How to block unknown callers on an Apple Watch

On your iPhone go to Settings > Screen Time. Tap on the name of your child. Then tap on Communication Limits. Change Allowed Communications to Contacts Only for both During Screen Time and During Down Time. All numbers that are not in your child's contact list will be automatically routed to voicemail if they call your child and your child's Apple Watch will not ring.

Just tested on an Apple Watch I gave to my child yesterday

Hi lex57ukr,

I was about to write the same question for an apple watch with cellular I bought for my daughter's 12th birthday from T-Mobile in July, a stand-alone number set up through family sharing with controls for screen-time, contacts, etc. I initially thought that she would be limited in her communication to only contacts as advertised but now I am finding any stranger in the world can contact her if they just get a hold of her number somehow (even though we have not given that number out to anyone!) and we can do nothing to block those numbers or even silence unknown callers. Makes it safer and more sensible for her to have another device where at least she can control who calls her. Have you had any progress? Can anyone at Apple with technical knowledge of this situation please respond? Thank you, frustrated father

It looks like there is a way to do this through parental limits IF your child is a MINOR. However, if you have an elderly person or an intellectually disabled adult, you're out of luck. We put my 18 year old son's Apple Watch 6 on cellular contract today for security reasons after a bus driver "lost" my non-verbal son. I was thrilled to get him answering his Watch when I called it (with grunts), plus able to track him via Find My. And ... then we got our first spam call. :/

I just got off the phone with Apple Support, and indeed there is no way to silence the non-Contact calls on the Apple Watch connected via Family Set-Up and used by an adult. So I just finished writing a Feature Request on Apple Feedback.

Sigh. This is such a no-brainer.

don't think so, they state the watch require and iphone in the first place

• Apple Watch Series 6 requires an iPhone 6s or later with iOS 14 or later.

Apple Watch Series 6 - Apple

Andrew Cahn wrote:

Can anyone at Apple with technical knowledge of this situation please respond?

This is a user-to-user forum. Apple's participation here is very limited. If you want to discuss the matter with Apple, use the Get Support link at the top right of every page of these forums.