What’s with the limit on data updates for third-party apps?

[Kyle76]

I have a continuous glucose monitor, and I keep a complication on my watch face. It’s great to glance at my watch for a blood sugar reading. However, it doesn’t always give me a reading, and I have to open the app to see what my blood sugar is. I am told that this is because Apple only allows third-party apps to update data 50 times between watch charges tp 100%. This app updates every five minutes, or 12 times per hour, so after four hours the data does not show in the complication unless you press and go into the app. Then, it will show for a few minutes unless you recharge the watch to 100%. This seems like a weird limitation, particularly for an app that Apple has highlighted at its product launch demo. Why would such a limitation be necessary?

 

[PugMaster]

To save battery power. It’s pretty possible that all your complications share the 50 background updates. So weather, uv index etc., they all fight for the background processing time. Many apps only update their complications once or twice an hour to stay safe.

 

[Kyle76]

Is there a place to check on which apps are updating and how often? And, is there a way to control how often individual apps update?

 

[PugMaster]

No. As a developer, you can test how often your own apps update. But I don't think you can see it for the other apps. If there is a place, it would most probably be in the logs. But I haven't researched it yet.