Apple says it has recognized a difficulty the place the “unlock with Apple Watch” characteristic won’t work with its new iPhone 13 units. A brand new note on its support page describes the issue:

You would possibly see “Unable to Communicate with Apple Watch” when you attempt to unlock your iPhone whereas sporting a face masks, otherwise you won’t be capable to arrange Unlock with Apple Watch.

On Friday, customers on the r/AppleWatch Reddit board started reporting that they have been seeing this downside, and a few stated they have been in a position to make use of the Watch unlock characteristic with different iPhone fashions, together with the iPhone 11 Max.

Apple launched the flexibility to unlock an iPhone that makes use of Face ID with a paired Apple Watch earlier this yr with the discharge of iOS 14.5. It turns out to be useful throughout a pandemic the place face masks are advisable in lots of public locations, making it laborious for Face ID to acknowledge you. The feature works on iPhone X and later, and requires each the iPhone and the Watch to have wi-fi and Bluetooth turned on. The Watch must have wrist detection turned on and be passcode-protected, and it needs to be in your wrist and unlocked for the characteristic to work.

Apple didn’t say what’s inflicting the issue with iPhone 13 units, simply that will probably be “fixed in an upcoming software update,” however not when to count on the replace. The assist web page be aware advises switching off the “unlock with Apple Watch” characteristic and utilizing your passcode to unlock your iPhone 13 whereas masked within the interim.