Find me at my Watch location, not my iPhone

by Volker Weber

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I often leave the house without my phone and I want people to be able to find me through the location of my Watch, not the location of my iPhone that is still at home. If I go through the (slightly misnamed) Find iPhone app or website, I can find all my devices individually. And I have used this when I left my iPhone behind on a park bench. Yes, I got it back, and yes, I gave the finder some money for keeping it safe.

But when I share my location through Find My Friends, it will always show the location of my iPhone, not my Watch, even if Apple knows the correct Watch location in Find iPhone. There is a setting on the iPhone called Share Location, where you can select, which device to track for Find My Friends, but it does not offer Watch. Instead it says:

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That is kind of ambigous, because it says "and". However, there is a support document which explains it further:

If you share your location from an iPhone that’s paired with Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular), your location is shared from your Apple Watch when you’re out of range of your iPhone and Apple Watch is on your wrist. Note: You can stop sharing your location from your Apple Watch. Go to Settings > General > Location Services, then turn off Share My Location.

This never worked for me. Not on Watch Series 3 and neither on Series 4. I am lost. Who can help?

Comments

Perhaps you need to turn off the location sharing on the iPhone (leave it on for the Watch) and then check the Find My Friends to see if the Watch is there, then turn the location sharing back on for the iPhone. Different technology scenario, but I sometimes have to turn off my wifi on my corporate laptop to get it to recognize the wired connection on my office dock; once the wired connection is established, I can turn the wifi back on and the wired connection will continue to work.

Don McNally, 2018-10-02

I tried that. When you switch off Share My Location on iPhone, it will also turn that off on Watch.

Volker Weber, 2018-10-02

It worked for me until some months ago. Stopped working all over sudden. Nothing helped so far. Even tried unpairing and pairing the watch again.

Dirk Haunschild, 2018-10-02

I tried on a new iPhone with new Watch. No luck.

Volker Weber, 2018-10-02

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