After an age, Three UK finally supports Apple Watch cellular
No, your eyes don't deceive you - one of the great mobile mysteries of our time has been resolved
Three UK has finally announced it is supporting cellular versions of the Apple Watch. Three is calling it Smartwatch Pairing and it uses the same number as your Three phone, working via eSIM. Three is offering six months free smartwatch pairing when you sign up and free Apple Fitness+ for the first three months.
You can add it to any existing Apple Watch for £7 per month or get it with the Series 7 for £20 per month or Watch SE from £12 per month.
The network has a guide about what to do if you have an existing Apple Watch. Whatever plan you choose, you’ll need an iPhone 6s or later, and with Apple Watch Series 3 GPS + Cellular or later.
It’s been almost five years since Apple introduced the Apple Watch Series 3 and with it, a cellular version. Initially, EE supported eSIM with Vodafone and O2 launching support later on. But there has been no announcement from Three until now, much to the consternation of customers as you can see from this thread.
The situation has been rather bizarre and we can only presume there has been some contractual issue between Three and Apple that has now been resolved.
We were told at that time that a full launch was coming by the end of 2021 when we last enquired about it, but as in previous years nothing happened. Back in March, ISPreview confirmed the launch would definitely happen this summer.
This post on MoneySavingExpert from 2021 detailed how one user had been refunded £400 after the constant delays to the launch of the service. The post links to quotes from Three’s original “we’re working with Apple” statement through to its broken promises of launches in 2020 and 2021. A customer post to Three on Facebook from 2018 has been getting comments ever since wondering when the launch would happen.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
