It has been possible for quite some time to find your iPhone with the help of your Apple Watch. Very useful if your iPhone has ended up in the dark crumb of your couch.
By activating the so-called Ping function on your Apple Watch, your iPhone will make a Ping sound. This makes it easier to find it. Since iOS 17 this is also possible, with the iPhone you can now ping the Apple Watch with the new function ‘Ping my Watch’.
Find iPhone with your Apple Watch
Pinging an iPhone from the Apple Watch is simple, press the side button and tap the iPhone icon. If it is dark, you can also activate the flash while pinging. For this you have to keep the icon pressed longer.
If you have an iPhone 15 and Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2, you will also see the distance and direction until the device. The new Apple U2 chip is used for this.
Add my Watch to the iOS Control Panel
Since iOS 17, the inverted version of the above ping my iPhone function has been added. So you can now also ping your Apple Watch with the iPhone. For this you can go to the control panel. However, you must first add the controller for this, this controller has not been added to the iOS Control Panel as standard.
- Open the Settings App on your iPhone.
- Tap control panel (under general).
- Wipe down and tap the green plus button for ‘ping my watch’.
Use my watch
After the controller has been added to the control panel, we can use ‘ping my watch’. You do it as follows:
- Wipe down from the top right corner (or from the bottom on iPhone with a home button) to open the control panel.
- Tap the ping my watch button.
- On you the Apple Watch, the ping sound will now sound.
Only within reach of Bluetooth
Ping my Watch from the control panel only works if your iPhone and Apple Watch are within the range of each other’s bluetooth signal (+/- 10 meters). If that is not the case, you can use the search my app.