Apple watch exercise not counting

I believe this bug is related to having both the watch and phone on the same workout and your turning off BT seems to support that theory.

If I do an outdoor walk, with no iPhone, I get the full credit. If I also take the iPhone I get about 10% of the credit - if I'm lucky. I tried re-ordering the data capture for all the sources in the health app, so Apple Watch was the primary input when multiple devices were present, but this did not cure the problem.

I am Series 2 and iPhone 6S all with the latest OS revision.

My take aware is leave the phone at home!

Anyway, if I walk slower one day and my heart doesn't go as fast, but I walk 90 minutes, that should count.

Says who? Apple set a standard for the Green exercise ring that is in accordance with WHO and other organizations who's research shows that 30 cumulative minutes of brisk exercise has a positive affect on your health.

If you walked 90min and got only 10min of Green ring activity (exercise) then either your Watch is defective or you failed to meet the criteria of the Green ring because 90min of slow walking with a slow heart rate is not the same as 30min of brisk walking with a faster heart rate. If it was then 100min of sitting on the couch or window shopping would be the same as 30min of actual brisk exercise. So no, little to no credit just because you did 90min.

To help insure you get credit from a brisk walk, make sure you let your arms swing naturally. Keeping your hands in your pockets reduces the accuracy.

Very interesting. I have just travelled from U.K. to India and on day 2 the Exercise mins stopped counting the actual walk mins. Did 51 min walk and it read only 26 mins out of 30 on the daily exercise for that day. The walk itself reads the full 51 mins in its recording. I hope is starts working again when I get back to the UK.

Out of interest when outside the USA did you use just wifi or actually roam on the foreign mobile signal?

I am wifi only in India.

As far as I know Apple failed to fix the issue of outdoor/indoor walking count ,apparently Apple does not consider walking as an exercise!!! Even if I walk 5-10 miles , their excuse is the average heart rate should be over 110-115 bpm , ridiculous , if I choose hiking or yoga it will count where the heart beat is 60-80 bpm , all other smart watches are fine with walking as an exercise, to me this is

a failure in part of Apple !

My solution for now , I added RunnerKeeper to the watch , I just open it in my iPhone for walking , at the end I have everything recorded on the watch !

How frustrating that two years have gone by and Apple still hasn't addressed. My husband and I went for a walk this morning. I logged into the workout app, made sure that the motion calibration was on, and started my outdoor walking. My husband didn't use his watch with the workout app but rather just let it count via the steps and get the credit with the rings. We finished with a 33 min walk, my ave BPM was 128, did 1.63 miles on my watch, and on his it was over 2 miles! His exercise ring shows 34 mins, 113%, mine shows 7 min and 23%. We have our goals set exactly the same. I shouldn't have to re-pair my watch, I've had it 4 days! So clearly Apple has dropped a turd on this, as I should have met my goal easily on this and completed the ring, same as hubby.

Apple engineers, you need to think about this like geometry. A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square.

Exercise is activity, but activity is not necessarily exercise. Very simple. Sheesh, if a lil' ole RN can figure that out...

Apple keep hiding behind their finger, they just using excuses cont to fix this long existing issue , it’s over due they just don’t want to admit fault with outdoor walk , the same exact thing happened with me and my 15 years old son , his BPM average over 120 his watch records perfectl , I average 80-85 bpm I got 1 minute recorded for every 30 minutes of walk ! I’m using runner keeper app , on my iPhone , at the end of Walk it sinks every activity perfectly, if Apple don’t care to fix this issue I will give up their watch !!!!

Continuing from my reply on 6th Sep. I tethered my phone to another phone and then roamed in India and the mins then counted fine, either tethered or roaming, although I think they were still a few mins short. I therefore conclude the phone needs to be connected to the web.

On returning to the UK mins could walks plus a few mins, probably from walking round the house and office.

As for Apple stating the heard rate needs to be more that 110-115 that doesn't seem right. Checking my walks i vary from 104 up and the all count as walks.

To those loosing mins do you all have good signal and actual data connections during your walks?

