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With my Apple Watch, I don’t need my phone when I’m running, swimming or at the gym. I can receive and return texts, make and receive calls and listen to music

With my Apple Watch, I don’t need my phone when I’m running, swimming or at the gym. I can receive and return texts, make and receive calls and listen to music either stored on the watch or streamed over cellular.

iechoz6H 2y ago
How do you receive calls without a sim? Or does it have a dedicated sim with a different number to your regular phone?
- anderiv 2y ago
  Apple Watches have their own eSIM and they share a number with your phone.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  The Apple Watch has had a cellular option since 2017 with a built in eSIM. There is a separate number as far as billing. But the cellular carrier pairs your cellular watch with an iPhone on the same network. So calls come in and go out as if they were coming from your iPhone’s number. Whenever someone calls your phone - they both ring. If your phone is on and close enough to your watch so they are connected via Bluetooth (or WiFi?), all data and voice communication is relayed through your phone to save battery life. If your watch isn’t connected to your phone, the Watch uses cellular. Roaming support for Apple Watches was just announced in 2022 and is still not ubiquitous
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  As far as I know, the watch’s eSIM technically has its own phone number, but the mobile provider does some backend stuff to make it look like it is using your iPhone’s phone number.
  - Kon-Peki 2y ago
    We got 3 cellular watches for our kids and set them up on one parent phone using the family connection thing. Each watch used only the phone number assigned to it, for both phone calls and messaging. Maybe they do things differently if you set it up in that way. As an only device for kids, it was about 80% there and over the course of a few years Apple made 0 progress, so we gave up on it as a concept. Only 1 kid still wears the watch; the other two are e-waste.
dhosek 2y ago
The swimming tracking seems magical to me. It counts laps and even identifies what stroke I’m doing (although I need to have a pause if I change strokes to let it accurately catch the change of stroke).
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  Pretty much all fitness trackers can do this, even really cheap ones.
nightski 2y ago
That's funny, phone related features are the first things I turn off on my Garmin watch when I set it up. The last thing I want is my wrist buzzing off when I am focused lol. In fact, any notifications on my wrist are just flat out obnoxious. I'll take my multiple weeks of battery life for a single charge on the Forerunner 965. The data and analytics are fantastic as well.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  There is a “Do not disturb” feature on the Apple Watch.
  - nluken 2y ago
    The point of that comment wasn't to suggest that you couldn't also silence notifications on an Apple Watch, it was to illustrate that the ability to receive these notifications isn't as relevant to Garmin's watches' target market as it is to the Apple Watch's.
- wiether 2y ago
  Yeah, I think that's part of the reason both the Apple Watch and Garmin's can thrive: because they have their own market. I recently renewed my Garmin watch and I did the same: disable all the phone related features. And one of the Reddit comments quoted in the article says the same: > Apple Watch is a Smartwatch with fitness features, Garmin is a Fitness watch (with admittedly lacking) smartwatch features. People still buy Garmin watches instead of Apple Watch because they don't want the "smart" stuff, they want the fitness stuff first. And yeah, the battery life is also a big factor!
- maples37 2y ago
  I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my Garmin watch. For me, that's "shows me a preview of incoming SMS and Telegram messages" and the contact name when I receive a phone call. Plus the syncing of fitness activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to buzz or not, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked out well in my particular case. It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything else waits silently in the notification drawer until I choose to look at the phone.
hedora 2y ago
I wish I could just use the watch for everything and dump the phone. It does some ham fisted stuff to prevent this. For example, the watch Bluetooth stack detects that it is connected to a car stereo and refuses to work.
- timenova 2y ago
  I play music in my car over bluetooth only from my watch. Works even without having the iPhone nearby. But yes, I agree with you. The Apple Watch can and should support almost all features the iPhone has. Three features I would like to see: hotspot, switching apps while on call, and Airplay music to soundbars.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Hotspot from the watch would kill the battery life.
- figers 2y ago
  not being able to connect to car bluetooth is painful, why can't they just let that work already!
- exhilaration 2y ago
  It's kind of a sloppy solution, but what about using a Bluetooth to aux adapter? You would lose the dashboard audio controls but at least you can listen to your stuff.

