Cycling auto pause keeps activating while riding

[estesbubba]

I've been using my AW7 for cycling with watchOS 10.x without any problems until the last 2 rides. What is happening is it keeps pausing while I'm riding. Even if I manually resume it, it will pause shortly after that. I don't have the press side buttons to pause enabled so it's not that. What is different is it's colder now so I've had a long sleeve shirt and jacket on. Could that be causing the problem and triggering the auto pause? I don't know what the watch uses to activate pause/resume but I would think if you're moving it wouldn't do it, but it is.

Any ideas?

 

[dallison13]

Funny because mine did that during a functional strength training workout yesterday, which in theory has no auto pause function. It just kept doing it. Irritated the crap out of me. Not sure what is going on, but I am assuming it is a bug.

 

[Julien]

Funny because mine did that during a functional strength training workout yesterday, which in theory has no auto pause function. It just kept doing it. Irritated the crap out of me. Not sure what is going on, but I am assuming it is a bug.

Probably hitting the Crown and Button simultaneously. Common with workout gloves on. Make sure to disable this function since it is aggravating.

 

[Julien]

I've been using my AW7 for cycling with watchOS 10.x without any problems until the last 2 rides. What is happening is it keeps pausing while I'm riding. Even if I manually resume it, it will pause shortly after that. I don't have the press side buttons to pause enabled so it's not that. What is different is it's colder now so I've had a long sleeve shirt and jacket on. Could that be causing the problem and triggering the auto pause? I don't know what the watch uses to activate pause/resume but I would think if you're moving it wouldn't do it, but it is.

Any ideas?

My friend had this problem when she started wearing long sleeve shirts. I suggested she turn on Water Lock and she hasn't had the problem since. So worth a try.

 

[NoBoMac]

What @Julien said.

Variations of this have popped-up on the site over the years. One of the more recent threads:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/fairly-frustrated-auto-pausing-workouts.2391344/

 

[TheEngineer]

There is discussion in a few threads, but here's the summary on using an Apple Watch while cycling with an iPhone mounted on the bike:

1. Start the Apple Watch Workout app and choose Outdoor Cycle
2. While it's counting down, click the Apple Watch side button and select Water Lock (you can edit that screen to put the water lock button somewhere convenient). Your watch screen will be impervious to sleeves, gloves, and anything else.
3. Start riding. When you see your ride on the Lock Screen, click it to show the ride in full screen. You can swipe through several screen options. (Alternately, if you have the iPhone Fitness App open, cycling will open in full screen automatically.)
4. When done riding, pause the workout from the iPhone (there's a pause button at the bottom of the screen). Then go to the pulldown menu at the bottom of the iPhone screen and choose End Workout. That will both end your workout AND unlock your watch screen. It won't try to clear water from your Apple Watch either.

If you have Auto-Pause enabled, some of that may be simplified, but that's the general idea.

 

[ndouglas]

Just adding to the above tips, you might try wearing the watch more securely. … I don‘t use water lock, but reading this thread I might start to… I find that gloves and light jackets (long sleeves) both mess up the watch tracking, I dunno if it auto-pauses but I think it does. In my experience what it often does is makes me put in my passcode again, which is rather annoying. Something about the looseness of the watch on my wrist (I think) and the glove material messes up the reading and evidently the watch ”thinks” it’s been de-secured from my wrist. So when I want to avoid the auto-pause and the enter passcode I try to just set it to one notch tighter.

 

[TheEngineer]

When I first used my Apple Watch on a bicycle ride while wearing cycling gloves, my tightly-adjusted gloves worked their way under my semi-loose watch and caused it to lose connection to my wrist, as you describe. I tightened up my wrist strap and started wearing the glove on that side loose (it's a standard Velcro adjustment) and it hasn't happen since.

In my experience, a lost connection requiring a passcode comes from sleeves or gloves getting under the watch, while new segments and other stuff resulting from interactions with the screen come from a sleeve or glove touching the watch face sufficiently to be perceived by the watch as a touch. One can also possibly press the Digital Crown by bending the wrist up and have issues from that (mine's set up with the crown away from my wrist).

 

[TheEngineer]

Just adding to the above tips, you might try wearing the watch more securely. …

I was riding yesterday, using my iPhone cycling display, when my heart rate grayed out. I checked my sleeves and found that my glove had just barely worked its way between my wrist and the watch. I adjusted it and all was fine. Had I not had the display, that may have persisted long enough to log out my screen. So, one more use for the iPhone cycling display. 👍