Apple Watch 3/Watchos 5 - Swimming not counting laps or calories correctly.

I too have a similar issue, where the laps don't count until i close down the workout session (shows 0 laps no matter how many I swim). Once the session is closed it shows the number of laps accurately. I originally bought the watch specifically for swimming and it worked fine for so long but ever since 5.0 it's been flakey... I've tried the whole re-pairing, killing the app, rebooting the watch and it might work for a few workouts, but then it comes back. (Apple watch OS 5.1.2 on an applewatch 3). Extra annoying since the last time i want to be messing around with electronics is when i'm in a pool trying to do a workout.

That is my experience as well. It works for me for a few sessions after unpairing but then stops and the last place I want to mess with it is in the pool.

Please call technical support. When I called them they said no one had reported this, I pointed them to this thread and they said it is helpful if we call them so it gets onto the radar of the engineers who can fix this.

Hi it’s a series 3 watch and I am on 5.1 it does work correctly now.

Version 5 and 5.0.1 were rubbish for me.

I would wait too if your still on 4 for more people to test good luck.

Thanks, Andy.

+1 on this!

See my screenshots below that show a significant drop in recorded laps and calories starting Sept 17 with the watchOS 5 release.

My typical swim time is about 30-35 mins. I went from about 50 laps recorded for that time down to only 2 for the entire session. Same story with a significant drop in calories recorded.

Having the same issue. First swim today with Apple Watch 3 since updating to WatchOS 5. Swam 1,700 yards this morning and the Workout app said I swam 475 yards and burned 74 calories. First time it's been inaccurate. After reading your post, I quit the Workout app and restarted the watch. We'll see if it works correctly, when I swim next.

I've only done one swim so far with watchOS 5, but can definitely confirm that auto sets isn't working at all for me. Distance, laps, and calories are all fine and reasonable. But I really miss the auto sets.

I used to have a problem with watchOS v4 where, only while swimming, the distance displayed on the watch was totally bogus...something like 3K yards after one lap, and it never changed, even though the number of laps changed and was correct. But, after completing the workout, the total distance displayed and synced was correct. Rebooting the watch fixed it. Maybe worth a try for you?

But, indeed, frustrating.

Chris

P.S. 6500 yards @ 5x/week...wow!!!

I’m having exactly the same problem. I swam 6 laps nd it said I burned 3 calories and swam 0 laps. I guess Apple didn’t check this out too good on this upgrade. I wanted to at least count some calories during my swimming workout so I put it on water fitness. Laps do not count that way however. This is unacceptable!!!

Hi hercuular I have heard nothing about a fix yet, Apple have taken some reading from my watch and I have provided them some screen shots to help,

Just waiting at the moment :-(

If you can please report it to Apple via the apple support app,

The more people that report the fault the better.

If I get a update I will post the outcome on hear.

I will give it another 2 weeks then I will be asking for a new watch as my year guarantee is up in 3 weeks.

Cheers

I've been working with Apple Support on this issue for the last three weeks and for the most part, they have not come up with any answers or solutions. Today I asked them if they could just replace my Series 3 watch with another one that hasn't been updated to WatchOS 5. And they agreed to do it! (While it doesn't solve the WatchOS 5 issue, at least I can return to swimming and have the watch do the tracking.)

Hi. As far as I know, Series 2 has not been affected (my friends who have it told me it was still working fine). However, Series 3 seems to be having problems. Lately my watch was also recording a huge amount of burnt calories during workouts that should not burn a lot... Or even counting more steps than before... My guess is that there is some kind of bug affecting the way it measures everything on Series 3. Hope they fix it properly soon! Thanks!

I am also having this issue, I updated to watch OS 5.0.1 yesterday and since then the swimming in the activity app is completely wrong. On 3/11 I swam 1000m and app said I burnt 800 calories (usual for my swim) updated on 4/11 did a 1000m swim and it says I burnt 81 calories....i'd have burnt more if i'd just floated in the pool for 45 mins!!! The screen also looked wrong during the swimming work out, the font was much smaller and it was all aligned to the left of the screen.

I reported the issue to Apple support who said it was the 1st report of this issue and had I tried restarting my watch!

This is utterly shoddy of apple to release an update to OS that clearly has a known issue in it that has made my watch pointless for a swimming workout. I'm utterly fuming and ready to send my watch back to apple, especially as they have said they won't help me move back to the working OS 4 version that was previously on my watch and I have to stay on this in useable and broken version.

Well, this issue is still happening with OS 5.1.3. I bought the Apple Watch (v3) specifically to track swimming. Doing laps in a 23m / 25yd pool, I quickly lose count and I want to pace myself for 1,600m, it's pretty important to the workout to know how far you've gone.

Well, this morning it started happening to me. I'd swum maybe 8 laps and looked to see where I was and distance and laps showed as 0. So I stopped my workout, messed with the watch and ended the workout, only to see that the laps had been counted correctly. Total pain to try and mess with a touch screen watch in the pool in the limited time before work.

I've done a hard reset and we'll see if that fixes it, but reading the comments above and thinking after 6 months of this issue being reported and a bunch of new software releases, we still just need to reboot it. Reminds me of Windows PCs in the 90's, not Apple products.

Try resetting your watch. Put it off then on. My experience in swimming is the watch gets to be inaccurate once you change your routine. There was also an instance when inaccuracies happen once the ios is updated. I am just wondering why apple has not given any comment on this.

Hi I updated my watch and my iPhone this morning and it has fixed the issue at last.

Finally I don’t have to count my lengths lol

I hope it works for you and everyone.

Hi Andy,

Thanks—because of your message I also just contacted Apple and let them know this was still an issue. Pointed the customer service rep to this discussion forum. And I can confirm, as user SEGefren mentioned, the update to v5.01 didn't solve the issue.

—Ken