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I have one of those new fan dangled Apple Watches and sometimes my workouts don’t count towards my green exercise ring. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t! Why?

-Extra info-

Before anyone questions this, I know this to be fact because I’ve tested it as follows:

  • I take a screenshot of my rings
  • I start an Outdoor Walk Workout
  • I walk for 20 minutes
  • I stop the Outdoor Walk Workout
  • I check my rings and the red Move ring has grown, but the green Exercise ring hasn’t changed

I’ve done the above test many times this week. The only thing that changes is that sometimes the green Exercise ring grows, but usually it doesn’t.

Not happy. :(

user258703
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3 Answers3

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Is your walk actually exercise?

Considering the intermittent nature of your issue, I’m wondering whether all your walks are actually exercise?

According to the Health app on your iPhone:

Every full minute of movement equal to or exceeding the intensity of a brisk walk counts towards your daily Exercise Minutes.

NOTE: Emphasis mine

So, if you’re just going for a casual walk it’s not likely to count towards this ring. If your walk happens to be at a faster pace, it will. This would explain the intermittent nature of your experience with the Exercise ring, and also explains why the Move ring still works, because even a casual walk will burn calories.

Monomeeth
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  • Maybe. Where did you get your quote from? I cannot find it myself. – user258703 Oct 07 '17 at 09:22
  • (1) On your iPhone launch the Health app. (2) Tap on the Health Data icon at bottom of screen. (3) Tap on the main Activity icon at top left of the screen. (4) Swipe up to find the Exercise Minutes bar (it's an orange/red coloured horizontal bar). (5) Now tap on the bar. (6) Swipe up. (7) At the very bottom of screen you'll see: Every full minute of movement equal to or exceeding the intensity of a brisk walk counts towards your daily Exercise Minutes. – Monomeeth Oct 07 '17 at 09:28
  • Found it. I will test this on my lunch break. – user258703 Oct 07 '17 at 09:33
  • Great! Also, please report back if you find this is all the problem was, as letting us know will help other users. :) – Monomeeth Oct 07 '17 at 09:35
  • You are correct! Thank you thank you thank you! I was really worried I had a faulty Apple Watch, but I don't. :) – user258703 Oct 07 '17 at 12:44
  • This suggestion worked and then it didn't. Does this have to be done each time or is there something I need to "turn on". thanks for your great advice Monomeeth! – Hollie Martin Dec 04 '17 at 18:52
  • It's not a case of turning something on. For an activity to be counted as 'exercise' it needs to be at a particular pace. That is, going for a casual walk won't trigger the Exercise ring (although it'll certainly count towards the Activity ring). However, going for a faster paced walk is likely to count towards your Exercise ring. If you do want everything to count towards your exercise ring, then you could just start an Outdoor Walk 'workout' and it'll be counted towards exercise, but this may defeat the purpose. See this related question. – Monomeeth Dec 04 '17 at 21:46
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The bottom line is that it does not work properly. It does count the movement that exceeds the heartbeat level of a brisk walk, however, it does not add the exercise if you start a workout. The problem here is that unless you maintain a high activity level all throughout your workout it only counts a partial exercise out of your full workout. Like I said, bottom line is that it does not work and it is annoying. The Polar M430 and the Fitbit surge works much better if all you are concern is your fitness tracking.

Carlos
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People have been posting this question for over a year. Some work outs are reported reliably to the exercise ring, but others aren't. In particular, the outdoor walk work outs are not reported, despite accurately reporting distance, route, time and heart rates under the Workouts tab of the Activities App. The data just doesn't reliably flow into the exercise ring of the Activity App. The only workout that will flow the time exercised into the exercise ring is the "Other" work out, which records only time and no other useful data.

Please use the Apple Product Feedback website to complain about this bug. If Apple hears enough complaints, they may eventually assign some engineers to fix this bug. Otherwise, the Apple Watch fails as a fitness tracker if you intend to use the work out apps to record outdoor walking and other workouts that don't reliably report data to the exercise ring.

Benjamin Hu
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