Using Next3Trains on Apple Watch

There’s a Next3Trains app for Apple Watch, for watchOS 9.2 and later. It shows the same train departure data as the phone, on your wrist.

Setting it up

Set your routes up on the iPhone first. The watch app doesn’t have its own route editor - it receives your saved routes from the phone automatically. If the watch app says “Add routes in Next3Trains on iPhone”, that’s what it’s waiting for.

Once your routes are there, the watch picks a route the same way the phone does: nearest departure station if it can work that out, otherwise the one you last looked at.

The watch app is designed to be standalone except for route setup, so it will continue to work in the absence of your iPhone if you have cellular or WiFi connectivity.

Complications

You can put Next3Trains on your watch face. Two appear in the complication picker:

• Next Train - the next departure from a saved route. It fits four different slots on a watch face, and what you get depends on which one you pick:
  • Corner - a status icon in the corner of the face, with the departure time curving around the edge.
  • Circular - the departure time, with its status underneath.
  • Inline - a single line of text along the top of the face: the time and its status, nothing more.
  • Rectangular - see below.
• Next Train (Arc) - a circular complication that curves the route and status around the departure time. This one is circular only.

The rectangular complication

The rectangular slot is the one worth giving up space for, because it’s the only complication that shows more than a single train. It gives you:

• the route across the top, as from → to
• the next two departures, each with its time, its status, and the platform

It’s also where the text is sized per watch, so it stays readable on a 40mm SE and doesn’t look lost on an Ultra. If you only add one complication, make it this one.

Pinning a complication to a route

Unlike the iPhone widget, the watch complication can be pinned to a specific route - but this needs watchOS 10 or later. When you add it, choose the route you want, or leave it on “Auto-select nearest” to have it follow whichever saved station you’re closest to.

On watchOS 9 the complications still work, but they can’t be pinned - they always follow your nearest saved route.

When there are no trains to show

Complications show the same special states as the iPhone widget rather than an empty face - a gift on Christmas Day, a suitcase when you’re away from your usual area, and a bed on a day you don’t commute (the rectangular one will also tell you which day you’re next expected back). If you haven’t set any routes up yet, they’ll prompt you to do that on the iPhone.

Double Tap

On watches that support it (watchOS 11 and later), the Double Tap gesture triggers the main action in the app - so you can refresh your trains without touching the screen, which is handy with a bag in your other hand.

Siri on the watch

The watch has its own Siri support. Apple’s voice matching doesn’t handle the app’s name well on watchOS, so the phrase to use there is “Check My Trains in Trains”.

Live Activities

If a Live Activity is running on your phone, it also appears in the watch’s Smart Stack on watchOS 11 and later. See How do Live Activities work?.

Note that there’s no watch component in the Mac version of the app - watch apps come from the iPhone.

• Faq