Transfer AT&T NumberSync to New Apple Watch

[1kmerenda]

Does anyone else find it damn near impossible to get your AT&T NumberSync service and existing plan transferred from one watch to a new one?

Each year, I upgrade to the latest Apple Watch, and each year its a massive ordeal.

Two years ago, I bought my new watch from Apple. When it arrived, I tried the process on my own (unpair old watch, remove plan, setup new watch, attempt to setup cellular). That failed - AT&T kept seeing it as a new device and trying to add a new line of service.

Last year, I bought the watch directly from AT&T so they new it was an upgrade to my current one. When it arrived, I tried the procedure again, and again it tries to add as new service.

Both times, I spent the better part of 6 hours on the phone with support (and at times in the ATT retail store, while on the phone with support) trying to get it to work. We'd factory reset the watch and every other thing, but they just never get it until hours and hours and a few escalations later.

This year, I bought the series 6 from Apple. Before I even took it out of the box I called AT&T and explained what I wanted to do. It was clear from the start that the rep had no experience with this, but he tried assist anyway. As I write this, I'm 1.25 hours into our support session, and no closer to getting the service transferred over. This time, however, not only does AT&T see it as a new device, they see it also as a stand-alone and are trying to setup the new line at $45/mo instead of the normal $10 for a number sync companion device.

Has anyone solved this mystery yet?

 

[dave006]

Yea the rep is simply not following the Access Apple Watch process when trying to assign a $45 plan. However this has happened every year since the Series 3 GPS + Cellular showed up in Sept. 2017.

Just have the rep verify that you have the Access Apple Watch plan on your existing watch's phone number. Then you will need to provide the IMEI and the EID numbers to the rep to enter into the system. At launch it takes time for the Carriers to load the IMEI / EID from Apple.

The rep most likely will need to open a ticket to get it done correctly.

ETA: If the EID was in the AT&T System you could have done it all from your iPhone.

Dave

 

[earthdog]

Does anyone else find it damn near impossible to get your AT&T NumberSync service and existing plan transferred from one watch to a new one?

Each year, I upgrade to the latest Apple Watch, and each year its a massive ordeal.

Two years ago, I bought my new watch from Apple. When it arrived, I tried the process on my own (unpair old watch, remove plan, setup new watch, attempt to setup cellular). That failed - AT&T kept seeing it as a new device and trying to add a new line of service.

Last year, I bought the watch directly from AT&T so they new it was an upgrade to my current one. When it arrived, I tried the procedure again, and again it tries to add as new service.

Both times, I spent the better part of 6 hours on the phone with support (and at times in the ATT retail store, while on the phone with support) trying to get it to work. We'd factory reset the watch and every other thing, but they just never get it until hours and hours and a few escalations later.

This year, I bought the series 6 from Apple. Before I even took it out of the box I called AT&T and explained what I wanted to do. It was clear from the start that the rep had no experience with this, but he tried assist anyway. As I write this, I'm 1.25 hours into our support session, and no closer to getting the service transferred over. This time, however, not only does AT&T see it as a new device, they see it also as a stand-alone and are trying to setup the new line at $45/mo instead of the normal $10 for a number sync companion device.

Has anyone solved this mystery yet?

Yes the issue is the EID needs to be input by Tier 2 support. Search for my post on the subject.

 

[BrettDS]

remove plan

I think this is the problem. You don’t want to remove the plan. You want to keep the plan.

I’ve done this every year with ATT and a new watch and it’s been seamless every time. Unpair the watch, but tell it to keep the plan, then pair the new watch and it sees that you already have a plan and connects the new watch to it.

 

[ZipZap]

Yes the issue is the EID needs to be input by Tier 2 support. Search for my post on the subject.

Why didn't you just lie here?
[automerge]1600905058[/automerge]

I think this is the problem. You don’t want to remove the plan. You want to keep the plan.

I’ve done this every year with ATT and a new watch and it’s been seamless every time. Unpair the watch, but tell it to keep the plan, then pair the new watch and it sees that you already have a plan and connects the new watch to it.

Could it be that easy...will report back

 

[MartyF81]

The issue is you are unpairing the old watch first... you should not do anything with the old watch until you are done.

This is how I have done it every time and never had a single problem. I have had every generation of watch since Series 0 and every Cellular generation... including my Series 6 showed up this morning.

1. Open watch APP
2. Tap the "All Watches" link up top.
3. Tap "Add Watch"
4. Pick option to restore from most recent backup of your old watch.
5. Go through setup steps etc...
6. Eventually you will get a question about setting up Cellular, do that. During that process it will ask you if you want to transfer the ph# sync from the old watch to the new. Say yes.
7. Finish setup process yada yada yada.

Once it is done... THEN unpair the old watch. Entire process took 15 mins.

 

[BrettDS]

The issue is you are unpairing the old watch first... you should not do anything with the old watch until you are done.

This is how I have done it every time and never had a single problem. I have had every generation of watch since Series 0 and every Cellular generation... including my Series 6 showed up this morning.

