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Apps Apple Watch and runtastic

S

StuMcBill

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 11, 2011
654
82
Aberdeen, Scotland
Thinking about getting a 38mm sport since the price cut, was hoping for a watch 2 with GPS however, doesn't seem to be on the cards at the moment.

I use runtastic to track runs, and would like to use it with the watch, however I have a few questions.

I was wondering, if I have my watch on, paired to my phone with and using the phone gps, will I be able to see my pace in minutes/km at a glance when I am running?

Would that also work with no gps, if I left my phone at home?

I've got a running playlist on Apple Music, tracks purely downloaded via Apple Music, will they transfer to the watch and play via Bluetooth on my Bluetooth headphones? Without the phone?

Cheers
Stewart
 
I can answer a couple of these questions for you:

The Runtastic Glance shows you your current speed but not your current pace. It also shows your distance and calories burned. However, if you open the app itself, there are several pages that can be displayed, and one of them shows your split times per mile, just like the iPhone app. The one at the top shows your current pace, and previous miles with actual times are shown below that. The app won't stay open unless you change the Wake Screen setting to "Resume last activity" though, so it might take a button press or two to get back to the app (personally I prefer the "resume last activity" option) - I'm not sure if that's something third party apps are allowed to mess with.

I haven't tried using Runtastic on the watch without my phone nearby, but if that's what you wanted to do you could always use the built-in Activity app and manually add the info to Runtastic later, since you wouldn't have any distance info without the GPS either way.

And yes, you can transfer music to your watch and listen via Bluetooth without the phone.

StuMcBill said:
Thinking about getting a 38mm sport since the price cut, was hoping for a watch 2 with GPS however, doesn't seem to be on the cards at the moment.

I use runtastic to track runs, and would like to use it with the watch, however I have a few questions.

I was wondering, if I have my watch on, paired to my phone with and using the phone gps, will I be able to see my pace in minutes/km at a glance when I am running?

Would that also work with no gps, if I left my phone at home?

I've got a running playlist on Apple Music, tracks purely downloaded via Apple Music, will they transfer to the watch and play via Bluetooth on my Bluetooth headphones? Without the phone?

Cheers
Stewart
Click to expand...
 
Not convinced so far, love the look and feel of it, but when I was out for a run today it seemed to have problems keeping track of my heartbeat?

Also runtastic kept pausing on its own, never had that problem without the watch.

Going to give it another couple of runs and see how it is then!
 
Returned!

Went for another run tonight, made sure the band was tight and it still only measured my heart rate for the first 5 or so minutes of the run.

Also when I completed my run, I pressed finish 5 times on the watch before having to pull out my phone and press finish on there!! Which added 30 seconds onto my time.

It was also very slow to launch apps when it had to communicate with the phone.

In my opinion the hardware and software is not quite there yet! Maybe I'll try again in generation 2.

Stewart
 
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Do I need Runtastic/RunKeeper if I don't really care about my live pace or heart rate? I would like to measure distance and calories, however.

I haven't taken my phone with me yet to map it out (I have a ginormous 6sPlus) and I'm not looking forward to that. I would just like my run to add to my daily activity count. I realize there is a manual option in the Workout app for an outdoor run, but I'm unclear on what is gained with these 3rd party apps if I'm not concerned about live data.
 
All I want to do is run with my watch and use Nike + and not bring my iPhone with me. I connect my headphones to the watch and run. We are so close.....
 
BeatCrazy said:
Do I need Runtastic/RunKeeper if I don't really care about my live pace or heart rate? I would like to measure distance and calories, however.

I haven't taken my phone with me yet to map it out (I have a ginormous 6sPlus) and I'm not looking forward to that. I would just like my run to add to my daily activity count. I realize there is a manual option in the Workout app for an outdoor run, but I'm unclear on what is gained with these 3rd party apps if I'm not concerned about live data.
Click to expand...

From what I have read, to accurately measure your distance, you need your phone with you. I believe it can guestimate once it has learned your stride etc, so you don't need your phone.
 
When iOS 9.3 came out it broke something with Runtastic so it's not recording the heartbeat properly. They're aware of it and working on a fix.

