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Apple Watch Exercise Minutes
- Thread starter coffeemadmanUK
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My outdoor walk is very random at getting exercise minutes. Any other exercise I do works just fine. It's only outdoor walk where I have the issue.
My walk actually recorded my minutes today. It did not count two minutes of 57 but I did have a couple of pauses along the way. Previously I would have had maybe 10 minutes total. I started the walk with just one minute already recorded and right now have credit for 56 minutes for the day. Based on the heart rate chart this seems accurate to me.
I updated to 7.3 last night.
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Alright, I tested this successfully and replicated it over the course of a week.
If I set my watch to exercise mode - Outdoor Walk - I have to jog for it to count any of the exercise minutes.
HOWEVER - If I do not have an exercise mode active and I do a walk at a good effort? Every minute counts as exercise minutes. Every single time.
I think this is because from day 1, when I got my first Apple Watch, I used Outdoor Walk to jog/walk (because I couldn't run a mile non-stop like I can now). This trained my Apple Watch that my "outdoor walk" exercise was really mostly jogging and some walking over the many years. I still do this today when I want to have a light jog - I'll choose outdoor walk and jog/walk.
So now, when I want a walk to count as exercise, I just leave my watch in normal mode and go walking and EVERY minute counts. Doesn't count as exercise but it helps with this months' goal of closing my rings every day, lol.
I definitely blame myself for this based on how I treated Outdoor Walks (as runs).
If I set my watch to exercise mode - Outdoor Walk - I have to jog for it to count any of the exercise minutes.
HOWEVER - If I do not have an exercise mode active and I do a walk at a good effort? Every minute counts as exercise minutes. Every single time.
I think this is because from day 1, when I got my first Apple Watch, I used Outdoor Walk to jog/walk (because I couldn't run a mile non-stop like I can now). This trained my Apple Watch that my "outdoor walk" exercise was really mostly jogging and some walking over the many years. I still do this today when I want to have a light jog - I'll choose outdoor walk and jog/walk.
So now, when I want a walk to count as exercise, I just leave my watch in normal mode and go walking and EVERY minute counts. Doesn't count as exercise but it helps with this months' goal of closing my rings every day, lol.
I definitely blame myself for this based on how I treated Outdoor Walks (as runs).
I always use other for both indoor and outdoor walks. It has never recorded the right exercise minutes on ANY Apple Watch I have had and I have had all of them from series 0. I always hope a software update will fix it, but it never does.
My favorite is when I'm walking at a reasonable pace, not strolling, and the watch asks me if I want to end the workout as it somehow thinks I'm not moving. Whatever.
My favorite is when I'm walking at a reasonable pace, not strolling, and the watch asks me if I want to end the workout as it somehow thinks I'm not moving. Whatever.
Same here. In the middle of walk and it ask me to dismiss. Floors me.
My watch never gives my rings credit for my walks. So frustrating.
Walked 3 miles on the boardwalk at the beach yesterday....no ring credit.
I got the real world benefit though! ;-)
Walked 3 miles on the boardwalk at the beach yesterday....no ring credit.
I got the real world benefit though! ;-)
I think it has to do with the pace, heartrate and how long you sustain it on a walk. If you’re walking slowly as in a leisurely walk, it will not count all the minutes you spent walking as exercise.
Mine had a very different issue for awhile, I'd get the exercise ring filled but zero workout detection, not even an outdoor walk. I had to start workouts manually to override that. Since WatchOS 7 though, that appears to be fixed. My ring always filled though.
Another factor might have been my oddly higher resting rate of ~90-110 bpm. That throws a lot of things off in the Watch, meaning to register activity as an 'outdoor' walk I have to walk quite slowly, like I'm out shopping or exploring. Any faster than 3 MPH and it can't figure out what type of exercise it is as by then I'm well past the 130 BPM max of an outdoor walk, but too slow to count as a run.
Blast my higher metabolism!
Another factor might have been my oddly higher resting rate of ~90-110 bpm. That throws a lot of things off in the Watch, meaning to register activity as an 'outdoor' walk I have to walk quite slowly, like I'm out shopping or exploring. Any faster than 3 MPH and it can't figure out what type of exercise it is as by then I'm well past the 130 BPM max of an outdoor walk, but too slow to count as a run.
Blast my higher metabolism!