Apple watch exercise not counting

I've been have occasional trouble with high pace walks and low Exercise Ring credit.

I hope everybody is also contacting Apple at Feedback - Apple Watch - Apple . If you CnP the link it should take you to the Watch bit. If you just click I think you'll get the general feedback page.

Anyway, the more people who give their detailed experiences to Apple, the more chance there is we'll see some improvement. It may be slow in coming but if they don't hear from us directly, it'll certainly be slower still.

Apple doesn't necessarily read these posts. They might peruse them from time to time, but it's best to assume they don't. So besides posting here, you should contact Apple at Feedback - Apple Watch - Apple .

You may find it helpful to review my previous reply in this thread, which also explains (at the end) how workouts can be recorded via the built-in Workout app whilst receiving Exercise credit for every minute of the workout (although note that Distance is not recorded for Other workouts):

Re: Re: Apple watch exercise not counting

Unfortunately, there is no help for you other than to go make the choice to go back to FitBit or wear two devices, which you don't want to do.

Apple has made their choice. They chose not to give credit for mere walking. Instead they chose the somewhat arbitrary but near universal metric of a 'brisk walk' with the goal to help prevent heart disease. Slower walks don't seem help in that respect, at least according to the WHO and others. If your pace drops below what Apple internally defines as a brisk walk, you don't get credit for Exercise minutes for that period of time. The Watch shows your average speed as time/mile. Even if you don't stop, you slowed enough one or more times to not earn three Exercise minutes. Yet you picked up the pace enough somewhere to average 3mph (20min/mile). You were both slower and faster than 3mph. No credit for falling below, and no make up for going above the minimum speed to earn credit.

This is not a glitch or something that needs 'fixing'. It may be something you want changed, but it's working as intended by Apple. Apple does give you credit for being alive and upright with Stand and Move rings. But for exercise, they demand more of you to get Exercise minutes/credit, to potentially reduce the chance of a heart attack.

Aside from actual software or hardware problems, you and Apple have fundamental, philosophical, and medical differences as to the definition of Exercise. This would be similar to having a personal trainer who gives you 'credit' for doing 5min on the treadmill at 2mph or two sets of five curls with 1lbs weights when he/she knows you are easily capable of three sets of fifteen with 25lbs. Rather than give you credit for phoning in a workout, they might tell you to just take the day off. Well, except they do get paid for providing a 'training' session, so there's that.

Apple has committed to doing a heart study. To that end I don't see them changing their policy of giving Exercise credit to users who don't meet their criteria. There is also the motivation aspect of competition. Sharing workout performance with other users provides far less motivation and meaning for me and others when it's found they're getting the same credit for taking a casual stroll with their dog or walking to the refrigerator as I am when working to achieve 30 Exercise minutes in 30min. A 90min stroll apparently doesn't do the body good compared to a 30min brisk walk, and the latter is what Apple is going for. The pace could be increased from time to time during an extended walk to earn additional minutes, but that's not what you want.

Here's some Apple information on rings: Close Your Rings

So now it's up to you do decide what works best for you and how to achieve your goal.

Update: I did the recommended 20 minute walk outdoors. Clear skies, no tree cover, flat area, Location Services and Motion & Calibration ON. Exercise app tapped me on the wrist when I was done with 20 minutes; only 3 minutes registered on the Activity exercise ring. I'll do another one tonight if it's clear; so far, I appear to be having the same issues today with nothing registering on the ring.

I only got a total of 5 minutes of exercise in yesterday, doing the same routine that used to net me 30+.

Am having weirdness with recording and computing data in some reasonable range. I went on a hike today with lots of climbing. My heart rate averaged 126 bpm over 83 minutes, yet the watch says I had only 334 "active calories" — and the green exercise ring says I had only 49 minutes of exercise. And this is not the first hike on which this has happened. Hey, Apple, what's up?!

Hello, I also have the same problem and find it very frustrating. From the beginning, I learned that the green exercise ring in the Activity app will register if my activity equals at least the speed of a brisk walk. Sometimes, I walk-run and it won't register. Also, I'm just under 5 foot, so I can't walk as fast as a 6 foot person. My legs are not long enough. If I walk 60 minutes at a slower pace than a supposedly "fast pace", it should at least register as a 30 minutes activity, don't you think so? I would like to know why a 30 minutes brisk walk (at what speed is it considered a brisk walk?) is not equal to a slightly slower pace of a 60 minutes walk, for example. 😕

I will try to do the fix you mentioned (unpair the watch from my iPhone and pair it again as a new watch). Let's hope it works!

