It’s ironic: WhatsApp is the most widely used messaging service in Spain, but at the same time it is the most complicated to configure and integrate into our devices. Using it properly on the iPhone implies knowing how to distinguish between iCloud backup copies, those of the application in iCloud, and knowing how to prevent our chats from taking up too much space.
And among all these complications, there is also the power use WhatsApp from Apple Watch. Few people are clear if there is an official application or if there is some kind of special integration of the service with the smart watch, but the truth is that we can use it entirely from the watch. We are going to clear up doubts and we are going to explain what is the easiest method to install WhatsApp on our Apple Watch.
Using WhatsApp on Apple Watch: It’s not an app, it’s a setting
Let’s solve the riddle: there is no official WhatsApp application for the Apple Watch. Therefore, the functionality is limited to receiving the notifications that we have on the iPhone to the watch and interacting with them.
How can we activate that? Most likely, it is already activated by default, but you can check it if you suspect that you are not receiving those notifications. All you have to do is enter the Watch application on your iPhone and enter the ‘Notifications’ section to link the application with the watch:
There you will have a list of applications that can show their notifications on the Apple Watch. Scroll down and check that WhatsApp has its notifications active:
That’s all you have to do, at the official level there is nothing else. Obviously make sure you don’t have Do Not Disturb mode on, since it may be a probable cause of not receiving notifications. And for everything to work, remember that you must also have WhatsApp notifications active on iOS. You can check it from the ‘Notifications’ section in Settings.
When someone writes you a message on WhatsApp, the Apple Watch will start synchronizing notifications and it will show you like this:
If you scroll down, you’ll see that you can tap on the ‘Reply’ button and you’ll be given two options: do it quickly with a suggestion or create your own custom reply by tapping on the ‘Reply’ text field:
In personalized responses you can write freehand on the Apple Watch screen or dictate with a voice message that is converted to text, and you can also include emojis:
Managing WhatsApp notifications from the Apple Watch will not be used to write long responses, but it will it is very convenient when the answer to a message can be a “Yes”, a “No” or a quick emoji. Especially when we are riding a bicycle, for example, and using the iPhone is a more complicated task than normal.
The alternative: WatchChat for Apple Watch
As we have said, since there is no official WhatsApp application, we cannot have all the functions officially. But there are developers who have managed to achieve it, packing an entire WhatsApp client inside an Apple Watch application unofficially.
It is the case of WatchChat, a third-party application that you can install on the Apple Watch and with which, in addition to notifications, you can send voice messages, see status updates and even watch the videos that are sent to you via WhatsApp from the watch itself. You can download it for free on the App Store, its in-app purchases are only to encourage you to tip the developers.