AT&T Service Transfer?

[ArgusArms]

If anyone has successfully transferred their AT&T phone service to their new Ultra from Apple Watch Series 7, could you please tell me what process you used?
I’ve read that I’ll need to either:

1. Remove the series 7, and the phone service, and then add the Ultra.

2. Just set-up the Ultra as a second watch, transfer the phone service to it, and then remove the series 7.

I’d really just like to know which one works without having to call AT&T if possible.

 

[jav6454]

You’ll need to call AT&T, this is a highly user specific case and carrier assistance is highly encouraged.

 

[dthiss01]

Unpair series 7 and KEEP cellular plan. Setup Ultra and restore from backup S7. When asks setup cellular. Asks to transfer plan. i may take a couple of tries, but works for me.

 

[TomH TX]

This was a great question. I was waiting to respond until I received mine, and tried to do the transfer. I was falsely encouraged by the ease with which I re-paired my AW6C to my new 14PM yesterday, and thereby transferred the SAME watch to a new phone. However, transferring my cellular and “numbersynch” to the AW8U which I received today did NOT go well. I hit an error message while trying to install cellular which mandated that I call ATT. Long story short, they had to force enter the EID and/or IMEI numbers of the new watch. Perhaps most surprisingly, and I do not know if this was total b/s, but they told me that they could NOT just transfer the cellular number which had been attributed to the AW6C, and had to give the AW8U a “new” number. Whatever. It worked.

 

[earthdog]

This was a great question. I was waiting to respond until I received mine, and tried to do the transfer. I was falsely encouraged by the ease with which I re-paired my AW6C to my new 14PM yesterday, and thereby transferred the SAME watch to a new phone. However, transferring my cellular and “numbersynch” to the AW8U which I received today did NOT go well. I hit an error message while trying to install cellular which mandated that I call ATT. Long story short, they had to force enter the EID and/or IMEI numbers of the new watch. Perhaps most surprisingly, and I do not know if this was total b/s, but they told me that they could NOT just transfer the cellular number which had been attributed to the AW6C, and had to give the AW8U a “new” number. Whatever. It worked.

I can tell you every year we go through this. They have to manually do the IMIE and EID. I get jealous when I see others that have it so simple. I typically have to dedicate an hour to it each year. I always thought the reason was because we are a ATT Premier account. You think the personal stuff is bad the Corporate Accounts really get screwed... Watching the Thread hoping for some insight to make it easier.

 

[ArgusArms]

Method #2 above worked perfectly for me.
I set-up the Ultra as a new watch, and when prompted just selected to transfer the existing cellular service over from the Series 7. After a few minutes, everything activated and worked. No calls to AT&T needed.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback, and good luck with your upgrades and service transfers.

 

[TomH TX]

I am also att premier, and have thought for years that that was part of the problem.

 

[FlyingScot]

With ATT and was able to transfer from my 7 to the Ultra without a phone call. Different dialog too when pairing / setting up the Ultra. Simply removed the cellular plan from the 7, then turned on ultra next to phone and setup following the prompts. Chose the existing number sync and roughly 5 minutes later it was setup to the Ultra. Actually worked and I was surprised…

 

[swiftbmx]

I can tell you every year we go through this. They have to manually do the IMIE and EID. I get jealous when I see others that have it so simple. I typically have to dedicate an hour to it each year. I always thought the reason was because we are a ATT Premier account. You think the personal stuff is bad the Corporate Accounts really get screwed... Watching the Thread hoping for some insight to make it easier.

I'm on a business account and I also dread this every time I need to make switch to a different Apple Watch. Not my personal best but I got it sorted out in about 2 hours of calls. It was so easy to switch from physical sim(and eSim) to eSims on the iPhone 14, I wish they implemented this feature on the watch.

 

[dthiss01]

FWIW, I am also on a Premier plan and was able to activate without intervention.

 

[ColdCase]

I have a premier plan and have not had an issue transferring from older watches to new watches, yet. I set up the new watch. Eventually get the set up as "new" or "replace" prompt, done. Took maybe 5 minutes the last time a couple months ago. I'm logged into my account when I do this if that makes a difference.

 

[gsmornot]

I chose the option to remove my plan when unpairing the old watch. Figured worse case I would sign up again. When pairing the new, it asked if I wanted to transfer service or setup a new plan. I chose transfer and in a few minutes it was done. No calling.

 

[earthdog]

FWIW, I am also on a Premier plan and was able to activate without intervention.

I have had the same issue every year since the AW0. We have 3 watches on our account myself and another user both got AWU’s and both get the following error. ATT Premier Support told me yesterday that Premier Accounts have to be done by them. I can’t and I am the Premier Account Administrator by putting the IMEI and EID in online. Here is the error we have always gotten. If you have a way around I would love to not have the frustration.

 

[Teride]

Method #2 above worked perfectly for me.
I set-up the Ultra as a new watch, and when prompted just selected to transfer the existing cellular service over from the Series 7. After a few minutes, everything activated and worked. No calls to AT&T needed.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback, and good luck with your upgrades and service transfers.

