Apple Watch SE cellular from the US

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ebendl

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Hi all

I have a colleague traveling from the US to SA and my son wants to buy a refurbished Apple Watch SE with cellular.

Any ideas if
- the bands are compatible with our networks, and more importantly
- would I be able to activate an eSim for it here? I'm fine with MTN or Vodacom but not sure if you can get prepaid for the Apple Watches? Or must it be linked to your existing contract?
 
ebendl said:
Hi all

I have a colleague traveling from the US to SA and my son wants to buy a refurbished Apple Watch SE with cellular.

Any ideas if
- the bands are compatible with our networks, and more importantly
- would I be able to activate an eSim for it here? I'm fine with MTN or Vodacom but not sure if you can get prepaid for the Apple Watches? Or must it be linked to your existing contract?
Click to expand...

You’d have to check the bands of the watch, a GSM watch should work, CDMA not a chance.

As for the eSIM, only CellC and Telkom currently have prepaid eSIM. The others will only do it as part of a post paid contract.
 
According to GSMARENA it does support LTE: https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_watch_se-10446.php

However, I did notice the ZA stores mention that the watch does not support International Roaming. I'm wondering how they would enforce that? Since an e-Sim is an e-Sim is an e-Sim. Unless there's something different between how it loads onto the watch vs iPhone.
 
CranialBlaze said:
You’d have to check the bands of the watch, a GSM watch should work, CDMA not a chance.

As for the eSIM, only CellC and Telkom currently have prepaid eSIM. The others will only do it as part of a post paid contract.
Click to expand...
I don't think CellC and Telkom esims work for Apple Watches, certainly not according to the sales people at iStore.
 
I have an Apple Watch series 5 cellular from the States. It should work fine however, Telkom does not support Esim on Apple Watch. Currently only vodacom does so I am yet to use the cellular function.
 
OnlyOneKenobi said:
Well, it seems only Vodacom has esim for Apple Watch at this point.
Click to expand...

kory said:
Currently only vodacom does so I am yet to use the cellular function.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you guys are talking specifically about prepaid? On contract, MTN also supports the watch. My plan is set up on Apple Watch SE (yes, my watch's screen protector is very dirty).

85CDFDD9-E0F2-410B-A6E9-5536AB7DF2F8.jpeg
 
3WA said:
Not sure if you guys are talking specifically about prepaid? On contract, MTN also supports the watch. My plan is set up on Apple Watch SE (yes, my watch's screen protector is very dirty).

View attachment 1370765
Click to expand...
Cool, I had heard that MTN supported Cellular Apple Watches somewhere along the line, but I didn't press the matter too hard as I had a Vodacom contract anyway and the sales person seemed adamant Vodacom was the only option.
 
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OnlyOneKenobi said:
Cool, I had heard that MTN supported Cellular Apple Watches somewhere along the line, but I didn't press the matter too hard as I had a Vodacom contract anyway and the sales person seemed adamant Vodacom was the only option.
Click to expand...
Better than the MTN sales people: they gave the impression that they had never heard of eSIM or Apple Watches. I had to set it up using instructions I found here on this forum!
 
The link from the iStore I shared earlier (https://www.istore.co.za/apple-watch-cellular-esim-what-you-need-to-know) mentions MTN.

OK, so so far I'm probably not going to get him anything. He's too young to have a phone with a SIM, I'm definitely not getting another contract, and since I can't use the family activation in SA, it has little use if I can't activate the cellular portion.
 
sorry for the bump - fairly sure the US Apple watches won't work here based on the Vodacom OneNumber conditions - they specifically list models not compatible in SA (and some Googling points to these being the US models): Vodacom OneNumber | Vodacom

  1. the below Apple Series model number will not work on Vodacom's network
    • Apple Watch Series 5
      • Model A2094 (40mm)
      • Model A2095 (40mm)
    • Apple Watch Series 4
      • Model: A1975 (40mm)
      • Model: A1976 (40mm)
    • Apple Watch Series 3
      • Model A1860 (38mm)
      • Model A1861 (42mm)
      • Model A1890 (38mm)
      • Model A1892 (42mm)
 
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