Apple Watch Pauses Workout Even While Locked

Question

Apple Watch Pauses Workout Even While Locked

This morning I had a tough class workout and 45 minutes in, noticed that my locked Apple Watch had paused 10 minutes in, so I lost 35 minutes of work and now at the end of the night, have not closed my rings.

I looked this up and saw a question from January 2018 and a pro answered saying that this was probably because the watch wasn’t on super tight and disengaged from the skin and thought the wearer had stopped working out.

I pose this question to Apple Watch developers - if someone is serious about exercising, and goes to the extent of making sure they lock the watch once they start a routine - how many of them do you seriously think will want their watch to stop without stopping it themselves? Seriously. Give me a % of Apple Watch wearers you think want the watch to decide that they no longer want their workout recorded while it is still locked. I’d love to see a justification why the watch was programmed this way instead of thinking that, perhaps, every single wearer who locks their watch is intent on recording all activity until they unlock their watch.

Apple Watch Series 3, watchOS 5

Posted on Apr 8, 2019 7:46 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 10, 2019 8:52 AM in response to Randy-12

Yeah, I’ve tried wearing my watch backwards and it’s weird but not too bad, so I may go back to that.

I turned off “Press to Pause” and hopefully that will help. It’s one of those settings that I think should be an “opt-in” vs. me needing to find out here that it’s a setting that needs to be turned off manually, but I appreciate the helpful suggestion. Thanks very much!

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Answer 2

askbarnabas

Level 10

104,230 points

Apr 9, 2019 4:08 PM in response to RobotHouseBrian

Did you try to restart/force restart the watch? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204510

What about an unpair/pair?

What about erasing the watch completely and starting over? https://support.apple.com/guide/watch/erase-apple-watch-apd4ad3571d9/watchos

Did you see this page too? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207941

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Answer 3

Randy-12

Level 7

20,163 points

Apr 10, 2019 8:44 AM in response to RobotHouseBrian

Have you tried reversing the watch so the crown is on the arm side, not the wrist side?

That would fix the locking issue so you don't active siri I think

Turn off the pause workouts in the two locations.

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Answer 4

askbarnabas

Level 10

104,230 points

Apr 9, 2019 4:31 PM in response to RobotHouseBrian

According to the terms of use we are not allowed to answer WHY questions because that is speculation. We are fellow users like you who volunteer our time to hep people with technical issues not to answer WHY questions.

Use this link - https://www.apple.com/feedback/ to leave this kind of information for Apple. They are not here.

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Answer 5

Apr 9, 2019 4:36 PM in response to askbarnabas

Thanks for letting me know. Now that I have the full perspective of what this experience is from you and from the Apple folks who edited my comment, I realize this is not an environment that is helpful to me. I appreciate your time.

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Answer 6

Randy-12

Level 7

20,163 points

Apr 10, 2019 10:15 AM in response to RobotHouseBrian

Happy to have tried to help you out.

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Answer 7

Apr 9, 2019 4:33 PM in response to askbarnabas

I haven’t seen anything that indicates this is an issue with the watch that can be fixed by restarting or erasing it. The WHY question was pretty much answered with this 2018 post: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8232166. The solution appears to be wearing my watch as tight as possible and praying to God that it doesn’t separate from my skin while I work out.

[Edited by Host]

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Answer 8

Randy-12

Level 7

20,163 points

Apr 10, 2019 5:31 AM in response to RobotHouseBrian

What do you mean by

"lock the watch once they start a routine "

Do you have to enter your passcode to gain access afterwards?

When I work out which is 3-4 times a week, I never lock my watch.

I start a workout in the app and just leave it go.

I've never had an autopause nor have I ever removed my watch or worn it loose enough for it to lock.

Do you put it on a running app then stop running to do something else then start running again?

Because there is the Running Auto Pause that will pause your activity if you're no longer running.

So you have Press to Pause turned on?

could be that your crown and the side button and that triggers a pause

My Watch>Workout> both are in here

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Answer 9

Apr 10, 2019 8:15 AM in response to Randy-12

I don’t use a passcode on my watch.

I have to lock it because I use workout gloves and the gloves always trigger the Siri button and I never want to talk to Siri.

This has only happened a few times to me so it’s not like a common thing, but it’s happened enough that it’s an annoyance. It would be nice if there was a way to select a NEVER PAUSE A WORKOUT setting so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it, but I assume that’s not an option.

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Apple Watch Pauses Workout Even While Locked

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