BUG: Exercise app time not showing in Activity app

I exercised for 40 minutes with an average heart rate of 150 and was only credited with 7 minutes of exercise.

A big thank you to you! My activity app worked just fine until about five days ago, when it stopped recording any of my exercise. This was frustrating as I was really starting to get into filling up my rings, you know what I mean. I just did the reset using the other technique that you talked about, and I received some exercise, and then I did a short walking work out, and it also recorded. As I already deleted my longer walk this morning, I will take another one tonight and doublecheck to make sure that it is working properly. But, so far, everything looks good. Thanks again for your support, this has been the only advice I have seen that has worked for me so far, and it seems to have solved the problem.

BramPriv wrote:

I am sorry to report that your take is way off base.

You obviously haven't tested it like I have then.

Jjust tried it again to make sure it hadn't changed with v1.1.

Turn off wrist detection (note this doesn't stop it reading your heart rate as you'll see later)

Remove the watch from your wrist.

Start an indoor walk (say) and start to shake the watch.

Stop after a few minutes and note the exercise credit given in the exercise ring.

It works too on your wrist, but you need to make sure you don't shake so much that you raise your heart rate and introduce doubt into the matter.

The strangest thing to me: I commute by bike 3 days a week, approximately 2.5 miles each way. I quit starting the outdoor bike workout app, just because I was tired of it. BUT, I still get credit for all of the exercise and calories for my rides, without doing anything.

Yes that is what you should expect. It just won't record your mileage etc etc.

I had this same problem for the first time today. I hiked almost 3 miles, set my workout to outdoor walk and got 6 minutes of exercise credit! I usually walk on treadmill which seems to record exercise correctly.

I did an elliptical which register accurately followed by an "indoor walk" on a treadmill. The treadmill time did not register. This needs to be addressed by Apple since many of us purchased then watch because of the health feature.

I am doing Jillian Michaels Cardio for 30 minutes, yesterday it worked ok, today it showed only 4 minutes of exercise. I was highly disappointed lol, all that sweat. This was saved on the other settings in the app. It showed my time as activity, not fitness.

Maybe I am doing it all wrong.

So, I have been doing ALOT of research on this, and I am a bit of a spreadsheet geek. I started wondering, if it is based on pace/heart rate than there must be a specific heart rate that the apple watch is looking for. When I look at my watch when I am working out, it has me between 130 and 140. So then I went into the health app and looked at my heart rate data. During a workout, the watch checks your heart rate every 5 seconds. I used my Excel and i entered in all of my heart rate readings and what time they were taken. I took a 21 minute walk this morning, and only 11 minutes of it was credited to exercise. I analyzed my data, and there was only a total of 11 minutes where by heart rate was 75% or higher of my max heart rate. 75% of my max is 133, so everything that 133 or higher was counted. So right, wrong or infuriating, it would seem, according to my data, that if your HR is not at 75%, it will not be counted towards your exercise circle.

Dear Apple-please change the HR minimum to 70% . My legs can only walk so fast 🙂. Thank you.

Thanks for sharing that, it would have taken me ages.

You are welcome. Excel is great because it looks like I am doing actual work 🙂.

Interesting. Thanks.

George

I had a thought about your observations.

The exercise ring is credited as you go and not at the end of the day. How does it know what your maximum heart rate is, if it hasn't yet occurred.

The data that you enter into your health app and when you set activity determines your Target Heart Rate. The formula is 220-your age. For this example, I am 42 years old. 220-42 is 178, so Apple already knows that my max is 178. Take 75% of that and it comes to 133. So every time my heart rate reads 133 or above, I get credit on my exercise circle.