Apple Watch is an excellent device, but it isn’t perfect. While it has a lot of excellent fitness tracking capabilities, it also has its fair share of shortcomings. Specifically, the Apple Watch isn’t always accurate when tracking your workouts.
There are a few ways to troubleshoot your Apple Watch if it’s not tracking exercises correctly. You can wear the watch in the right way; check for pacing that matches what is on your workout type on Apple Watch; make sure location settings are accurate, and update Exercise Minutes Personal Data from time to time. The last thing you should do is unpair and reset it before pairing again.
There are several reasons why your Apple Watch might not be tracking your exercise accurately, and it’s not always easy to troubleshoot. Read on to learn more about troubleshooting why your Apple Watch isn’t tracking your exercise.
About Apple Watch
Apple Watch is a wearable device that can do almost everything an iPhone can do but on your wrist. You can receive and make phone calls on it, get notifications, monitor your health, and track your fitness – all from an effortless device to use. It’s also incredibly stylish, with a wide range of fashionable straps and cases. Apple Watch works with iPhone 5 and newer models and iPhone X, iPhone 11, and iPhone 13 Pro.
You can also control your phone through the Apple Watch with a series of swipes or a built-in button.
How Does Apple Watch Track Exercise?
You can configure Apple Watch to monitor your activity and/or exercise. The former is done through the Settings app on your iPhone; you’ll need to scroll down to “Watch” and tap it.
From there, you’ll see three sub-categories – “General,” “Health,” and “Exercise” – and each one contains a plethora of information and settings. Choose “Exercise,” and you’ll see a list of available apps.
The watch will use data from these apps to determine if you were actually engaging in exercise or not. It will also use this data to calculate how much activity you’ve gotten in during the day.
What to Do if Your Apple Watch Is Not Tracking Exercise
When you first get your Apple Watch, it’s a good idea to set up your health data, including your exercise and dietary information. Read on for step-by-step instructions on how to troubleshoot the Apple Watch if it’s not tracking your workouts:
1. Wear Your Apple Watch the Right Way
Firstly, you need to set up for or use a band that fits perfectly around both wrists.
Once you’ve done that, update the personal data of your Apple Watch so it can more accurately track how many minutes of exercise, stairs climbed, miles traveled, and steps are taken. If anything changes from day to day with those numbers – for example, due to sickness – your watch will still be able to provide accurate stats about what’s going on.
2. Check if Your Pacing Matches the Workout Type
Be sure that the pace of your workout matches what is required for it to be considered an Apple Watch exercise, such as an Outdoor Walk or Running. For example, if you are outside and walking at a brisk pace (at least 10 km/h) but have not run in more than 60 minutes, your heart rate will not keep up with the fitness level necessary – so it’s wise to choose something else.
3. Check Location Settings
Make sure all settings are optimized to collect more accurate data about what workouts happen when wearing your Apple Watch.
Open up Settings app from iPhone > Privacy > Location Services > turn toggle green (enabled), scroll down next screen also be enabled under “Apple Watch Workouts.”
4. Update Exercise Minutes Personal Data
The most important way is to update personal data to help the watch track minutes exercised, stairs climbed, distance traveled, and steps taken.
To more accurately track these with your Apple Watch:
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down to health and select it.
- Tap on Health Details in the upper right corner of this screen.
- Tap Edit at the top of this screen for any information that needs updating (name, weight).
You can also tap Update Exercise Minutes if you want to change how many minutes are tracked when exercising or tap Start Activity if a particular activity isn’t automatically detected by your watches, such as soccer or basketball). Once finished with updates, tap Done at the top right-hand corner, so those changes are saved.
Conclusion
The Apple Watch is one of the best fitness trackers out there. Its built-in heart rate monitor, built-in GPS, and a multitude of third-party apps cater to various fitness tracking needs.
However, as marvelous as the Apple Watch is, it isn’t perfect. And, like any other piece of tech, it can sometimes misbehave. If those steps still can not solve your problem, contact Apple Support Center for assistance.