iPhone AND Apple Watch from to T-Mobile

**rcentros** · 07-19-2022, 01:23 AM

The title should be: iPhone AND Apple Watch from SPRINT to T-Mobile

My wife has a Sprint iPhone 11 and an Apple Watch. She's been putting off changing over to T-Mobile because she was happy with the Sprint service, but today we got a packet with a T-Mobile SIM. I thought, "Okay, no big deal," until I realized that the Apple Watch also has to change over... somehow. Is this process automatic when you change the SIM in the iPhone, or are we going to lose the connection between the two if we don't take the Apple Watch into account? Does anyone know how this works? (I assume there's no SIM card in the Apple Watch.)

Sorry if this is a dumb question. Never really had to worry about this until now. And I've never owned anything made by Apple in the last 20 years. I assume the Sprint network is about to die completely, so we could no longer avoid it.

Thanks for any information, links or advice.

**Serial Port** · 07-19-2022, 09:07 AM

Does the Apple watch have a separate phone # or does it work in conjunction with the iPhone via Bluetooth? I don't think you need to worry about SIM card for the watch.

I use Samsung and have a Galaxy S 21 phone with my S3 watch. I started out with Sprint and converted to T-Mobile more than a year and half ago. Only one SIM for my phone was needed. I recently changed to Verizon and it was the same experience.

If you need more information, call T-Mobile customer service or go to a retail location for help.

**rcentros** · 07-19-2022, 11:06 AM

That's probably the best advice. Let T-Mobile handle it. I know (from Googling) that, about a year ago, T-Mobile shops were having trouble converting the iPhone/Apple Watch combo, but I haven't seen any recent posts about it. So hopefully they got the bugs ironed out. I know zero about iPhones and Apple Watches (or Samsung Galaxies and S3 watches). I think my wife did say, however, that the Apple Watch has its own number, but it's somehow paired with the iPhone. Maybe Sprint did this differently than the others?

Thanks for the information.

**Theghostlad82** · 07-19-2022, 02:43 PM

The apple watch uses an esim, there is no actual sim card to put in the apple watch. Once you activate the TMobile line and go thru the process of repairing the apple watch to the phone it will give you the option to activate cellular on the apple watch. TMobile does give apple watches their own separate phone number, but, they pair it to your iPhone using digits so the actual phone number on the watch is irrelevant. It's a pretty simple process. I believe the issues they had before with converting sprint watch lines over was on the billing end.

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**gdrenick74** · 07-20-2022, 10:27 PM

The initial migration process (Dec. 2021) from Sprint to T-Mo was not simple for me where I wanted the Apple Watch to be standalone (e.g., iPhone is off, iPhone is not near the Apple watch, or where the iPhone is not on same Wifi network as the Apple Watch.

This challenge showed itself in spades as I traveled to Mexico on two different occasions.

With both iPhone and Androids on my plan, one T-Mo tech mistakenly set my Apple Watch as an Android. This created a mess to unravel.

Long story short, be clear if you want the Apple Watch to work (receive and make calls, use data) as standalone from your iPhone. Also, make sure that the T-Mo teams clearly know if you have Apple devices or Android devices.

I suspect that the process is better documented and staff better experienced by now. Persistence and patience are essential and the standalone model is working great - even in Mexico and likely Canada, too.

Review roaming and plan limitations for other countries.

Good luck.

Sent from my BE2028 using Tapatalk

**tekfranz** · 07-20-2022, 11:19 PM

Originally Posted by gdrenick74

The initial migration process (Dec. 2021) from Sprint to T-Mo was not simple for me where I wanted the Apple Watch to be standalone (e.g., iPhone is off, iPhone is not near the Apple watch, or where the iPhone is not on same Wifi network as the Apple Watch.

This challenge showed itself in spades as I traveled to Mexico on two different occasions.

With both iPhone and Androids on my plan, one T-Mo tech mistakenly set my Apple Watch as an Android. This created a mess to unravel.

Long story short, be clear if you want the Apple Watch to work (receive and make calls, use data) as standalone from your iPhone. Also, make sure that the T-Mo teams clearly know if you have Apple devices or Android devices.

I suspect that the process is better documented and staff better experienced by now. Persistence and patience are essential and the standalone model is working great - even in Mexico and likely Canada, too.

Review roaming and plan limitations for other countries.

Good luck.

Sent from my BE2028 using Tapatalk

So my understanding here is the iPhone needs to have signal and be turned on for Digits to forward calls to a cellular Apple Watch.

My watch got setup as Android as well, but I wonder if that was done on purpose, I am wondering if setting up an Apple Watch with an Android plan code was some sort of workaround to make the Watch truly standalone with no iPhone needing to be left on.

The tech from the Team of Experts recommended changing back from the Android Watch plan to an Apple Watch plan code to avoid future issues (since system updates and the like could break the connectivity because of the wrong device on the wrong plan). Another weird thing that happens with the Android Watch plan is you end up with a Cellular plan in the iPhone Watch App that does not activate but the Watch seems to be happily connected to cellular anyway if you check the cellular in its settings.

But now the phone has to be powered on somewhere on the Internet for calls to forward. This was also how AT&T NumberSync worked.

Anyone else have an Apple Watch running on an Android plan on T-Mobile?

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