Health Data/Achievements? - Backup

[musicpenguy]

I was wondering if someone could demystify the whole activity tracking component of Apple Watch for me. As best as I can tell data is pushed to the iPhone into the Health app as well as the Activity app. If for whatever reason the watch backup fails to get made transitioning to a new phone and you need to restore the watch and sync it up to a new iPhone, would that data stored in Health.app and Activity.app be pushed back to the watch? Achievements is the most noticable one that would make sense to have pushed back.

So wondering if anyone can try to clear this all up for me - thanks!

 

[exxxviii]

My caveat is that this is a guess...

I believe that iOS stores data in silos, so Activity data are separate and independent from Health data. They may come from the same source (pushed from the watch to both apps), but once they arrive, they are independent. And, the push is one-directional. The Watch app stores the Watch backup data, and those are also independent of the Activity and Health apps.

So, if a Watch backup never happens, then neither the Health or Activity app will push watch data back to the Watch app that can then be pushed to the watch itself. But, the Achievements live in the Activity app on the phone, and if the phone is backed up, you will have your Achievements after the restore, independently of a watch backup.

The higher level answer is that this is not likely to be a problem. The watch backs itself up to the phone regularly, so if you fail to unpair, there will likely be an older backup that you can restore the watch from.

And in the total worst case that there really was never a watch backup, you can still pair the watch, and all of your activity data will stay on the phone.

All of the above is moot, however, if you do not backup the phone or you setup a phone as a new device. In that case, you will lose all of your watch, Activity, and Health data, and they are irretrievable.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

They transfer only when the backup is encrypted. iCloud backups are already encrypted, but you must enable encrypted backup in iTunes if you're backing up in iTunes rather than iCloud.

 

[musicpenguy]

Awesome - I was under the impression that the watch only makes a backup when you unpair it, didn't see it taking up space in iCloud storage yet - would be majorly bummed if I lost the activity data - already lost a week of it (new to Apple Watch and had to replace iPhone because the NAND flash was going bad and refusing to backup to iTunes or iCloud).

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Awesome - I was under the impression that the watch only makes a backup when you unpair it, didn't see it taking up space in iCloud storage yet - would be majorly bummed if I lost the activity data - already lost a week of it (new to Apple Watch and had to replace iPhone because the NAND flash was going bad and refusing to backup to iTunes or iCloud).

Yeah, even though the Watch is continually backed up to the iPhone the most recent backup won't populate until after you've backed up to the new iPhone. It's pretty much hidden from view in the meantime.