Exercise Ring won't move

Question

Level 1

8 points

Exercise Ring won't move

Bought a sport watch a month ago and have yet to see the exercise ring move past 3 minutes. I do an one hour brisk walk with two 100 lb dogs and 30 minutes every day at the gym on some type of cardio machine. Went to the apple store last week and they reset the watch to factory settings. No changes. Made an appointment at the "genius" bar for yesterday. The first "genius" ran a test on the watch and found no issues, then said he new nothing about the exercise ring. He called a second "genius" who also knew nothing about the exercise ring, so they both went to the back room to look on line. The solution was to give me a new watch, which I knew wasn't the answer. "genius" ain't what it used to be. As best as I can tell the watch uses heart rate to determine exercise and even though I'm 64, I have a low resting heart rate. I have compared the watches HR monitor to other monitors and find it reads quite a bit low. So far I'm not impressed with the watch as an exercise monitor. My $100 fitbit is much better. Any ideas are appreciated.

Apple Watch, iOS 8.4.1

Posted on Sep 9, 2015 5:05 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jonathan UK

Level 10

164,015 points

Sep 9, 2015 5:49 PM in response to jlDiggs

The Exercise ring (part of the Activity app) requires activity that equals or exceeds "the intensity of a brisk walk" in order to give credit.

It is important for your arm to swing naturally as you walk or run, because the Activity app - and also the Workout app, in some cases - relies on arm motion and the built-in accelerometer to translate your movements into activity-related estimates including distance and pace.

To get the best results from fitness activity:

Ensure that you have Wrist Detection turned on: Apple Watch iPhone app > General > Wrist Detection - on.
Check that you have enabled Fitness Tracking: on your iPhone, in the Apple Watch app > My Watch > Privacy > Motion & Fitness - check that Heart Rate and Fitness Tracking are both enabled.
Ensure that Apple Watch is fitted snugly to your wrist so that the sensor can measure your heart rate - and so that it doesn't accidentally loosen to such an extent that the watch thinks it has been taken off. It may help to tighten your watch band before a walk and loosen it again afterwards.

You can also experiment with recording walks as "workouts" using the Workout app (eg Outdoor Walk activity). To achieve Exercise ring progress without necessarily achieving the required exercise level, you can record walks via the Workout app using "Other" as the activity type (when starting the activity, choose between available goal types by swiping sideways or choose Open / No Goal).

Use the Activity app on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Use the Workout app on Apple Watch - Apple Support

You can also calibrate Apple Watch to help it deliver more accurate results including:

- Exercise, Move, calorie and distance estimations in the Activity app.

- Distance and pace estimations for walking (and running) workouts in the Workout app when GPS is not available (eg if you don't take your iPhone with you).

- Overall calorie estimations for many of the other workout categories in the Workout app.

Calibration teaches the watch your stride length at different speeds. Follow the instructions here:

Calibrating your Apple Watch for improved Workout and Activity accuracy - Apple Support

Reply