When you set up as a ”new” watch you lose all your activity tracking correct?

 

[dthiss01]

I have had the same issue every year since the AW0. We have 3 watches on our account myself and another user both got AWU’s and both get the following error. ATT Premier Support told me yesterday that Premier Accounts have to be done by them. I can’t and I am the Premier Account Administrator by putting the IMEI and EID in online. Here is the error we have always gotten. If you have a way around I would love to not have the frustration.

Wish I had a work around. It just works for me.

 

[ArgusArms]

When you set up as a ”new” watch you lose all your activity tracking correct?

No, that all is stored in the cloud. Nothing is lost.

 

[papbot]

Ok, I’m seeing several suggestions here - unpair old watch and keep the plan, set up new one and choose transfer. Then I see unpair old one and remove plan and transfer to new one. Then I see just set up new one without unpairing old one. Color me confused. I’m with AT&T also and haven’t done this in a couple years. My current thinking is to unpair the old watch, keep the plan, iCloud backup of the phone, then activate new one and hopefully get the cell plan and all data transferred. Will this work?

What do you actually see if you don’t first unpair the old watch, when you first turn on the new one? I want to make certain that all data from the old watch and the cell plan are transferred. I’m trading the old one so would unpair it afterwards if I didn’t do it before turning the new one on.

 

[ArgusArms]

Ok, I’m seeing several suggestions here - unpair old watch and keep the plan, set up new one and choose transfer. Then I see unpair old one and remove plan and transfer to new one. Then I see just set up new one without unpairing old one. Color me confused. I’m with AT&T also and haven’t done this in a couple years. My current thinking is to unpair the old watch, keep the plan, iCloud backup of the phone, then activate new one and hopefully get the cell plan and all data transferred. Will this work?

What do you actually see if you don’t first unpair the old watch, when you first turn on the new one? I want to make certain that all data from the old watch and the cell plan are transferred. I’m trading the old one so would unpair it afterwards if I didn’t do it before turning the new one on.

The new watch will pop up on your iPhone and ask if you’d like to pair it.

 

[papbot]

The new watch will pop up on your iPhone and ask if you’d like to pair it.

So no need to unpair the old one first, cell plan and data all come over? That would be the way I’ll do this when mine arrives now that I’ve read your post. Then I can unpair the old one, it’s being traded.

 

[ArgusArms]

So no need to unpair the old one first, cell plan and data all come over? That would be the way I’ll do this when mine arrives now that I’ve read your post. Then I can unpair the old one, it’s being traded.

That’s what I did. It worked perfectly and the whole process was complete in less than 10 minutes.
I was confused for a few seconds when it showed the phone number to be transferred, and it wasn’t my cell number. I quickly realized it was the assigned number for the watch though.
The rest was easy. I’m sure yours will work easily too.

 

[EngenZerO]

I traded in my old watch. So while I was at the store I reset/erased my AW6 and removed the cell plan. I was setting up my Apple Watch Ultra as new. I went through the config and during the AW Ultra setup I went through the cellular ATT prompts and transfered the number to the watch. It said it would take a few minutes and didn’t go through right away. So I skipped that step and finished up the setup. Then when I went back into the iPhone Apple Watch app to finish the ATT setup it recognized the transfer from before and installed the number.

 

[papbot]

That’s what I did. It worked perfectly and the whole process was complete in less than 10 minutes.
I was confused for a few seconds when it showed the phone number to be transferred, and it wasn’t my cell number. I quickly realized it was the assigned number for the watch though.
The rest was easy. I’m sure yours will work easily too.

Thank you! Really appreciate it.

 

[papbot]

I traded in my old watch. So while I was at the store I reset/erased my AW6 and removed the cell plan. I was setting up my Apple Watch Ultra as new. I went through the config and during the AW Ultra setup I went through the cellular ATT prompts and transfered the number to the watch. It said it would take a few minutes and didn’t go through right away. So I skipped that step and finished up the setup. Then when I went back into the iPhone Apple Watch app to finish the ATT setup it recognized the transfer from before and installed the number.

Thanks for that. I probably would have done the same thing if I were going to a store. It’s good to know that apparently either way seems to work well. Since I will be doing this at home and can take my time I’ll just do what @ArgusArms did and unpair the old one afterwards, and then ship out to the trade-in partner. The Apple support instructions I found mentioned removing the plan first from the old watch which concerned me. Very good to hear from people who have actually completed the process without doing that first.

 

[Teride]

This might be a dumb question…but thought I would ask…if I transfer the phone number to the Ultra & then decide to move back to my 6 I should just be able to unpair the 6 , pair again & transfer number back to 6—correct? I haven’t decided yet if I am ok with the size on my wrist.

 

[ArchEtech]

I simply turned the watch on.

It prompted me to sync/this new watch and I scanned the cloud image thing.

It did it’s paring to the watch.

It then asked me if I wanted to transfer my cellular carrier plan over and directed a simple step.

That was it. Then I took my 7 off my apple account, and then reset/erased it.

That simple. All the apps transferred over.