If you tap on the glance, it will open the app on the Watch, but it also pauses the activity, which is pretty silly and is something I hope they change. They really need to make it act more like the widget on the phone, where tapping it is just a shortcut to the app. It shouldn't pause your activity unless you clearly tap on something that says, "Pause," in my opinion.

Speaking of the glance, I realized that the stats displayed there actually mirror whatever you have set up in the iPhone app - just like the notification widget does - except for the middle stat on the bottom row, which is not displayed. So if you want it to display your pace you CAN set it up that way. It would be great if they'd let us set up different configurations for the app, the widget, and the Watch.

As far as slow response times, yeah, it's not snappy, but nothing on the Watch is, really. You kind of get used to having to wait a few seconds to give it time to refresh before you try to interact with it. Also, if you raise your wrist and/or open a glance, it will wake it up and force it to refresh even if you lower your wrist again, so sometimes I'll lift my wrist and put it right back down just so I can check it again a few seconds later. I also changed my settings for "Wake Screen" to "Resume To Previous Activity", and then a minute or two before I'm ready to finish my activity, I'll make sure the app itself is open (usually by asking Siri to open it), and then a few seconds before I'm done I'll raise my wrist to wake up and refresh the app, and then even if I lower my wrist the app is ready when I raise it again to stop the activity. I also have auto-pause turned on on the iPhone app so even if it's slow it will usually pause for me until I can get it turned off.

That's a lot of workarounds, but it's made everything usable. Hopefully very soon they'll have a fix for the heartbeat bug.

Hope all that helps you.
 
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I had sent in a support ticket about the heart rate issue and got an email this morning that today's update fixes it, hopefully that's true! I've got a big bike ride tomorrow and would love to have my heart rate data for the whole thing!
 
NevilleB said:
I'm curious as to how it worked out during your ride?
Click to expand...

Everything worked fine!

I went on a couple walks on Friday and it worked for the first one and something odd happened on the second one and it didn't save any heart rate data even though the watch app was displaying it the whole time, but fortunately that's the only time I've seen that happen since the update.
 
OrionsByte said:
Everything worked fine!

I went on a couple walks on Friday and it worked for the first one and something odd happened on the second one and it didn't save any heart rate data even though the watch app was displaying it the whole time, but fortunately that's the only time I've seen that happen since the update.
Click to expand...

That's great news!

I am taking part in a bike race on Sunday, the Tour Durban (105km), so it's good to hear that my heart rate will be monitored.

My other option is to run Runtastic from the phone only and then run the native workout app on the AW to pick up my heart rate.
 
NevilleB said:
That's great news!

I am taking part in a bike race on Sunday, the Tour Durban (105km), so it's good to hear that my heart rate will be monitored.

My other option is to run Runtastic from the phone only and then run the native workout app on the AW to pick up my heart rate.
Click to expand...

Nice! My body isn't quite in 105km shape yet, and I don't think I could do it on my mountain bike anyways lol (I really need to save up for a nice road bike). I was feeling okay after 40 miles, and I could probably do 50 miles okay, but beyond that I'm not sure. ;) Good luck and have fun!
 
Well, I went for my first one hour cycle ride since the latest Runtastic update and the AW performed flawlessly, measuring my heart rate all the way. It also seemed snappier and without any lag when I ended the workout.

One question regarding the AW app - is it possible to change the display from average pace to average speed?
 
I have a question on these running apps for the watch. Do you use an app (runkeeper, Runtastic, Strava, etc etc) and start that up in addition to starting the running selection on the apple workout apps? Or do any of the running apps feed the activity rings.
 
menace3 said:
I have a question on these running apps for the watch. Do you use an app (runkeeper, Runtastic, Strava, etc etc) and start that up in addition to starting the running selection on the apple workout apps? Or do any of the running apps feed the activity rings.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can have third party apps and the Apple workout app running at the same time. (I usually have runtastic and the Apple Watch workout running at the same time)

However the third party apps will not feed the activity rings on the iPhone nor the Apple Watch. Only the Apple Watch workout app feeds the activity rings.
 
john991 said:
Yes, you can have third party apps and the Apple workout app running at the same time. (I usually have runtastic and the Apple Watch workout running at the same time)

However the third party apps will not feed the activity rings on the iPhone nor the Apple Watch. Only the Apple Watch workout app feeds the activity rings.
Click to expand...