iechoz6H 2y ago

How do you receive calls without a sim? Or does it have a dedicated sim with a different number to your regular phone?

anderiv 2y ago
Apple Watches have their own eSIM and they share a number with your phone.
scarface_74 2y ago
The Apple Watch has had a cellular option since 2017 with a built in eSIM. There is a separate number as far as billing. But the cellular carrier pairs your cellular watch with an iPhone on the same network. So calls come in and go out as if they were coming from your iPhone’s number. Whenever someone calls your phone - they both ring. If your phone is on and close enough to your watch so they are connected via Bluetooth (or WiFi?), all data and voice communication is relayed through your phone to save battery life. If your watch isn’t connected to your phone, the Watch uses cellular. Roaming support for Apple Watches was just announced in 2022 and is still not ubiquitous
lotsofpulp 2y ago
As far as I know, the watch’s eSIM technically has its own phone number, but the mobile provider does some backend stuff to make it look like it is using your iPhone’s phone number.
- Kon-Peki 2y ago
  We got 3 cellular watches for our kids and set them up on one parent phone using the family connection thing. Each watch used only the phone number assigned to it, for both phone calls and messaging. Maybe they do things differently if you set it up in that way. As an only device for kids, it was about 80% there and over the course of a few years Apple made 0 progress, so we gave up on it as a concept. Only 1 kid still wears the watch; the other two are e-waste.

dhosek 2y ago

The swimming tracking seems magical to me. It counts laps and even identifies what stroke I’m doing (although I need to have a pause if I change strokes to let it accurately catch the change of stroke).

iamacyborg 2y ago
Pretty much all fitness trackers can do this, even really cheap ones.

nightski 2y ago

That's funny, phone related features are the first things I turn off on my Garmin watch when I set it up. The last thing I want is my wrist buzzing off when I am focused lol. In fact, any notifications on my wrist are just flat out obnoxious. I'll take my multiple weeks of battery life for a single charge on the Forerunner 965. The data and analytics are fantastic as well.

scarface_74 2y ago
There is a “Do not disturb” feature on the Apple Watch.
- nluken 2y ago
  The point of that comment wasn't to suggest that you couldn't also silence notifications on an Apple Watch, it was to illustrate that the ability to receive these notifications isn't as relevant to Garmin's watches' target market as it is to the Apple Watch's.
wiether 2y ago
Yeah, I think that's part of the reason both the Apple Watch and Garmin's can thrive: because they have their own market. I recently renewed my Garmin watch and I did the same: disable all the phone related features. And one of the Reddit comments quoted in the article says the same: > Apple Watch is a Smartwatch with fitness features, Garmin is a Fitness watch (with admittedly lacking) smartwatch features. People still buy Garmin watches instead of Apple Watch because they don't want the "smart" stuff, they want the fitness stuff first. And yeah, the battery life is also a big factor!
maples37 2y ago
I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my Garmin watch. For me, that's "shows me a preview of incoming SMS and Telegram messages" and the contact name when I receive a phone call. Plus the syncing of fitness activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to buzz or not, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked out well in my particular case. It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything else waits silently in the notification drawer until I choose to look at the phone.

hedora 2y ago

I wish I could just use the watch for everything and dump the phone. It does some ham fisted stuff to prevent this. For example, the watch Bluetooth stack detects that it is connected to a car stereo and refuses to work.

timenova 2y ago
I play music in my car over bluetooth only from my watch. Works even without having the iPhone nearby. But yes, I agree with you. The Apple Watch can and should support almost all features the iPhone has. Three features I would like to see: hotspot, switching apps while on call, and Airplay music to soundbars.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Hotspot from the watch would kill the battery life.
figers 2y ago
not being able to connect to car bluetooth is painful, why can't they just let that work already!
exhilaration 2y ago
It's kind of a sloppy solution, but what about using a Bluetooth to aux adapter? You would lose the dashboard audio controls but at least you can listen to your stuff.