Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features

[oric1sg]

The app cannot identify those as navigation waypoints because they don't have instructions like left or right. Maybe I could make it so they are considered navigation waypoints if they say "via" but that may be confusing.

You should still hear an alert saying "via" when you get to those waypoints because the app gives an alert even for non-navigation waypoints. And you can set the route options so that you get all the advantages of navigation waypoints for all other waypoints. i.e. advance warning of "In 60m Via"; an icon on the map with the distance to the waypoint; auto-zooming when you get to the waypoint etc.

Thanks Ian. I will give https://ridewithgps.com/ a try instead.

Ian, I tested ridewithgps today and managed to export the route together with the cues to a GPX file.

I managed to import the GPX successfully without WOD showing "This route does not contain any navigation waypoints."

When I viewed the waypoints on the phone, I saw e.g. Name: Slight Left (Description: Keep left onto Marina Promenade).

I'm aware that WOD will announce "Slight Left" but will it also announce the description too?

Thanks.

 

[NME42]

or disabling Bluetooth (to force the other transfer to use the much faster WiFi) but sometimes you just need to wait until the transfer finishes. And this can take a very long time for a large file over Bluetooth.

As I do large file transfers with my podcast app often, I observed that it makes a difference where Bluetooth is disabled. Not sure if this was always like this.
I switch off Bluetooth on my AW to speed up file transfers. When I switch off Bluetooth on my iPhone (of course in settings, not control center), transfer speed is sometimes still slow. Maybe the watch still tries to connect via Bluetooth or whatever.

So my best practice: write a Shortcut on the AW to toggle Bluetooth off/on. Can easily be put in the smart stack.

 

[brzidkibob]

As you can probably tell from the previous post, I released v6.0 of the app a few hours ago.

I went for a ~15 km training run in a large forest area to test the navigation.
On one wrist I had the AWU2 with WorkOutdoors, on the other a Garmin Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar.
The route was created in Komoot and did not contain embedded navigation. Both Garmin and WorkOutdoors had to process the track on their own to generate turn-by-turn guidance.

My feedback on navigation: saying that WorkOutdoors handled turn-by-turn navigation better than Garmin is like saying that a plane is faster than a bicycle. Technically true, but it hardly captures the essence of the difference.

Bend detection in WO works fantastically in the forest. The assumption is simple: unless told otherwise, just keep going straight. WO detected and notified me of 100% of the required direction changes, and only once was the notification unnecessary.
Garmin, on the other hand, not only repeatedly failed to indicate turns but sometimes didn’t detect a change of direction at all, just showing "straight for X km." That’s not just a missing cue, but actively misleading guidance. Unfortunately, the "follow the main road" methodology simply doesn’t work in forests. And these weren't ambiguous cases – for example, a change from a main fire road to a side trail that Garmin simply didn't register.

So in my opinion, what has been implemented in WO is absolutely the right approach. I even got the impression that the app's author saw it as a kind of "stopgap" solution, whereas in practice this so-called stopgap actually performs far better than "real" solution.

If WO can consistently deliver this level of workout tracking and navigation quality, then Garmin will only stay with me for structured workouts imported from other platforms (which Apple native Workout app supports via Watchletics, while WO unfortunately doesn't) and for LTHR detection on hard runs.

A Fanatical Tip went to the developer — and I strongly encourage everyone who’s satisfied with this app update to do the same to support further development.

 

[cfc]

Please see update to this post below - issue found.

Since updating to WOD rev 6.0 on my iPhone, and ver 6.0.14 on my AWU2, my workouts on the watch are not being sent to the iPhone - not showing up in the WOD Workouts tab, nor in the HealthFit app. I've rebooted both devices several times and have selected Resend to iPhone from the individual workouts on the watch, but nothing seems to happen there. Workouts seem to be recorded fine on the watch, but are not being sent to the iPhone. Per the app, I've rebooted both devices, and have waited more than the suggested 2 hours several times over the past 3 days, but workouts are not sent to the iPhone.
The native Apple Workout app works fine with both devices.
I've also turned off Health>Workout access, rebooted the iPhone, and re-enabled Health access.
I'd appreciate other suggestions that can I try. Thanks.

Found the issue: in the Apple Watch app, in All Watches, I found the Auto Switch turned OFF and was set to select my AW10 that I use at night and during sleep. Workouts during the day are performed with the AWU2. Enabling Auto Switch and letting the AW app connect to the AWU2 allowed the workouts on the watch to be pushed to the iPhone. Simple fix for something that has had me doing forehead slaps for the past couple of days.