That's not true. I use Runtastic alone and the activity rings update just fine. You just have to make sure you've set then up to share their data with Apple Health.
 
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john991 said:
So under sources I turn on all options under runtastic including heart monitor and all workout data will go into the apple rings? (Including workouts - running, elliptical, cycling etc)

I had tried with the latest update and it didn't show up for me.
Click to expand...

Yeah that should be all you need to do.

I do occasionally have a problem where it doesn't get added, so I don't see it in my other apps (like MyFitnessPal) either. One thing I learned is that when I stop and complete the activity from the watch, I check MyFitnessPal to see if it got added, and if not, I force the Apple Watch Runtastic app closed and reopen it, and that usually shakes it loose. Usually though, after completing something with Runtastic I get immediate feedback from the Activity app saying I've completed my 30 minutes of exercise or hit my calorie goal or whatever.

I have had occasional glitches with Runtastic adding things to Apple Health even when just using the iPhone app too, but it works more often than it doesn't.

By the way to force-close an app on the watch, hold down the power button until the power menu opens, then let go of the button and hold it down again. You'll end up back at the app screen, where you can restart the app.
 

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OrionsByte said:
Yeah that should be all you need to do.

I do occasionally have a problem where it doesn't get added, so I don't see it in my other apps (like MyFitnessPal) either. One thing I learned is that when I stop and complete the activity from the watch, I check MyFitnessPal to see if it got added, and if not, I force the Apple Watch Runtastic app closed and reopen it, and that usually shakes it loose. Usually though, after completing something with Runtastic I get immediate feedback from the Activity app saying I've completed my 30 minutes of exercise or hit my calorie goal or whatever.

I have had occasional glitches with Runtastic adding things to Apple Health even when just using the iPhone app too, but it works more often than it doesn't.

By the way to force-close an app on the watch, hold down the power button until the power menu opens, then let go of the button and hold it down again. You'll end up back at the app screen, where you can restart the app.
Click to expand...

My workout using the apple workout app didn't show up this morning.

But what's annoying is if I go back into the apple workout app I see my workout from today briefly then it switches back to the previous day's workout. So I know the watch has my workout data it's just not recording it in the activity rings. Rebooting the watch doesn't seem to make a difference.
 
OrionsByte said:
Yeah that should be all you need to do.

I do occasionally have a problem where it doesn't get added, so I don't see it in my other apps (like MyFitnessPal) either. One thing I learned is that when I stop and complete the activity from the watch, I check MyFitnessPal to see if it got added, and if not, I force the Apple Watch Runtastic app closed and reopen it, and that usually shakes it loose. Usually though, after completing something with Runtastic I get immediate feedback from the Activity app saying I've completed my 30 minutes of exercise or hit my calorie goal or whatever.

I have had occasional glitches with Runtastic adding things to Apple Health even when just using the iPhone app too, but it works more often than it doesn't.

By the way to force-close an app on the watch, hold down the power button until the power menu opens, then let go of the button and hold it down again. You'll end up back at the app screen, where you can restart the app.
Click to expand...

is there a way to see how many calories your burning on the Apple Watch using runtastic on the watch? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

The Apple workout app allows you to see active calories your burning during a workout.
 
john991 said:
is there a way to see how many calories your burning on the Apple Watch using runtastic on the watch? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

The Apple workout app allows you to see active calories your burning during a workout.
Click to expand...

If you open Runtastic on your iPhone, if you long-press one of the four statistical displays in the top half of the screen, you'll see a drop-down list of all the other displays you can put there instead, and one of them is Calories. The top (large) display, and the left and right small displays are what the watch app uses on its display. The middle small display doesn't show up anywhere on the watch.

So if you want to view calories on your watch, you just need to assign it to one of those three spots in your iPhone app.
 
I know it'd be yet another piece of gear, but a chest strap heart rate monitor that is BT 4.0 can pair with the watch and provide *far* better, more frequent, and more accurate heart rate readings.
 
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