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I would be perfectly OK with this answer if Apple would advertise the activity rings being filled up by step activity ONLY unless a specific workout app was used to give you higher calorie estimates for those workouts. Because that is sort of how it feels. It picks up on what might be brisk walk movements but then only gives you credit for brisk walk activity even if you are exerting more. They advertise this watch as being smarter and more versatile than a pedometer that estimates calories based on steps. But maybe that really is all it is.
I don't really give a toot how the watch is attempting to use HR. I just want the watch to make a best effort to regularly read my HR throughout the day. I love data. I love to look back and see how my body was responding as I did my regular daily stuff. I do the exact same thing on runs-- I love to look back at the elevation, grade, pace, and HR data to see how it all affected me. If I was active with my watch, I want to see what my HR was. If I was sitting on the couch napping, I want to see what my HR was.
This change that ignores HR readings when a user is active takes away from the coolness of the watch and the data it can provide. I don't care if there is a risk of inaccuracy. Give me the HR reading, and let me decide what to do with it. The product or software engineer made a bad decision on this, in my humble opinion.
This change that ignores HR readings when a user is active takes away from the coolness of the watch and the data it can provide. I don't care if there is a risk of inaccuracy. Give me the HR reading, and let me decide what to do with it. The product or software engineer made a bad decision on this, in my humble opinion.
Out of interest, what are the issues that are causing you to regularly un-pair the watch and iPhone? As for only being given credit for 2 minutes of activity, this is likely due to it not seeing it as anything strenuous enough. From what I've picked up on here, a lot of people are saying that they go for a 20 minute walk and only see something like 4 minutes of exercise. This is, I believe, due to the walking speed. I'm 6' 1" and walk pretty fast so I've never had any problem getting walking registered as exercise. If I wander around a shop, however, it doesn't register anything, which makes sense. Hopefully Apple will tighten everything up.
I periodically lose the haptic tap notifications for some of my apps and for incoming texts and emails. Non FaceTime calls to and from my watch sometimes insist on routing through my phone instead, which would be buried in my purse. A couple of times I lost my friends list, meaning the photos and ability to contact people via the button on the side would be simply gone. That hasn't happened since the update, though, come to think of it.
I must say though, that I got haptic notification to take my allergy medicine a few minutes ago. That hasn't worked in several days and I've been too busy to do anything about it. Yet now it's working again. I'll have to see if my haptic text notifications are working again. (I do always get my notifications, but the haptic taps don't always happen like they are supposed to. I swear this thing makes no sense. It works, then it doesn't, then it does again. I think it just gets tired of me and goes off for a day or two, probably doing something clandestine for the NSA.
I must say though, that I got haptic notification to take my allergy medicine a few minutes ago. That hasn't worked in several days and I've been too busy to do anything about it. Yet now it's working again. I'll have to see if my haptic text notifications are working again. (I do always get my notifications, but the haptic taps don't always happen like they are supposed to. I swear this thing makes no sense. It works, then it doesn't, then it does again. I think it just gets tired of me and goes off for a day or two, probably doing something clandestine for the NSA.
That's definitely not normal, unless you are referring to the fact that you will receive notifications only on the device that you are actively using (or is, at least, unlocked). For example, if you have your watch on and unlocked and your iPhone is also unlocked, the notifications will only go to the iPhone. If the iPhone is locked, however, then the notifications will go to the watch.
If that's not what you mean, then you might want to get your watch checked out my support. It's not working as it should for some reason.
That would drive me crazy if I was having to go through that every week. I followed up with the apple rep last night to say that it seemed normal again, I was able to fill the 30 minute exercise ring using 20 minutes of workout app exercise and the other ten of random stuff, and that's closer to what was happening before the update. I said I wanted to watch it over another day or two, though, before declaring that it's resolved. He did say that if this didn't resolve it, then the next step might be sending me a replacement.
The resistance level is irrelevant as people have different fitness levels. It's your HR that determines calorie burn.
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I periodically lose the haptic tap notifications for some of my apps and for incoming texts and emails. Non FaceTime calls to and from my watch sometimes insist on routing through my phone instead, which would be buried in my purse. A couple of times I lost my friends list, meaning the photos and ability to contact people via the button on the side would be simply gone. That hasn't happened since the update, though, come to think of it.
I must say though, that I got haptic notification to take my allergy medicine a few minutes ago. That hasn't worked in several days and I've been too busy to do anything about it. Yet now it's working again. I'll have to see if my haptic text notifications are working again. (I do always get my notifications, but the haptic taps don't always happen like they are supposed to. I swear this thing makes no sense. It works, then it doesn't, then it does again. I think it just gets tired of me and goes off for a day or two, probably doing something clandestine for the NSA.
Mine is buggy like this also. Before the update it was fine, with the exception that it restarted itself twice for no reason. Now it's kind of a mess. Sometimes I get haptic, sometimes I don't. Sometimes my messages come to the watch first, sometimes they don't. I've just been waiting for them to get stock in and then I'm going to call Apple to replace it.
