Vodafone launching WiFi calling and Apple Watch Series 3 eSIM support on Monday

Next week is a big week for Vodafone with two great new technologies launching for their Aussie customers – WiFi calling and Apple Watch Series 3.

Late to the party, Vodafone’s system upgrade launching late Sunday night will enable these two features for users on supported devices.

Listen: Ben McIntosh from Vodafone tells Trevor Long about the new features (and first discusses the 25th anniversary of the text message):

WiFi Calling is a feature that allows your phone to use your WiFi network as the carrier of the phone call, meaning if your phone has little or no service from the mobile towers, but you have WiFi Internet you can still take or make calls.

Ben McIntosh told me there’s nothing users need to do to enable the feature, which will launch on iPhones on Monday and Samsung devices also, while more devices will be enabled for support in the weeks and months ahead.

For those who live in metro areas where coverage is strong, and are visiting people in remote areas where coverage is not, any WiFi network will now allow you to take calls on your Vodafone connected device.

At the same time support for the eSIM in Apple Watch Series 3 will be switched on.  Optus and Telstra launched eSIM support from the get go with the Apple Watch Series 3 so Vodafone trails behind a bit here, though Vodafone tell me all their customers will be able to use the Apple Watch Series 3, while Telstra (and we understand Optus also) Business account holders cannot use the eSIM feature of the Series 3 Apple Watch.