Location based home automations and Apple Watch Cellular

Question

Location based home automations and Apple Watch Cellular

Has anyone else noticed that since the iOS 16.5/Watch OS9.5 update that Apple Watch with cellular no longer triggers location based home automations when leaving the phone behind? Prior to the update my location based automations worked perfectly via Apple Watch but it no longer works. I have tried everything possible, turning off location on iPhone and back on, unpairing Apple Watch and re-pairing from backup and having spoken to Apple their only suggestion was to un-pair and set up as a new Watch rather than from backup which would be a complete nightmare. Before considering this drastic action I wanted to know if it is widespread/issue with the latest updates or actually a bug in my backup. Anyone else have a potential fix?

Posted on May 23, 2023 08:19 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

tommy.stranack Author

Level 1

74 points

Sep 15, 2023 04:41 AM in response to amaury259

Disappointing to hear that it's not resolved in IOS 17. Apple software is a real mess at the moment. So many bugs and so much not working as advertised, this being just one example. Loosing faith rapidly!

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Answer 2

Sep 15, 2023 11:16 PM in response to tommy.stranack

Automations and home/away detection feature have never been clearly supported on Apple Watch, I mean there is no documentation about how it works on the device, nobody knows. But we had the opportunity to enjoy the « bug » of a working Apple Watch triggering automations between IOS 16.2 and IOS 16.4 and that was cool, but it’s over: the(ir) logic is whatever you do, take your iPhone with you even if it sounds stupid especially for some sports related activities (swimming, diving…). I own an Ultra and I am really disappointed they missed the point once again.

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Answer 3

Sep 15, 2023 03:18 AM in response to amaury259

What’s going on with Apple ? Useless support team, nobody can tell what is wrong, looks like nobody uses HomeKit in their Teams… I tried with IOS 17 + WatchOS 10, and guess what… the problem is still there. In my case, this is a security issue (no HKSV) and I don’t know what they are waiting for to fix this.

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Answer 4

Jun 10, 2023 06:38 AM in response to tommy.stranack

Same issue here, and it’s a pity because it didn’t trigger HKSV when away anymore (huge security issue in my case). I tried to unpair and set up as a new Watch, but the issue is still there. I hope this is not the intended behavior… which device should have priority to run automations over the other in this situation (when you leave your IPhone at home) Apple Watch or IPhone ? To me the wearable is the Apple Watch, this is the device you wear every day to track activities. It would be nice to restore(or fix) this feature in the next update.

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