If I were still within my return period, it would go back RIGHT NOW!The primary reason I bought this watch was for fitness and workouts which includes HR tracking. Now I try to check my HR during the workout and it's all over the place:
I placed a support call with Apple, and the guy tells me I have to:
- Make sure I have the latest version of WatchOS [DONE btw]
- Make sure I have the latest version of iOS on my iPhone [DONE btw]
- Cold reboot the watch [DONE btw]
- Unpair and re-pair the watch with my phone [DONE btw]
He tells me that it can't read my HR if I'm wearing it too loosely or moving my arm too much.
I told him it was working well before this update. This is such bull$hit.
Eventually Apple is going to piss me off enough to make me figure out how to leave their ecosystem.
I hope they fix this quick, or there will be a lot of
Watches for sale on eBay and Craigslist!
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It's not out of the ordinary for Apple staff to say things that aren't necessarily true, or things that conflict something the person sat next to them might say. It's hard to believe that Apple made this change due to battery complaints. At least from my experience with the Apple Watch, and from what I've seen in many places (forums, podcasts, etc.), people never had a problem with the battery with Watch OS 1.0. If anything, I recall seeing how many people were really impressed with the battery from day one. I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out. Let's hope WWDC will set things straight.
Alright, I have some results, but unfortunately it's going to be hard to draw any conclusions.
The most consistent exercise I can do to compare data points is a run/jog. So I have data for for a 3.0 mile run on 1.0 with workout app on/off.
On: 258 active calories/ Total time: 28:46/ Minutes credited: 27
Off: 218 active calories (judging by activity ring)/ Total time: 29:42/ Minutes credited: 26
So, as you can see, the Watch was fairly good at estimating movement without the workout app. However, the major caveat here is that Watch has always been very good at running/jogging exercises. The other hitch is that during the run without the workout app, the times I could noticeably see the activity/exercise rings 'fill in' were when I would check the HR glance during the run.
On 1.0.1 (with my old watch) I went on the same 3 mile run with the workout app on with a total time of 29:02 and was credited the full 29 minutes. Testing with the app off TBD.
Some notes on 1.0: The exercise ring is "easier" to fill I think with non-running related activities. I still don't get credited with many (if any) exercise minutes on my off days, even if I'm up and about and moving around -- the 'activity ring' still fills however.
I'm beginning to agree with this. It seems as though Apple is trying to more narrowly define "exercise" versus movement. The only activity Apple seems to have nailed down is running/jogging. It's confusing how some individuals have reported getting only a couple minutes of activity after doing 1+ hour hikes -- but as I noticed, the only time I really saw the exercise/activity ring fill was when I checked the HR glance. The Apple Watch seems much more hesitant to report exercise on 1.0.1 unless it's sure you were indeed exercising. Maybe that's a good thing.
To be continued....
Thanks Flur and to everyone else on this thread who advised me about my Apple Watch's quirks. I've not done any rebooting and it seems to be working fine again, though I've not recently tried making or receiving calls on it in the past couple of days.
I've got Apple Care plus on it. I'm going to hang onto it as long as I can stand to because I'm getting a new IPhone in the fall. I'm not completely convinced it's not the IPhone that is causing some of my problems. And I'm hopeful that if some of the problems originate in the watch, that a new update will help because it seemed fine before the update.
I think I forgot to mention that the update messed with the responsiveness of the display to wrist movement activation. There are now times I bring the watch up to check the time and the screen won't go on. Before, it was super responsive and I never had a failure!
I wonder if the bugginess in perceiving wrist motion for the screen activation feature is in any way related to the overall bugginess of my watch in detecting motion and interpreting it for measuring exercise and calorie burn.
It's so annoying that the update fixed a lot of problems for people who were having them, but messed up the watches of people who weren't having issues.
Sorry if you've mentioned it before, but which iPhone do you have? Just wondering whether particular iPhone models are more prone to glitches than others. I have a 6, and I haven't experienced any glitches like the ones you mention. Although, I haven't really tried to make phone calls with the watch (being hard of hearing, I hardly ever make phone calls, even on the phone). So if my watch has phone related glitches, I wouldn't know.
I have the IPhone 6 Plus. I have very few apps loaded in it. I did a purge of all outdated and unused ones when it starting acting strange. I have had problems similar to the ones forum member Sunking has described with his 6Plus in various threads. My husband has the exact same model as I do and does not have any problems. I have had stutters, freezes, unexplained sudden battery drains, camera lag, browser issues. I would have taken it in for service but I could never get the issues to consistently manifest even to just show my husband. It works fine and then suddenly doesn't and just as suddenly does again. It's never been dropped or mistreated. It's been wonky from week one.Sorry if you've mentioned it before, but which iPhone do you have? Just wondering whether particular iPhone models are more prone to glitches than others. I have a 6, and I haven't experienced any glitches like the ones you mention. Although, I haven't really tried to make phone calls with the watch (being hard of hearing, I hardly ever make phone calls, even on the phone). So if my watch has phone related glitches, I wouldn't know.
