Anyone else having problem activating galaxy watch 4 as standalone?

Update - so after working a full day with T-Mobile, we find that the ICCID is not writing from the T-Mobile back end to my Samsung Galaxy Watch.

For the novices out there, that is what I understand to be the esim (electronic sim) identifier that the watch needs to get lte service.

So - Tmobile finally did a ticket to their back office (where the average customer has no chance of talking to) to find out why their system will not write the ICCID to the watch.

In the mean time, I have just gotten tired of the run around.  Being a 20 year (yes since 2003 of Sprint) I finally lost my patience and went over to the V Store (you will have to figure it out).  They set me up with an account, their system wrote the ICCID to the watch and in an hour I had a new account, with two phone numbers and a stand alone Samsung Watch 4.

It is absolutely great!!!!  When the watch gets out of range of my phone’s bluetooth and wifi, it automatically switches to the carrier lte service.

All the BS about this not being a stand alone watch preached by half the tech department at T-Mobile is total hogwash.

The watch now does exactly what I needed - it is never off line (unless it runs out of battery).  I will be purchasing a watch for my Mother with Alzheimer's and will be tracking her with the Google Find My Device App.  Contacted Life360 and trying to find out if they will port the app to Wear OS.

Again - for all the people who are believing the stories being told by T-Mobile.  The Samsung Watch 4 is capable of stand alone.  THE ISSUE IS WITH THE CARRIER PROGRAMMING AT T-MOBILE.  The issue is definitely that their system will not identify the account and send out the ICCID to the watch, therefore the watch will never be able to connect to their network.

Just a side note for those of you naysayers.  Turn off your bluetooth and wifi on your phone.  The Samsung watch will convert to emergency calls only.  Dial 911 and apologize for the test call.  What happens, the watch goes to emergency stand alone mode and by default becomes a STAND ALONE unidentified watch device on the lte network.  Because it is emergency, the phone will connect to 911 on the lte network (but of course it doesn't have ICCID so can't be identified to connect to the back end of T-mobile).  

To bad - so sad T-mobile - you are losing great customers that are trying to help you get it straightened out.

Update - I can’t believe how confused T-Mobile/Sprint tech support has become.

No one has called me back on my ticket supposedly to the back office to work on the Galaxy Watch 4 stand alone issue.  Was promised a 48-72 hour turn around time on ticket SD7783155. from last week.

So - decided to give it one more shot today.  Waited 50 minutes with customer support to transfer me to tech support.  I transferred to tech support to find the ticket still open, but now the ticket says it is to send me a booster.  Lte service signal is not the issue.  I have tried multiple locations with 4 bars including in a tmobile store sitting at their table for an afternoon. (Also see the last post with emergency call testing).

Again to show how messed up everything is - when asking for a supervisor after finding the tech support person wanted to factory reset my watch and start from scratch (which I have done maybe 20 times) I asked for supervisor.  My call was disconnected with a recorded message that there were system errors that couldn't complete the call.

Thankfully, supervisor by the name of Annie called me back.  She went back through the notes and couldn't figure out anything.  She offered to  work on this off line (with really no plan) so I asked why we couldn't escalate further.  

She said her boss was at lunch.  I asked her to find someone who could help.  No one is available.  She said she would call me back in an hour.  The call ticket is I2226600550.  Will wait for a call, but I guess I am beyond holding my breath.

It seems at this point, T-Mobile is totally beyond help...

I got it fixed!  Chat just unpaired from my number and then put the watch on the $5 stand alone plan. 

I've had my new Galaxy 4 44mm watch for 1 day and am returning it. I was on chat support all day yesterday and they were never able to solve the stand alone issue. Not only does it not do stand alone calls all the time, but the volume is so weak that it's hard to have a conversation with anyone. The other thing I don't like, being in Florida, is the watch is unusable in the sun. The screen becomes washed out and you have to cup your hand around the face. 

