Facetime for Apple Watch Guide! Learn how to use Facetime for iWatch.
Smartwatches are the “in” thing right now. Smart anything and everything is, to be very honest. Fridges, TVs, lights, Coffee Makers, Tottenham fans. Cancel the last one. That can’t happen.
Anyway on the topic of smart devices and how everyone is absolutely in love with one or the other type of smart device. And on the topic of smartwatches, let us just take a minute and marvel at what all can actually be done with a smartwatch these days. Gone are the days where our “smart” watch was basically a band with a heart rate sensor. No sir, these days smartwatches are literally doing everything a phone can, and some don’t even require a phone to be connected to them. Be it sending out messages, Selecting songs, interacting with Siri, or even using Facetime App. You can also download Facetime for Windows.
Confused that we told you that you can actually Facetime using Apple watches? Yeah well, welcome to 2021, buddy. Let us take you on a little fact check and maybe a little tutorial.
Where is the camera?
We’ve all seen the Apple Watch. Even series 2 doesn’t come in with a built-in camera due to performance limitations, then what the hell are we talking about clicking pictures and video calling people using just your watch?
Well, it is a band that syncs up with your Apple Watch. A band so intuitively crafted that it is able to host not just one, but two proper cameras on it. The “front” camera is a 2-megapixel shooter, where the “back’ or rather the forward-facing camera being an 8 Megapixel unit. This band, codenamed CMRA allows users to sync up the band with the watch and click pictures on it. But it doesn’t stop there the CMRA can also function independently, even if you’re watching is out of power. Coming in with 8 gigs of additional storage, all the pictures that you click using the band independently are stored within the band itself and you can export all of them once you’ve got your watch back up and running.
The band does come in with its own charging dock but it is crafted in a fashion wherein you do not need to charge up your watch and band using two different setups, but can simply charge the band while the watch is connected to it and it will charge the watch itself!
Now using this band will affect the battery life of your Apple watch, but not to an extent where you’ll be running to a charging dock every other hour. The whole introduction of cellular chips on the Apple watches did the exact thing and Apple had to produce the new batch without those chips because of how badly battery life was affected by the inclusion of the chips.
The usage of bands for getting in additional functionality is actually a pretty smart move on Apple Inc’s part, because not only does it give them the room to get in the additional revenue under the pretext of “functionality”. CMRA is not the only band available on the market today for the Apple Watch, but in tandem with this little section we have for our readers, the CMRA is something that we will be taking a deeper look into. But before we take a look at how one can make video calls using the Apple Watch, let’s first take a brief glance at how one can make voice calls using Facetime on the Apple Watch, which has been introduced as a new feature in Watch OS 2.
How to make Facetime Voice calls on Apple Watch
With the onset of Watch OS 2 came the functionality of being able to make Facetime Audio calls using your Apple Watch. This wasn’t a feature earlier to the surprise of many as the Apple Watch could only make voice calls using the Cell signal of the iPhone it was connected to. But now with the latest Watch OS, you can make Facetime Voice calls using your Apple Watch by syncing your Apple contacts to the watch. Here are the ways in which you can Facetime call someone:
Using Friends’ carousel
You can start a Facetime Voice call using this method by following the steps below.
- First, press the side button and open a friend’s carousel.
- Select the desired contact from the Digital Crown. WatchOS 2 has the option to create multiple Friend’s pages, so you have to slide to the next screen to reach the desired contact.
- Now, Tap on the initials of a friend’s name or on the friend’s photo or initials after you choose it with the Digital Crown.
- From the bottom left corner, press the Call button on the screen.
- Choose FaceTime Audio and wait till the call connects with the desired contact.
Or… you could just ask Siri
Get Siri to start listening by quickly flicking your wrists and saying “Hey Siri Facetime Audio call ______” wherein the blank is the contact’s name.
Call directly from the messages app
While reading the conversation in the message, you can Force Touch the Watch’s screen and choose details from the three available options.
Next, from the bottom left corner of the screen, tap on the Call button and choose FaceTime Audio for speaking with the one whose messages you are reading.
How to run Facetime on Apple Watch?
Well, firstly you’re gonna be running on iOS 10+ and have the glide WatchOS app installed on your iPhone. The steps you need to be following are exactly the same as when you’ve to make a Facetime audio call, but the only steps you need to change is instead of selecting or saying Facetime Audio call, you select or say Facetime Video calling!
And that’s it. That is exactly how easy it is to use Facetime on Apple Watch by following just a few simple steps. Who knew that buying a band would be so helpful and bring features to the Apple Watch that users have been crying out for years!