Automatic workout detection with WatchOS 5

Biking is not supported for autodetection. Only walking, running, swimming, elliptical and rowing are.

To enable detection, open the settings app on the watch and go to general -> workout. There are toggles to enable it (on by default). Or you can do it from watch app on iphone.

It promises to detect walking, running, swimming, elliptical and rowing. Despite of this, I have had zero luck with walking so far (series 2 watch). Haven’t tried the others.

It worked with the first iteration of Watch OS5 for me. It would pick up walks/runs almost immediately. There were other issues at first. The watch lagged in some screens, and some applications wouldn't respond or close correctly. With Watch OS 5.1, it fixed the lagging issues but it doesn't pickup automatic workout detection anymore. I've turned off and turned the feature back on trying to kick it into gear, restarted the watch, with no luck.

I’ve only gotten it to work 1 time when I did an indoor walk on a treadmill. I’ve tested the feature several times while walking outside and it’s never worked. I‘ve tried it both with and without my iPhone, which I would think would matter since I have a cellular series 4 watch. I get exercise credit when I’m on the walk so I know I’m walking at a fast enough pace, but the workout reminder doesn’t pop up. I contacted Apple and they said to bring the watch into a store. It seems like a software issue not a hardware if a bunch of people are experiencing the same issue. Now I just start the workout myself. Hopefully someone will come out with a fix or apple will push out another software update.

I tried yesterday with an outdoor walk and it took 10 minutes before it detected the workout.

It's still working for me when out for a walk, and I noticed that it seems to be "retroactive" picking up the activity prior to the automatic detection, which is cool.

I'm on 5.0.1 and it worked for me on today's lunchtime walk. I'm a fast walker, so maybe your heart rate needs to get to a certain threshold before it triggers automatic detection.

Same here, I always have to start the workout manually and it only detects if I am finished with walking. So partly content with the new feature. Annoying when I forget to start manually it totally ignores my daily three times walking with the dog.

It also work for me initially but has not worked after the latest Apple Watch update 5.0.1. I don’t know if that’s a coincidence but I have walked up to 10 minutes with no detection so I start it manually. I remember before it started much before 10 minutes. Has it been working for anyone else?

Hello Apple. You need to fix this. It's a great idea but does not work with any consistency or reliability. And that's what Workout should be about. Cycling needs to be included. If you can code for elliptical (which never works for me, BTW, although running/walking does) you should be able to have the software recognize cycling.

I'm ok with manual start workout, but how often do we forget to end the session? Surely you can write the code to recognize end of workout if you can write for starting it!

Anxiously awaiting the next update.

I upgraded to series 4 because of this feature and it doesn’t work! It worked on one walk and never since whic is so frustrating. I have reset, unpaired and paire...

Come on Apple Fitbit manages this for years

I did a 30 mins brisk walk and it didnt auto-detect it... any tips or tricks to get this new features working.

I have the same issue with my Apple watch 2 using WatchOS 5.

All enabled already. No luck.