Artay wrote:

So I just got two LTE galaxy watch 4's to use when I don't want to carry my phone with me (while exercising). After spending two hours at a T-Mobile store and another hour on the phone with a technician, they escalate and another tech comes on and advises me that the galaxy watch 4 cannot be used as a standalone on t mobile. It can only be used when connected and near the phone its paired with! WHY would T-Mobile sell an LTE watch that can only be used when connected to the phone? That is called a Bluetooth watch! Very frustrated with them wasting 3 hours of my time, when this could have been mentioned when the watches were ordered. And even then, why sell LTE watches instead of Bluetooth watches? Has anyone one had this issue? 

Pull sim card out of phone and your watch will work if its connected with digits. T-Mobile doesn't want the watch to be stand alone and will tell you its a glitch that your watch did

MarkS wrote:

Update - so after working a full day with T-Mobile, we find that the ICCID is not writing from the T-Mobile back end to my Samsung Galaxy Watch.

For the novices out there, that is what I understand to be the esim (electronic sim) identifier that the watch needs to get lte service.

So - Tmobile finally did a ticket to their back office (where the average customer has no chance of talking to) to find out why their system will not write the ICCID to the watch.

In the mean time, I have just gotten tired of the run around.  Being a 20 year (yes since 2003 of Sprint) I finally lost my patience and went over to the V Store (you will have to figure it out).  They set me up with an account, their system wrote the ICCID to the watch and in an hour I had a new account, with two phone numbers and a stand alone Samsung Watch 4.

It is absolutely great!!!!  When the watch gets out of range of my phone’s bluetooth and wifi, it automatically switches to the carrier lte service.

All the BS about this not being a stand alone watch preached by half the tech department at T-Mobile is total hogwash.

The watch now does exactly what I needed - it is never off line (unless it runs out of battery).  I will be purchasing a watch for my Mother with Alzheimer's and will be tracking her with the Google Find My Device App.  Contacted Life360 and trying to find out if they will port the app to Wear OS.

Again - for all the people who are believing the stories being told by T-Mobile.  The Samsung Watch 4 is capable of stand alone.  THE ISSUE IS WITH THE CARRIER PROGRAMMING AT T-MOBILE.  The issue is definitely that their system will not identify the account and send out the ICCID to the watch, therefore the watch will never be able to connect to their network.

Just a side note for those of you naysayers.  Turn off your bluetooth and wifi on your phone.  The Samsung watch will convert to emergency calls only.  Dial 911 and apologize for the test call.  What happens, the watch goes to emergency stand alone mode and by default becomes a STAND ALONE unidentified watch device on the lte network.  Because it is emergency, the phone will connect to 911 on the lte network (but of course it doesn't have ICCID so can't be identified to connect to the back end of T-mobile).  

To bad - so sad T-mobile - you are losing great customers that are trying to help you get it straightened out.

You get this figured out? These watches are standalones and T-mobile knows it they just didnt want to deal with the issues, so yours is acting like a phone its own number? 

Artay wrote:

So I just got two LTE galaxy watch 4's to use when I don't want to carry my phone with me (while exercising). After spending two hours at a T-Mobile store and another hour on the phone with a technician, they escalate and another tech comes on and advises me that the galaxy watch 4 cannot be used as a standalone on t mobile. It can only be used when connected and near the phone its paired with! WHY would T-Mobile sell an LTE watch that can only be used when connected to the phone? That is called a Bluetooth watch! Very frustrated with them wasting 3 hours of my time, when this could have been mentioned when the watches were ordered. And even then, why sell LTE watches instead of Bluetooth watches? Has anyone one had this issue? 