Also do your mins fall short on day 1 or day 2 of no connection? I think there's a buffer of 24 hrs in the fone following 'no signal' because if I walk in the UK with no signal it counts correctly but in those cases I did have good connection in the 24 hrs before the walk.

Today like many many days before , 44 minutes outdoor walk and 2 miles distance , the exercise ring marked 5 minutes only!!! Bpm Average was 98, according to Apple 98 bpm is not enoug to record this activity !!! What are we suppose to do ? Go to Cardiologist and ask for some medication to increase your heart beat , then and only then Apple concider your outdoor walk is really a legitimate exercise!!!! Ridiculous !! At the same time I had my Runkeeper app open in my iPhone recording the out door walk the same 2 miles and 44 minutes were completely recorded on the watch , thank you Runkeeper . Apple keep finding excuses 😂

Of course, Bpm is not pace , but in many and previous contacts with Apple , “ you need to have average heart beat ( Bpm ) of 110-115 in order for the outdoor walk to be recorded , and it’s true because in previous reply I mentioned walking with my 15 years old son , his Bpm was over 115 and recorded every minute of his walk , in mine I recorded 1 minute for every 15 minutes of walk !

Walking is a legitimate exercise, Apple should recognize that and fix this issue , thousands of people if not every one has this problem , in my house 1 out of 6 watches is ok !

Answering your question about signals and data connections, yes, I do to both, so that's not my issue, and I have good connections before and after as well. My husband has been walking at my side, and his is counting differently (and higher) than mine.

I have a new theory that I'm testing this morning, I'll come back to post results. I bought the stainless steel, and it seemed I had consistent results with the milanese loop. It seems that I only started to get wonky ones a few days in when I changed over to the woven nylon band with the buckle. On my wrist, I wonder if the hole I've used on the band is too loose for me, but the next one in is too tight so I can't use it either. I'm back to my milanese band today, which I can adjust to exactly the right tightness for my wrist size...and ensure the correct contacts with the back of the watch. So we'll see if that makes a difference today when he and I go walking.

I found the following to work for me. I rest the calibration

Reset your calibration data. Here's how to reset your calibration data: On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app. Tap the My Watch tab, then tap Privacy > Reset Fitness Calibration Data.

Then a hard reset of the watch. Then I had to start a manual outdoor walk, walked 20 minutes with phone and watch to recalibrate the watch and everything was fine after that [though you need to also recalibrate a 20 minute outdoor run as well]

ok, results are no change. We did a 34 min walk, the workout app says 1.79 miles, Ave BPM 130, ave pace 19'10"/mi. Exercise in the rings shows 10 min, where my husband's shows all 34 min! I think I'll engage support next, at least get it registered.

I’ve tried that Calibration thing before it did not work , now I just calibrated the watch as you said , I went for 30 mins walk , the result was 0,96 miles , average heart rate 105 bpm , average pace 20.49/mile which is 3-4 miles faster than my regular pace , time recorded on watch was 18 mins . Here you can say it did work, the Q is it gonna keep working if I do my regular pace 23-25 / mile ?

Let’s wait and see , I will update ! Thank you

I had my hands in my pockets because it was cold

That's part of the problem. Apple specially states you hands should swing normally and not to keep them in your pockets. Without that happening, the GPS could think you're on a bicycle or in a car.

The other part of the problem might be what so many of us are having— the rings aren't showing up when we think they should.

Apple is to blame on at least one count— they haven't explained exactly how exercise is measured and what is necessary to complete the Exercise ring. I'm guessing it's a combination of BPM, steps, and time. Is GPS a necessary metric? Would running in place with a high BPM count towards Exercise for an outdoor run? I don't know.

The Activity app does change the requirements for Move closure base on the previous week's average workouts. So as your state of fitness improves, the bar raises. This might explain why two people doing the same exercise for the same amount of time, etc., get two different readings. Certainly two, three, or four people don't necessarily burn calories at the same rate. (Calories are really only an estaminet at best. Our watches and phones can't accurately tell us how many we've burned; they can only give us consistent metrics, if we can believe them).

I think at least some of us may slow down and not meet the minimum requirements to close the Exercise ring during a workout. But without knowing exactly how our Exercise is measured, we can't even begin to figure out where the problem lies.