Apple Watch (cellular) and Tailwind
I have an Apple Watch with cellular. The great thing about this watch is depending on what you are doing you don't need to carry your phone. Example going on a walk or run. What I would like to be able to do is manually close or open the garage door from my Apple Watch even though my iPhone and Vehicle sensors are in the house/car. Is this possible? I've tried the tailwind watch app, and I can open/close while in the garage but I can not reopen it when I return.
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Official comment
Hi Mark,
Currently the Apple Watch app does require the phone to be nearby. I'll ask the team if we can update it the way you're asking.
Comment actions -
Hi Scott,
I got all my tailwind vehicles and doors up a running. It works like a charm. No more z-wave repeaters to support my GoControl z-wave garage door openers which were effective only 75% of the time. No more ST arrival sensors that would leave on their own. So thanks for a great product and your excellent support. I would recommend it to anybody.
There is still one nagging "like to have" that may end up tempting me to leave the insecure GoControl in place. GoControl still provides me the capability to manually open and close from my garage doors from my cellular Apple Watch without my iPhone with me. When GoControl is integrated with Samsung SmartThings I can set up garage open/close routines that can be set up as shortcuts on my Apple watch. Now I can take the dog for a walk without my iPhone and open and close the garage doors.
From a security and simplicity point-of-view, I would much rather use the Tailwind app on my "cellular" Apple watch to accomplish the same. Any luck on this topic with your team?
Thanks,
Mark
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Hi Scott,
I did the workaround as described above, and as long as you are close to the outside of my garage door (metal with insulation), it works fine. The animations (presumably the authentication of the door status) are a bit slow, but I considered this a good workaround.
I plan to search for a "working" older iPhone as a permanent available "connection". Since this iPhone would never leave do you see this as a problem?
I see the 6se supports iOS 13 but I'd hate for Apple to update to iOS 14 and lose compatibility on this old model. Any thoughts?
I do have an old Motorola android but I am fairly certain interoperability between the two would be unlikely since the Tailwind app I am accessing on my Apple watch is mirroring the IOS version installed on my iPhone.
Take care,
Mark
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Sorry about that. Apple rejected the release of our new Apple Watch app, which was designed as an independent app to allow users with LTE / 4G watches to use it completely independent of their iPhone. We released both the updated phone app (which removed the Watch companion app) and the new, independent Watch app at the same time, but Apple only published the phone app. This left our customers without a Watch app temporarily. We made the required changes to the Watch app and re-submitted it immediately but now for some reason they're taking much longer than usual to review and publish the update.
Scott
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That is correct. The new Apple Watch app can control the doors directly from the watch without the iPhone as long as your watch has an internet connection. However, the TVS and associated auto-open / close features only work with the iPhone, not the watch.
So if you go out for a walk and only have your watch with you, you can open / close the door by tapping on the door icon in the watch (assuming it has internet such as WiFi or LTE / 4G), but the TVS / auto-open will not work unless you have your phone with you.
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Thanks Scott! Now I understand why asking through Siri was inconsistent. Since the watch APP is separate from the iPhone any Siri-Shortcuts won't work (without the iPhone present). But you can ask Siri to open the Watch App (while driving without an iPhone) at which point your doors should be visible for touch commands....
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