I was with Verizon and got the galaxy watch 4 lte . It was 100% stand alone for a week! I could call my phone from the watch . I could call my watch from my cell phone too ! Everything was amazing! But then they tied the phone number together without asking me. 🙄  it totally was NOT worth it anymore.  I tried to unhook it from the phone numbers.  But all their technicians only messed up the eSim cards . It was also force locked out ! It is a carrier thing to save money,  but charge you extra ! They allow watch 3 , and others to be true stand alone,  but not watch 4, and 5/ pro. It's not worth buying lte anymore 😕  !! Save your money and buy real stand alone watch.  It is so much better/ worth it ! Don't ever let them tie the numbers together in numbers share , they also don't give you a choice!! This is also Samsung's fault! The battery wears out fast in stand alone.  But we should get a choice as the consumer!! They are trying to save face on an inferior battery . I got rid of my watch 4 . It's just not worth it !

We switched from Verizon and I've been regretting it little by little. We had absolutely ZERO issues using our galaxy and apple watches, independent of Bluetooth and our phones, on Verizon's network. We paid for a line, and we were able to use the LTE capability for unlimited calls/texts/data. It worked better when near my phone, but the point is it worked! 

I don't understand T-Mobile's DIGITS app and it's not available for the Galaxy watch OS anyway. We're also paying for 3 watch lines, and on T-Mobile's network my watch is only working when paired with Bluetooth. We just ordered a brand new phone for my dad but I have half a mind to send it back while I still have my old phone. I have had one issue after another with T-Mobile from porting our numbers to placing orders to now paying for a service that apparently T-Mobile does not have the technology capacity to support??? All our devices are owned and purchased from OEM, so T-Mobile better get right or I'm gone.

Fecha: 2023 de marzo

Problem: The Samsung Watch 4 LTE could not connect to the T-Mobile network as a standalone device with its own phone number, independent of a Samsung phone on a non T-Mobile phone network.

Solución: Previously the store assigned me the requested cheaper ($10) priced DIGITs plan but it turns out the watch could not function under this standalone plan unless I already had or would purchase a new T-Mobile phone plan. The correct solution for a standalone wearable plan without any existing or new T-Mobile phone plan is only the more expensive ($25) "Magenta Wearable Standalone" plan. 

Background / More Details: I don't have T-Mobile on my Samsung phone but a competitor. The watch successfully paired to the phone (via Bluetooth) but when looking for a mobile network while paired thru the phone, it tries to use the phone's mobile network. This is what the cheaper ($10) plan expects - a phone on the same network as the watch - so from the start, this path would never work for me. 

After I left the store with the incorrect plan and with everything untested (got places to be!), I attempted to connect the watch LTE later at home. After several attempts I called the national T-mobile support  number (ie somewhere offshore where English is spoken) for help. Two hours was wasted re-doing obvious checks where at the end they told me the watch could not be used standalone. The correct answer they should have told me is that the chosen cheaper ($10) plan would not allow the watch to be standalone unless the phone was on the T-Mobile network.

The store was revisited the next day and the more knowledgeable manager, after several attempts, correctly determined the chosen cheaper ($10) plan was the culprit, and the solution is to switch to the more expensive ($25) "Magenta Wearable Standalone" plan. Once the plan was switched, the phone was able to correctly find the T-Mobile network without issue or further delay. The watch was called to verify correct operation. 

DIGITs was not needed. I asked about a "Companion" setting mentioned in prior posts but they said this is not a term they heard of. (Maybe it was relevant a year ago but not now?) Apparently not many come to this particular store and perhaps even call into the national support (based on their unsuccessful attempt to help) trying to have the Watch 4 activated with a Samsung phone without T-Mobile as the phone's network. About 4+ hours was spent to come to a solution. 

Hope this helps lessen the suffering in someone's similar attempt. ¡Buena suerte!

I was having this issue and they even sent me out a watch that was less than what i paid for because they didnt have a replacement in my size 

The fix 

For me it was saying no mobile network, attach to bluetooth, sims not working 

She had me go into srtting give her eid, iccid, and the other numbers  she reset my sims fixed one of my numbers also looked at the old watch and seen that a old account was still on and once she fixed evetything i shut off bluetooth and wifi on the watch and now at the top i see standalone