Cellular watches locked to countries' carriers ?

[anjanesh]

Are cellular version of Apple Watches locked to their respective countries ?
I was told that an Apple Watch (Series 5) bought in Dubai or US wouldn't work in India - that is, the cellular part.
Only watches bought in India would have cellular working here. The GPS works worldwide.

 

[PugMaster]

They have different basebands. An US version will not work in Europe and vice versa for example.

 

[cdcastillo]

I believe it depends on the country and the cell service bands they use. For example, US bought watches work seamlessly in México and viceversa, but I'm not sure about those in japan.

Trying not to hijack the thread, but I have a question. It has been said on these forums (and other sites) that the only thing you should need to have a working EKG function in an apple watch 5 while living outside of the US is to buy it on the US, and voilá... However, I recommended one of my patients (with a heart condition that would benefit from any extra monitoring we can get our hands on) to get a series 5 in the states (besides the regular EKG monitoring we already schedule at the hospital) so she could benefit from this.

She reported me that the EKG function does not work in her US-bought series 5. Any thoughts?