It does work fine as a phone but when working in tandem with the watch neither has been consistently routing calls as expected. My Apple Watch works better for me as a phone than my phone does so I prefer to take and make my calls on the watch...when it lets me.
I have tinnitus and TMJ so I prefer to text rather than make calls, too, but when dealing with the elders in the family this is not an option. They refuse to text.
Sorry I'm taking the thread off on a tangent again so this will be my last post about the oddities in my phone-watch combo.
This is just ****ing ********. In sick of it. I can't believe Apple dare call this a feature. I open my health app to find no heart rate entires and this is why.
Couldn't agree more.This is just ****ing ********. In sick of it. I can't believe Apple dare call this a feature. I open my health app to find no heart rate entires and this is why.
Yeah I have to say this really bothers me as well. One good thing I noticed is I walk about a half hour in to work from the train station to work and I was logging this as an outside walk so I would get credit for it but one day I just tried walking without it and I still got credit for the full walk. That would have been a huge problem for me if I had to kick off a exercise every time. One of the days I wanted to close out the ring I set up an outside walk and did a half hour walk and only got credit for a few minutes. This was because it was more of a leisurely pace. So I think at least the exercise ring is working correctly.
Hopefully they give us the option in the next update though because I think the regular readings could help certain people as we see in some of the prior posts. If it affects battery life let people make the call, maybe have it start at 10 min intervals but allow the user to pick 15, 20, 25, 30 min intervals if it starts eating up too much battery. If Apple is concerned on the accuracy of the measurements when in motion just flag the measurements that were in motion but still store them. Then people can decide weather or not to pay attention to them, or filter them out of averages if they want.
Hopefully they give us the option in the next update though because I think the regular readings could help certain people as we see in some of the prior posts. If it affects battery life let people make the call, maybe have it start at 10 min intervals but allow the user to pick 15, 20, 25, 30 min intervals if it starts eating up too much battery. If Apple is concerned on the accuracy of the measurements when in motion just flag the measurements that were in motion but still store them. Then people can decide weather or not to pay attention to them, or filter them out of averages if they want.
to be honest all they have to do is tie in the movement sensor BEFORE the time rule.
What I mean is: everytime you aren't moving (say, the 2 minutes waiting for the train..), check the time of the last HR measurement, if time is greater than 10 minutes, measure HR immediately.
That'd be at least a minor annoyance. The BS of "we try every 10 minutes unless you move" only causes whole days of not having any HR measurement at all. And it's so obviously stupid it's almost an insult to call it "a feature".
I've noticed exactly the opposite of this. If I engage the workout app when working out, I fly through my exercise and move rings. If I do the same workouts without the workout app, I'll only get a couple minutes of exercise credit and a handful of active calories.
See my like for like test towards the bottom of page 19.
You are indeed correct without your assumptions.
I have purposely not upgraded because of the HR situation. As far as this being Apple's response to battery complaints, I've not seen one word posted that would give me a clue that this is true. And the reason I don't believe this is true is that there have been extremely few complaints about the battery. The majority of reviewers are writing about how Apple under promised and over delivered on this issue.
The one thing that it may be a response to is that in the early days just after April 24th I saw a number of posts on here of people complaining about irregularities in the HR that was posted. I felt that a good number of people did not realize that if you get up and move about without really exercising that your heart rate would increase to match your exercise no matter how little that exercise may be.
Depending on your fitness level, you could see a significant rise in HR by getting up and going to the coffee machine for your 6th cuppa of the morning. Rather than have the system be called inaccurate simply because too many people do not know how their bodies work, Apple went the other way to try to give fewer but perhaps more even heart rates.
What ever the reason I wish that they would have made it an option instead of opting for the Big Brother is taking care of you mode. If I want to use up my battery faster getting my HR measured every 10 minutes thats my business. If I don't want to see my HR recorded every 10 minutes because I don't understand it let me turn this option off.
The one thing that it may be a response to is that in the early days just after April 24th I saw a number of posts on here of people complaining about irregularities in the HR that was posted. I felt that a good number of people did not realize that if you get up and move about without really exercising that your heart rate would increase to match your exercise no matter how little that exercise may be.
Depending on your fitness level, you could see a significant rise in HR by getting up and going to the coffee machine for your 6th cuppa of the morning. Rather than have the system be called inaccurate simply because too many people do not know how their bodies work, Apple went the other way to try to give fewer but perhaps more even heart rates.
What ever the reason I wish that they would have made it an option instead of opting for the Big Brother is taking care of you mode. If I want to use up my battery faster getting my HR measured every 10 minutes thats my business. If I don't want to see my HR recorded every 10 minutes because I don't understand it let me turn this option off.
I agree. But whatever they do I just want them to let us at least choose to have our HR taken every 10 minutes. And then maybe they can explain to people that your heart rate may jump up quite a bit depending on fitness level. I really cant see it being a battery life thing either. Battery is just outstanding.