Apple Watch eSim Setup Fail

[Ray_]

• My own iPhone 16 up to date
• my own Apple Watch 7 cellular up to date, paired with the phone.
• transferred to Vodafone 5 days ago
• no Apple Watch plan yet, trying to follow the Vodafone setup process which instructs me to do this from the Apple Watch app on the paired iPhone
• phone cellular works for calls and data well
• when I try to setup one number for the Apple Watch, I hit this screen straight after clicking ‘Set Up Mobile Service’
• tried switching off WiFi, get the same issue.
• restaring both devices multiple times doesnt help
• upairing Apple Watch doesn’t help - I set it up as a new Watch with the phone to try
• support have no answer for me and told me to keep resetting the watch.
• i get the same issue on my partners iPhone 14 and Apple Watch SE

Has anyone overcome this issue and what was the fix, please?

Thanks in advance.

[Thomas_H]

It would be helpful for us to have a look into your account to see if there has been an order created to link your phone and watch. If there has this would be the reason but if there hasn't and you're still having issues we can try and manually connect them. Please could you reach out to my team on social media and we can have a look into it for you. You can find out how to contact here: https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/About-the-Community/Contact-us-about-account-related-queries/td-p/27...

[Ray_]

Thanks @Thomas_H @I’m in contact with them now.

[Ray_ · Accepted solution]

Fix is to ignore the Vodafone guide for Apple Watch setup and add a smartwatch one number  connection plan yourself. There is an option to enter the watch EID manually. Then you can get past the setup process in the watch app easily, with a successful connection. This will show in the phone plan.

Use caution if you’re setting up more than one watch/phone on multiple plans under the same account. The one number web login only asks which plan you’re associating the extra data connection with when you first login. I had to use a different browser to connect my second watch/phone, as the login via the Vodafone app would always login as the first plan and has no option to change plan once logged in.

Hope this helps someone else save time. If this is confusing, contact Vodafone as suggested by Thomas above but be prepared for it to drag out for days, not hours.