I Went for a 20 minute outdoor walk today using the Workout app, with my phone GPS on And I didn't get credit for even one minute. I had my hands in my pockets because it was cold but given I was using gps, shouldn't it have given me credit in the exercise ring?
So I did end up going to the Genius Bar, and showed them all my data. They agreed it was odd, and sent it to The Depot to have the software reloaded and retested. They sent it back after doing so and said it tested fine. This time, they did tell me that it could take 7-10 days to "learn" my habits, so I should make sure to give it that much time. I gave it a full 14 days, but was having the same issue. I was about ready to bring it back and tell them I wanted a new watch, when I decided to try one more thing in desperation.
I blew up ALL the data. I had to kind of play around and figure out what order to do stuff in, but ultimately I think it's this: You unpair the watch from the phone first, then you restart the watch, and go to the watch settings and reset it so it gets reset as if it's new from the factory. It will say "are you sure you want to delete all of the data from the watch?" and I replied yes. I also deleted the watch app and the activity app from the phone, then shut down the phone and restarted it. After that I erased all content and settings on the phone...yep. Desperate! I did try to remove the watch from the phone without doing that, but it seemed like it kept the data in the phone and wouldn't accept the reset. What's really weird tho, is that I did a restore on the phone data from a back up, and it pulled the watch app back in, but not the data. Anyway after I FINALLY cleared out all the crap data, the watch has worked like a dream. My actual activity time has been spot on every single time from the very first day, down to the minute.
There may have been an easier way to do this, but at least it works. Too bad Apple couldn't get to this solution with me.
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!
After I unpaired my watch, the steps seem to be working well, but the excercise is not working. I have not used the workout app again, but did a fairly strenuous workout and it didn't register a minute of exercise, but it tracked the quick run I made up the stairs to answer my phone. I don't get it.
I usually cycle outdoors and Outdoor Cycle has worked fine giving me credit always for the exact minutes of exercise. I crashed on my bike so while healing I decided to do Outdoor Walk for exercise. Even though I walk with an average heart rate of 115 to 125 for 30 minutes I have yet to register any exercise time when I save the workout. The summary that shows on the watch when I end the Outdoor Walk shows the correct time, distance and average heart rate is correct. After saving the green ring shows zero. I have latest software on both watch and phone and have them with me.
I have exactly the same issue — everything seems fine re: the Outdoor Walk *within* the Workout app, but the translation of data to the Activities app fails miserably. I've taken to using the Other option in the Workout app. I don't get distance, but I get everything else. Hopefully this gets fixed in the next update to the s/w.
II've had my watch three days, tried every fix under the sun with no luck. It's a mess. I miss my Fitbit too. May go back to that and just wear the watch for what is really is....a watch. Really disappointed in this Apple product. Just a fancy glass faced watch as far as I can tell.
I've had the exact same issue and it's really frustrating after you walk/run for 40+ minutes only to watch the data disappear and no credit for your daily goal. However, I've found a quick workaround that works, but it's kind of a pain and "slightly ridiculous". After putting in real mileage for the day and not getting credit, I'll wait until the evening and while watching TV, turn on the workout app.
From there select "Other" as your workout, then "Open" as the workout type. Click "Start" and sit back and enjoy some TV and there you go.
Based on what I've seen about 5 min of activity (or inactivity) will yield about 25-30 calories, around 2-3 min of "Exercise" credit and what's really odd is that I'll get credit for simply hanging out.
I completely realize that this is a ridiculous workaround, and I thought this watch was going to give me more flexibility over FitBit, Garmin, Nike Watch, and others that I've invested in over the years. However, doesn't seem to be the case unless Apple fixes this issue, as for me the workout and heart rate was the main reason I purchased.
Apple Team, PLEASE help!
My wife and I both got our Apple Watches and we will regularly take walks together. Her exercise ring will count 20-30 minutes and mine, on the exact same walk, will record 3 minutes! Super frustrating. Apple has hooked me on the crack of "rings" and then I get denied because of poor capture! Driving me nuts, I love my watch but this one thing is so disappointing. No, I do not have tats and I wear my watch pretty snug
Wow, this is frustrating! I just got my Apple Watch and went out for a 5km run today (and took my iPhone with me for the watch to calibrate). Well, I completed the 5km in 26 minutes. The Activity app reckons I only did 4.24km which I can maybe put down to it not having calibrated yet (though I would have hoped after the recommended 20 mins it would have corrected itself as I was running with a pretty consistent pace length and cadence) but it's credited me with all of 145 calories (compared to the 454 that Strava more realistically claimed) and on my activity ring it's only given me 13 minutes out of the 26, all of which were at a very active heart rate.
Pretty rubbish first impression I'm afraid.
Out of curiosity, are the 145 calories the 'active' calories or the 'total' calories? And, does Strava count all calories consumed during the exercise or just the active calories (i.e. the ones over and above the resting calories)?
It is my impression that many of the other fitness trackers report total calories.
George
I use quite a few different services for my exercise analysis, Strava being just one of them. They all use slightly different algorithms for calculating calorie burn, but all fall within about a 10-15% range (i.e. 420-460 total for this run), apart from the Apple Fitness app which reports 188. I realise that these other services have access to more data about my run than the Apple app does, and some of them license professional algorithms for the calculations so I'd expect them to probably be more accurate, but this discrepancy isn't what I'd consider a margin of error - it's just massively wrong!
The most basic calculation that's commonly used to calculate energy expenditure are Metabolic Equivalent Task (MET) values, which give a multiplier based on the level of effort required that you can apply to the number of calories normally expended at rest (BMR).
So, my watch is telling me that for this period my baseline energy use was 188-145 = 43 calories. The MET value for a 6mph run is 10, so my total energy expenditure for the run is 43x10=430 calories, actually almost spot on what the more precise calculations gave me. So if even such basic and generic MET values can get it right, how does Apple get it so, so wrong?
Ironically, this isn't really my biggest complaint - it was more that I only got 13 minutes activity ring credit for 26 minutes of running!
Hope this helps everyone, I tried the un-pair device and then re-pair as a new device and that seemed to work for about a couple of days and then it went right back to no activity even though I was going on long walks. I was able to figure out today that another way that seems to resolve this issue is to clear and re-calibrate your watch. You can do this on your phone via the following options.
1. Go to your watch icon
2. Select Privacy
3. Select Motion & Fitness
4. Select "Reset Calibration Data" in orange.
That is it, at this point it should start working.
Apple watch exercise not counting