Glad that you figured out. I use two watches as well so I should have guessed. Thanks for letting us know.

 

[cfc]

Yay. Watch app updated on its own last night!

That's very good to hear! I wonder if it is because the gradual release process has completed. When I release the app I select the option that releases slowly over a week, starting with 1% of people on the first day, 2% on the second day etc. Hopefully that will mean that people now won't have inconsistent watch and iPhone apps.

So it is possible a bug in that gradual release process not being consistent across the App Stores on the phone and the watch. In the future I may just release in one go. It's riskier but avoids the issue.

 

[cfc]

Hi, thanks for great app,
any chance to have electric bike type of activity (or i missed it?).
Strava has it

The app uses Apple’s workout system, so it is limited to the activity types that offers, which unfortunately only includes one type of cycling. They say that it handles e-bikes in terms of calorie calculations etc but it would be good to have a separate activity type.

To address this in the future I plan to allow the ability to create custom activity types that map to Apple’s types, so you could create new activity types. Custom activities are probably top of my to-do list after I have finished the navigation improvements, and dealt with Apple’s upcoming hardware and software change, but that will take some time.

 

[cfc]

Ian, I tested ridewithgps today and managed to export the route together with the cues to a GPX file.

I managed to import the GPX successfully without WOD showing "This route does not contain any navigation waypoints."

When I viewed the waypoints on the phone, I saw e.g. Name: Slight Left (Description: Keep left onto Marina Promenade).

I'm aware that WOD will announce "Slight Left" but will it also announce the description too?

Thanks.

You can control which attribute of a waypoint the app announces in the Routes screen of the Settings tab. This has a couple of "Attributes Spoken" options; one for navigation waypoints and one for other waypoints. Each option allows you to select "Image", "Name" or "Description".

For navigation waypoints it uses "Image" by default because that is the shortest thing to speak. However if you know that your source of route file contains more useful descriptions then you can change it to "Description". I use RideWithGPS so I have mine configured to say the description.

The reason the app defaults to using the image is because some route files contain very long descriptions, so the app defaults to using the shortest attribute, which is the image (e.g. "right", "left" etc).

 

[cfc]

I went for a ~15 km training run in a large forest area to test the navigation.
On one wrist I had the AWU2 with WorkOutdoors, on the other a Garmin Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar.
The route was created in Komoot and did not contain embedded navigation. Both Garmin and WorkOutdoors had to process the track on their own to generate turn-by-turn guidance.

My feedback on navigation: saying that WorkOutdoors handled turn-by-turn navigation better than Garmin is like saying that a plane is faster than a bicycle. Technically true, but it hardly captures the essence of the difference.

Bend detection in WO works fantastically in the forest. The assumption is simple: unless told otherwise, just keep going straight. WO detected and notified me of 100% of the required direction changes, and only once was the notification unnecessary.
Garmin, on the other hand, not only repeatedly failed to indicate turns but sometimes didn’t detect a change of direction at all, just showing "straight for X km." That’s not just a missing cue, but actively misleading guidance. Unfortunately, the "follow the main road" methodology simply doesn’t work in forests. And these weren't ambiguous cases – for example, a change from a main fire road to a side trail that Garmin simply didn't register.

So in my opinion, what has been implemented in WO is absolutely the right approach. I even got the impression that the app's author saw it as a kind of "stopgap" solution, whereas in practice this so-called stopgap actually performs far better than "real" solution.

If WO can consistently deliver this level of workout tracking and navigation quality, then Garmin will only stay with me for structured workouts imported from other platforms (which Apple native Workout app supports via Watchletics, while WO unfortunately doesn't) and for LTHR detection on hard runs.

A Fanatical Tip went to the developer — and I strongly encourage everyone who’s satisfied with this app update to do the same to support further development.

Many thanks for tipping so generously - I really appreciate that!

Your comparison of the bend detection vs Garmin is great to hear. You are correct that I consider it a stop gap so I am very happy to hear that it worked so well for you.

At the moment the bend detection only looks at the shape of the route but in the future I do plan to take into account the underlying map data as well. My plan is to use this mainly on roads because the map data is usually very complete for them. However for trails I will probably use my existing bend detection algorithm because so many trails are not shown on the map (even the OpenStreetMap, which is much better than most). I may tweak it slightly when on known trails but not rely on the map data .

However this improvement has slipped down my to-do list recently because the bend detection seems to work better than expected for most (but not all) people.

