I find with walking, pretty much ANYTHING less than a even brisk walk will not count. If I am with the wife and kids forget it. It wants arms swinging too, if you hold hands you can kiss the green ring goodbye. Not suited for romantic walks.
I like using the double click of the crown to toggle between the workout app and the activity app, to check how the green ring is going. (it does often lag, and then update in a batch)
Good luck with your ankle, I had a rough few months with ankle soreness when I was trying to lift my step count last year. Felt very old!
Thanks. It's some sort of Achilles tendonitis. So fun!
I think I've figured out that if you're actually moving -- walking, running -- the watch will sometimes give you credit depending on heart rate, pace, etc. But earlier tonight when doing a stationary bike, I think I found out that you MUST turn on the Workout app to get exercise and calories burned credit. I got done at about 11:45 and thought that was enough to hit all of my marks, but I was one minute of exercise shy and about 60 calories shy. I had stopped the Workout app already. I kept going for a couple of minutes and know that the exercise wasn't counted, and I don't think the calories were either. I guess as far as it was concerned I was having a heart attack.
So I thought I'd let people know about this. If you're doing anything like biking or stair machine, use the Workout app. I'm not sure how a treadmill would respond since you're kind of running in place. But man I got to cranking on that bike to hit my mark and did at 11:59.