Please help a luddite about smart watches

[Steviesam]

How close does a phone need to be to the smart watch for it to be "connected" so when I get a text message/whatsapp the watch will vibrate?

I use noisy equipment, and never hear or feel my phone vibrate when I get a message. My wife has a smart watch and cannot miss when a message comes because it vibrates on her wrist.

It would be great for me to be able to leave the phone in the car while working, but have the watch tell me when a message has arrived and read that message on the watch. It frustrates me having the phone in my pocked.

Can anyone help me with that?

Cheers

[FourWheelDrift]

For me the watch connection to my phone drops if I am down a floor in the house and maybe 20ft away diagonally sometimes I can make it outside before the disconnect beep. On same level areas with no walls it goes up to 30ft maybe a bit more. So it depends on what's between you and the phone.

[Tycho]

Mine picks up my WiFi when it isn't connected to the phone directly. I have often turned off Bluetooth by accident and not noticed as I'm still getting notifications etc.

[audi321]

Depends on the watch, but it's normally bluetooth, so depending on the BT technology (ie BT 5.3 is the latest) you can get reasonable distances these days. I'd say up to 50m would be the max. Obviously walls etc etc will reduce this accordingly

[paulrockliffe]

Is it normally Bluetooth? All the recent Samsung, Apple and I presume Google don't use Bluetooth only.

I have a Samsung Watch, it uses Bluetooth if I have my phone with me, if I don't it uses my house WiFi instead, then if I leave the house entirely without my phone my phone uses the WiFi to communicate with my watch using it's GPRS connection.

On Android the settings are more fiddly than they need to be, but once they're sorted, so long as both devices have access to a network, they talk to each other anywhere in the world.

[wyson]

If you get a smartwatch that can connect to the mobile network, you won't 'need' your phone at all. I'd get a smartwatch like that if you need notifications on your wrist. Can do as you wish with the phone. Was thinking about getting one and just leaving the phone at home at one point. What phone have you got?

[BoRED S2upid]

You might struggle there with the phone in the car and you working where? In a house or workshop? As above they use Bluetooth abd or Wi-Fi do house no problem but if I’m swimming it won’t pick up the phone in the changing rooms until you get closer.

[Steviesam]

Thank you all. It is an iPhone 12.

I guess I need to get a phone that connects by itself, so I can leave the phone anywhere!

[wyson]

Get an Apple watch with cellular and make sure your network supports it. So when I looked in the past, it was all linked to your main mobile number and account, but the Watch would work anywhere on the mobile network.

[Funk]

Yep, you need a smartwatch with LTE (4G) connection. Bluetooth's only really good for around 30m, particularly indoors without line-of-sight.

[AB]

Same experience here. I have a cellular Apple Watch with an EE connection which is £7 a month.

Without this, the phone needs to be with me which I think defeats the object a bit.