 

[brzidkibob]

bend detection seems to work better than expected for most (but not all) people

It is working great in forest areas in Poland for sure.

BTW, I was trying to set up 2 things from forever. Could you please tell me if this is possible in WO? (or could you make it possible? )

1 - WO AW app screenshot - can I make the datafield background BLACK? Like #000. Not only will it look way better (solves also lack of padding problem), but it will increase battery life on OLED devices.

2 - Garmin watch screenshot - is there a datafield that combines both current HR and a simple gauge which zone am i currently in? There is a bottom line widget (WO ios app screenshot) that is almost exactly what I am looking for, but it is a) super small and b) doesn't show current HR.

 

[cfc]

It is working great in forest areas in Poland for sure.

BTW, I was trying to set up 2 things from forever. Could you please tell me if this is possible in WO? (or could you make it possible? )

1 - WO AW app screenshot - can I make the datafield background BLACK? Like #000. Not only will it look way better (solves also lack of padding problem), but it will increase battery life on OLED devices.

2 - Garmin watch screenshot - is there a datafield that combines both current HR and a simple gauge which zone am i currently in? There is a bottom line widget (WO ios app screenshot) that is almost exactly what I am looking for, but it is a) super small and b) doesn't show current HR.

It is not possible to make the background completely black. I may add it if enough people request it though.

There is a new metric in the latest version that shows the BPM with the background colour of the heart zone. To use it go to the Screens tab and configure it in a screen. It is called Coloured HR (Current).

 

[FMUK]

Thanks Ian. I will give https://ridewithgps.com/ a try instead.

Try https://www.plotaroute.com/

 

[Richo5]

I've just upgraded to the latest version - it's better than and more useful then I ever thought it would be. To try out the hill climb and new route functionality I planned a 30km route in Strava that I hadn't done before, uploaded it to Workoutdoors and then headed off. It was brilliant - I didn't need to look at my watch a single time and apart from a wiggly section beside a river, the bend detection was faultless. The alerts are timely and as a previous commenter mentioned, if ever in doubt, go straight ahead worked well. Very impressed. I also liked looking at the assent and decent on all the other routes I had created as they provide much better insight then they did without the isolation of the assents.

I didn't think I really needed this feature (I'm hanging out for the separate profiles for each sport) but I'm even more in love with this app.

Great work @cfc

 

[reyco]

I saw reports of map uploads not working on version 6.0.14, and I seem to be encountering a similar issue. I managed to transfer the maps to AW by using the method described in hints (start a dummy run workout, disable Bluetooth on both iPhone and AW). The upload through WiFI was fast. Then I ended and discarded the dummy workout.

However, I went on a hike in an area with no internet coverage, and the maps were not there. When I got home, I cleared all map tiles from both iPhone and AW and uploaded them again. I put AW in airplane mode, and again, no maps were shown on AW.

As a workaround, I ended up opening the map area around the route on AW in Map-Only mode and preloading the map tiles that way.

Then I noticed a weird behavior in map settings on AW in the section Map Memory Used:
1. Shows the count/size of Cached tiles, and Uploaded is "1 (0.04Mb)" (not completely 0 🤷‍♂️)
2. Open the Map-Only mode, pan through the map
3. Navigate back to Map Memory Used and the Uploaded count/size shows as expected! Even the map seems to load the tiles without internet connection
4. Close or just put the WO app in the background, then open it again
5. And again the behavior as in 1) shows up, only "Cached" tiles and no "Uploaded"

I'm attaching a video reproducing this behavior.

My AW is on watchOS 26 public beta (Beta 4), iPhone on iOS 26 public beta (Beta 4). I am not sure if the public beta can have any impact here.

Could you please look into this? Thanks!

 

[cfc]

I saw reports of map uploads not working on version 6.0.14, and I seem to be encountering a similar issue. I managed to transfer the maps to AW by using the method described in hints (start a dummy run workout, disable Bluetooth on both iPhone and AW). The upload through WiFI was fast. Then I ended and discarded the dummy workout.

However, I went on a hike in an area with no internet coverage, and the maps were not there. When I got home, I cleared all map tiles from both iPhone and AW and uploaded them again. I put AW in airplane mode, and again, no maps were shown on AW.

As a workaround, I ended up opening the map area around the route on AW in Map-Only mode and preloading the map tiles that way.