1. Open watch APP
2. Tap the "All Watches" link up top.
3. Tap "Add Watch"
4. Pick option to restore from most recent backup of your old watch.
5. Go through setup steps etc...
6. Eventually you will get a question about setting up Cellular, do that. During that process it will ask you if you want to transfer the ph# sync from the old watch to the new. Say yes.
7. Finish setup process yada yada yada.

Once it is done... THEN unpair the old watch. Entire process took 15 mins.

That would likely work too, but it can be done if you unpair the old watch first. You just need to tell it to keep the cellular plan during the unpairing process. The advantage of unpairing first is that it takes a backup of the old watch before it is unpaired. That way you can just restore the backup onto the new watch. As far as I know there is no way to manually back up a watch, so if you don’t unpair first then you might not get a current backup. If you’re setting up the watch as new or you don’t care about the backup age then adding before unpairing should be fine.

 

[MartyF81]

As far as I know there is no way to manually back up a watch, so if you don’t unpair first then you might not get a current backup. If you’re setting up the watch as new or you don’t care about the backup age then adding before unpairing should be fine.

I run a backup on my iPhone which seems to trigger the watch backup at same time. That is what I did today, it showed me option to restore watch backup that was just made.

 

[perezr10]

That would likely work too, but it can be done if you unpair the old watch first. You just need to tell it to keep the cellular plan during the unpairing process. The advantage of unpairing first is that it takes a backup of the old watch before it is unpaired. That way you can just restore the backup onto the new watch. As far as I know there is no way to manually back up a watch, so if you don’t unpair first then you might not get a current backup. If you’re setting up the watch as new or you don’t care about the backup age then adding before unpairing should be fine.

Yes, you’re supposed to unpair first. Marty’s method will cause issues if you have multiple watches on a family account. If you don’t unpair first, AT&T will take a number by force but it may be the wrong watch.

And you need to remove the plan when you unpair. This frees up that phone number to transfer to the new watch. Again, if you only have one watch with AT&T it’s no big deal because the number will be transferred by force. But if you have multiple watches in the family you could get the wrong one if you don’t release the desired number.

”Remove Plan” just means disconnect from that watch. It doesn’t remove your plan. The instructions clearly state that you need to call AT&T to cancel the plan.

 

[Teride]

Is there a more recent solution to doing this? ATT would have you go thru “Numbersync”…when I got my AW6 it was a nightmare to transfer the service.

 

[HDJulie]

Our AT&T family plan has 5 watches. We all upgraded this year. Everyone of us unpaired the old watch, selected to keep the plan. When we paired the new watches & set up cellular, we had 2 options: add a new line, or replace an existing device. We chose replace existing & everything went fine from there.

 

[Teride]

Our AT&T family plan has 5 watches. We all upgraded this year. Everyone of us unpaired the old watch, selected to keep the plan. When we paired the new watches & set up cellular, we had 2 options: add a new line, or replace an existing device. We chose replace existing & everything went fine from there.

Ok—-thanks….the messages have been mixed between unpairing 1st or not. I’ll try your process.

 

[drew0020]

I paired with the Ultra while my S7 was still paired (with cellular on that watch). Then I transferred and surprisingly it worked LOL.

 

[MartyF81]

Hi its me again. Same Marty as from 2020 above. Today I got my Ultra. I set it up exactly like my previous post. It worked exactly the same. Since the Apple Watch app knows which watch is currently associated with the phone... it asks you if you want to move that number when the ATT Window pops up. It only gave me the 1 choice.

For reference, I have 2 OTHER watches on my ATT account beside my own for my wife and my brother. It didn't ask me which one I wanted to transfer, it presumes I want to transfer the phone associated with the watch already tied to the phone.

Entire process took 10 mins.

 

[ArgusArms]

Hi its me again. Same Marty as from 2020 above. Today I got my Ultra. I set it up exactly like my previous post. It worked exactly the same. Since the Apple Watch app knows which watch is currently associated with the phone... it asks you if you want to move that number when the ATT Window pops up. It only gave me the 1 choice.

For reference, I have 2 OTHER watches on my ATT account beside my own for my wife and my brother. It didn't ask me which one I wanted to transfer, it presumes I want to transfer the phone associated with the watch already tied to the phone.

Entire process took 10 mins.

Thanks for posting this! Great info.

 

[TomH TX]

As I posted in another thread about transferring ATT service, yesterday I was able to simply and successfully just pair and transfer my AW6C from my IP XsM to the new 14PM. However, today, trying to transfer the cellular service and numbersynch over to the new Ultra did NOT work at all. Wound up having to get ATT involved, but we got it sorted and operational. Tom

 

[dthiss01]

I think this is the problem. You don’t want to remove the plan. You want to keep the plan.

I’ve done this every year with ATT and a new watch and it’s been seamless every time. Unpair the watch, but tell it to keep the plan, then pair the new watch and it sees that you already have a plan and connects the new watch to it.

+1, I always keep the plan and have no real issue. May take a try or 2, but always worked for me.

 

[Teride]

Just to clarify—-watch has two numbers so two charges from ATT correct?