Exercise ring isn't updating.

According the the watch I get more exercise watering the plants than I do actually exercising

I don't think it's related to heart rate, but I'm not sure either.

A few threads going about this problem now:

BUG: Exercise app time not showing in Activity app

Exercise in the activity app is only credited with movement of the wrist, this means you invariably receive no credit for the treadmill or a static cycle machine. Setting up a cycle or indoor walk activity in the workout app won't help, the only activity in the workout app that will give you a credit in the activity app if you don't move your wrist is 'other'

I agree that it must relate to arms not moving. After not registering any minutes in the exercise ring on my stationary bike even though my heart rate was high, I have got all my exercise minutes registered for an outdoor walk and other (which was walking the dog, stopping and starting) even though my average heart rate was much lower. Standing on prompt only credits me if I move my arms as well. I have spoken to Apple about this and they are looking into it.

One other thing that I did.... I read somewhere and I cannot remember where that the first time you use the watch for a particular excercise have your iphone with you. Like if you run, have your iphone and watch. From then on, the watch will know what your gate is and be pretty accurate in recording without the use of the phone. The first time I used the watch on the stationary bike, I did like I always did, have my hand resting on the top of my thighs and my iPhone under my hand. I think that it calibrated the watch for that excercise because every time I have my hands in the same place now and use the stationary bike with only the watch on, it records my activity when in my target heart range.

I agree that it must relate to arms not moving.

I've done extensive testing, I'm convinced.

Confusion started when 30 minutes on the treadmill didn't add any 'Exercise' activity on the 'Activity' App. I tried again with my phone in my pocket and still it clocked up no 'Exercise'. I repeated once again and thinking I may actually need to set up an activity in the 'Workout' app, I started an 'Indoor Walk' and still it clocked up nothing. (I should add here that the 'Workout' app correctly displayed the results of the activity, it's just the 'Activity' app that doesn't)

I then started to try other activities and found that a 'Rower' session did clock time up as did an 'Outdoor Cycle' outdoors on my bike, but an 'Indoor Cycle' session on the cycling machine didn't, I even found that some sessions would clock up time in the 'Activity' app even if you didn't actually do them, although this seemed a bit hit and miss other than for a session of 'Other' which always clocked up time whether I did anything or not.

It was when someone told me that our cycling machine was actually an 'Elliptical' that I started to put things together. I'm still not sure whether ours is an elliptical or a hybrid, but it has both handles that go back and forth for standing up and a seat and static handles for sitting down. Working on the basis that it might be a hybrid, I set up a 'Elliptical' session and used the equipment with it's moveable handles and sure enough it clocked up my time in the 'Activity' app. At this stage I still hadn't twigged what was happening and was starting to think that the app was simply broken for certain activities, but this changed when I set up another 'Elliptical' session, but used the equipment seated. This time the 'Elliptical' session didn't clock up time in the 'Activity' app and I realised the difference was that I wasn't moving my hands. I checked my observation by undertaking an 'Indoor Walk' on the treadmill whilst swinging my arm and sure enough it clocked my time, it also clocked my time when swinging my arm without the need to set up a session of any kind in the 'Workout' app.

same problem here. using workout app does not update exercise rings.

Perhaps it is because we first need to calibrate the watch for our workouts? Here’s what Apple says about that: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204516

Yesterday I walked to work with it in outdoor walk mode and my phone in my pocket for 30 minutes. It registered 20 of it as exercise, my resting heart rate is 60 and my HR was between 104-130 the whole time. But this morning when I did the same walk only faster (my walk to work) My heart rate was higher, (110 to 150) and even with it on logging an outdoor walk and an elevated heart rate the whole time. It only registered 15 minutes of exercise.... My heart rate data in the health app shows it was logging HR just fine and it got the distance pretty close. It just doesn't like considering my brisk walk to work exercise I guess. It did give me an additional 15 minutes of activity for cooking dinner and doing laundry even though my heart rate was lower and I didn't even start the activity app... Like someone said earlier, it seems to give me more credit for watering the plants than walking to work as fast as I can. I'm going to try NOT using the activity app tomorrow. LOL maybe it will actually give me credit for it then.

I also find it very amusing when after come back from using the bathroom and standing at my STANDING desk, it suggests that I stand up...... It did that several times today. I wanted to tell Siri, there is no place to sit here.. let it go!

So should we be moving our arms around when we exercise regardless of whether our hearts are beating ten to the dozen?

So should we be moving our arms around when we exercise regardless of whether our hearts are beating ten to the dozen?

No, you shouldn't be moving your arms around where you wouldn't ordinarily, but yes it seems your heartbeat has nothing to do with clocking up time on the 'Activity' App.

For exercise where your wrist doesn't ordinarily move such as on a treadmill or on a static cycle machine set the activity in the 'Workout' app to other. For activities indoor such as a rowing machine where your wrist does.

I found that out as well. When I was teaching for 10 hours on Monday, I was standing most of the time. I sat down during a break in the middle. Was sitting more than an hour. It told me to stand up. What it really means is "Stand Up and Move". You have to walk around in circles or anything but just not stand up and stay in one place.

Take a look on the watch or the iphone app in settings > privacy > Motion & Fitness. Make sure you have at least Fitness Tracking turned on.

I guess we are learning as we go with the watch. Reminds me of the very first iPhone. We are the pioneers of technology that millions and millions will be using in several years.

I don't know how many of you saw that special on TV where apple let a tv crew into their lab where employees were excercising. Rowing machines, stationary bikes, treadmills... they all had breathing masks on to measure the amount of oxygen they were using as well as an apple watch (disguised as it was). They collected a lot of data and what we have in our watch now is based on that data. It knows something about what the excercise should be but maybe they did not do it exactly like we do it. 25-50 or so people doing excercises every day is different than the now 300,000 and ultimately millions.

I took a 30 min walk at lunch. I set it to "outdoor walk" and it only registered 3 minutes.

I have a 10 min walk to my car. I'm going to set it to "other" on the way out to the car and see how it tracks it then.

I took a 30 minute treadmill walk this morning with it set to "indoor run" rather than "indoor walk". That made all the difference for me, and the watch finally credited me with the full 30 minutes toward the exercise goal.

It seems like the Exercise Ring records brisk movement as opposed to Movement movement, which I'm guessing is their take on step counting. I did a yoga practice on Tuesday without starting a Workout, and it barely recorded any movement or exercise. Last night I used Workout > Other to track my HIIT class, and Exercise Ring seemed to get the amt of time right. I burned some calories (no clue if it's accurate) and it gave me my average heart rate, which seemed right by my best guess. Today, I started Workout > Other to track my yoga practice, and it recorded the time in the Exercise ring. The actual accumulated time over the day matches up to what I tracked with the Workout app and then some, probably from running up and down the stairs in my house.

What it definitely doesn't do is extract data from the Health App on the phone. I use Speedo Fit to track my swimming workouts, and I can confirm it's adding data to the Health app. It seems like a no-brainer to have it grab data from the Health app. Sadly, I can't bring my watch into the pool until someone figures out how to make a waterproof case.