Apple Watch talking with Phone without Bluetooth. How?

Factual Questions
1

I have a new Apple Watch. I have an iPhone. Most of the time I have my Bluetooth enabled and they communicate with each other. I get that. However, I turned my Bluetooth off yesterday and I’m still seeing my texts appear on my watch. Do they have another way to share information that I’m not aware of?

2

Some watches have a cellular data connection. Does yours?

3

I don’t think so. Is there a way to check?

4
5

Thank you. I have Model: A2291. Which is non-cellular

6

Good old wifi

7

As mentioned by @am77494, the Apple Watch uses BT for short range and WiFi for longer range connectivity. It automatically joins the same network your phone is attached to. I can leave my phone downstairs and be out of bluetooth range but can still answer calls with my watch or receive iMessages.

8

Thank you. That must be it. I have wifi at home and at work, the places I notice this happening.
I never specifically told my watch to use wifi, but it must be automatic.

9

Weirdest thing - my wife had the first Apple watch version when it first came out. We were in New York City not long after. We wandered into the Apple Store on Fifth Ave. by Central Park, and suddenly she started getting her backed up messages on her watch, even though her phone was back in the hotel.

My guess at the time - the Apple watch was set to recognize and authenticate to Apple Wifi, and so would work with the Wifi even in different Apple store we’d never been in before. (All have the same SSID/password?) As a result, it could connect - to the Apple cloud servers, I assume - and pick up text messages.

I assume if you’ve told your iPhone “remember this network” for Wifi, that same setting is set up on your watch.

10

I was in an area I’d never been before and noticed my phone had WI-FI. Turns out there was a doctor’s office nearby that was part of the same health system my doctor was in.

11

I’ve noticed other Apple strange connectivity happenings between devices. I have assumed, since bluetooth is a certain licensed protocol and Apple like to make things proprietary instead of using standards, that it does use some weird from of Apple BT that is not part of the standard, so if you turn off BT you turn off the standard one, not their own. For instance if you note the apple headphones seem to connect differently than standard BT ones.

12

Pretty much none of that is true. AirPods use the same Bluetooth everyone else uses. That’s why you can use AirPods with Android devices, PCs, or almost anything else that can be used with Bluetooth headphones.

The W1/H1 chipset used in AirPods expands their functionality (automatic pairing, automatic pause/resume, Siri, etc), but it’s still done over regular Bluetooth.

13

Except for the large part that is true:

Apple’s AirPods and Beats’ Solo 3, PowerBeats3 and Beats X use Bluetooth by default. If they’re used with Apple devices, they use a proprietary protocol that simplifies and reduces connection time and extends their range pretty significantly, according to Apple and various reviewers.

14

That’s the W1/H1 chipset they’re talking about. It works on top of Bluetooth, not as “some weird form” of it. In fact, Apple is a member of the Bluetooth SIG.

And you know that anyone can answer a Quora question, right (just like here)? The guy who posted the answer you linked to lists AirPods - Apple as his source for his answer. Nothing at that page says they are using a different version of Bluetooth. And the next Quora reply after the one you linked to says “It’s just Bluetooth, nothing special,“ so I guess you’ll have to accept that that’s a valid answer, too.