Hello Tahoe,

unfortunately, it did not work for me.

This morning, I walked 20 minutes outside (with my iPhone) using the dedicated exercice app and in the activity green circle, it registered as a 4 minute walk only. I did exactly what Apple support told you to do, I have the latest software on my iPhone (8.4) and on my watch (1.0.1), I unpaired my apple watch from my iPhone and paired it again as a new watch.

What I would like to do is to have the possibility of doing a 30 minute brisk walk or if I don't feel like walking very fast, I would like to walk at a slower speed but for a longer time. Everything that equals the same number of calories than a 30 minute brisk walk should count.

I am having the same problem with all activities. I have tried all of the "fixes" over the past week and it still doesn't work. For example to day I did an hour bike ride. Map my ride recorded the ride as 1:04:57 12.73 miles and avg speed of 11.7 mph. The watch recorded as 1:04:37 (time diffrence due to ending workout) 0 ft and 0.0 mph. So basically the watch thinks I sat on my bike in one spot for an hour. This really needs to be fixed since the phones gps is clearly working and recording the data its just not communicating it to the watch.

Update: After unpairing/repairing my phone, the watch worked again for precisely one day as normal again. After unpairing, it was recording my day as it used to: brisk walks registered with the exercise ring as expected. However, I did an outside run using the Workout app on the watch in the evening, and on day two I'm right back to the same problems of no exercise registering.

The only consistency I've been able to find so far is that things work fine until I use the Workout app on the Watch; things were fine for several weeks I owned the Watch until I used the Workout app in "Outdoor Walk" mode on the hike, and after the unpair/repair, things were fine until I used the Workout app in "Outdoor Run" for a run.

I am going to unpair/repair the watch again, and then try *not* using the Workout app at all, to see if it goes back to "normal". Will post back.

I am having the same issue. Any workout using the workout app is not registering. i have not seen the green ring move. Yesterday it registered 8 minutes when went for a long walk. Two days ago it registered, but I was using a third party app which registered back with my iPhone. Since I have not used that, it isn't registering anymore. This is very frustrating.

Final update for the time being: Having reset the Watch and avoided the Workout app, I have seen consistency in getting exercise to register as "normal" again over the past two weeks.

My fix for now is to not use the Workout app, and my frustration is that I can't utilize a very useful app in tracking exercise, and am using a third-party app to do so. Not a huge issue, but I prefer the Workout app's interface and look forward to being able to use it again.

That is interesting. Have you called Apple? It doesn't sound like a hardware problem, but others (like me) have not experienced this problem. Could it be some nefarious combination of settings? Or, maybe it is hardware.

George

This was my exact issue. When the watch was brand new all was well. Oddly, as it got to know me, the exercise ring will not move. It'll literally give me 900 active calories on an outdoor bike ride, give me great data on that bike ride, and credit me with 12 minutes of exercise. Some people think it's because their walks aren't brisk enough but these rides are killers and the watch is still parsimonious with the exercise ring.

Then I began to wonder why I really needed to put on the tracker for exercise. The odometer on the bike tells me all I need to know. If I go on that same bike ride, without tapping the exercise app "outdoor biking" it'll give me the exercise credits. So something is up. It's definitely a bug. Doubt all of us have a hardware issue. I also checked my heart rate after dying at the top of a hill just to see how fast it was. It read 40 BPM. Being an old woman whose normal heart rate is in the high 60's low 70's don't think it was 40. So I suppose maybe it could be hardware with the camera on the back that reads the blood doesn't work right. Kinda was hesitant about getting the first generation. I like the watch a lot for messages and such but suspecting the exercise piece needs work.

I'm going to run one more experiment I was just considering. I used to pick a duration but lately I've chosen leave it as open. I wonder if you pick a specific time if it'll then give you credit on the exercise ring.

Hi Folks,

I'd like to report it that things are working again. My dilemma evidently started when I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 9 beta 1. Apple support contacted me (Michael) and took all my info based on my report above and a few more things. When I started to explain to him about what was going on I remembered that I had upgraded over the weekend to iOS9. He referred the problem to engineering and about a day later I got a call back that the fix was in beta 2 and when that came out I should be ok...which it is. Thanks!