Then I noticed a weird behavior in map settings on AW in the section Map Memory Used:
1. Shows the count/size of Cached tiles, and Uploaded is "1 (0.04Mb)" (not completely 0 🤷‍♂️)
2. Open the Map-Only mode, pan through the map
3. Navigate back to Map Memory Used and the Uploaded count/size shows as expected! Even the map seems to load the tiles without internet connection
4. Close or just put the WO app in the background, then open it again
5. And again the behavior as in 1) shows up, only "Cached" tiles and no "Uploaded"

I'm attaching a video reproducing this behavior.

My AW is on watchOS 26 public beta (Beta 4), iPhone on iOS 26 public beta (Beta 4). I am not sure if the public beta can have any impact here.

Could you please look into this? Thanks!

View attachment 2540610

No-one else is reporting the uploaded tiles not being available. Tiles not being uploaded is another story but if the app says they are there then they usually are. I will investigate though.

 

[noel18]

Sorry you had problems. Please could you send me the wkt file for that workout and I will take a look. To do this tap the Export button 3 times quickly and send to info@workoutdoors.net

Also please could you send me any log files beginning with "WatchMap" (which is generated if the app crashed) or "Jetsam" (if watchOS killed it off). To do this go to Apple's "Watch" app on the iPhone and tap General and then Diagnostic Logs. If the log files appear as “null” when you try to send them then please try again in an hour or so as they sometimes seem to take a while to be available.

So I was looking at my Strava account and noticed the run that crashed and only recovered 2.1miles was synced to Strava through HealthFit as a 3.48 miles (which is the correct distance for the known route I did). It is also complete if you check the run in the Fitness app. So it's trange that WOD crashed by HealthKit seems to have gotten the full run. As I said before, I would reboot the watch and try another run. Well I did two more runs with no problems but yesterdays run crashed again. I was out of town and mapped out what should have been an 8 mile run but when I was expecting to be at about 7.5 miles in, the watch was saying 6.8. Then eventually it notified me that I hit 7 miles but when I looked at the watch it was saying 7.3 and it was stuck on that screen saying 7.3mi for for a few minutes. When I complemented the 8 mile run it was still on the spluit notification saying 7.3mi. I ignored it and hit the Action+Side button combo to pause the run and then it went back to the watch face. In the WOD app it recovered 7.87 miles but HealthKit is showing 7.99 and the map is complete.

I tried to gather up diagnostics logs but I don't have any. My guess is I have some privacy settings set to not log. I need to go through and turn that stuff on. So all I can do is send you the wkt files. I'm going to send those over in a few minutes.

It's odd that no one else is having issues (at least not reported here). I'm tempted to delete my settings and let it go back to defaults and see if that helps.

 

[Mac-lover3]

Recently also tested the new version. Happy to report it worked well. The GPX I imported had no waypoint (bit odd as it came from Komoot) but perhaps it glad it didn’t as the bend detection was amazing it worked flawlessly (except for 1 odd situation in the forest). Besides that navigation worked amazingly well. Kudos @cfc !

 

[Mauki]

@cfc
I was pleased to see the new update today.

I downloaded it straight away and made all the settings. So far everything is fine.

Now I have loaded a route and when I sent it to the AWU, WOD crashed.

Restarting the AWU does nothing, WOD crashes again directly at startup 😳

What now?

Deleting and reinstalling is not possible as all settings will be gone.

I'm on vacation and can't make a backup 😳

Is there a solution or can I no longer use WOD?

Would be very stupid as I want to run a route.

 

[cfc]

@cfc
I was pleased to see the new update today.

I downloaded it straight away and made all the settings. So far everything is fine.

Now I have loaded a route and when I sent it to the AWU, WOD crashed.

Restarting the AWU does nothing, WOD crashes again directly at startup 😳

What now?

Deleting and reinstalling is not possible as all settings will be gone.

I'm on vacation and can't make a backup 😳

Is there a solution or can I no longer use WOD?

Would be very stupid as I want to run a route.

Apple often do not update the watch app when the iPhone app is updated, so please go to the App Store app on the watch and update it from there.

If it is not possible to update the watch app using the App Store on the watch then use Apple's 'Watch' app on the iPhone to uninstall and reinstall the WorkOutDoors watch app. Do not delete the iPhone app. Just reinstall the watch app. Note that this will lose the data on the watch app so you will need to send it from the phone app to the watch app. You will not lose the settings if you do that.

To do this go to the Settings tab and tap 'Storage & Transfer' and then 'Send Yesterday's Watch Settings', 'Send Screens to Watch' and 'Send Interval Schedules to Watch'. If you want then you can also send routes or workouts individually. They can't all be sent at once because they are too large.

 

[coachjeffroc]

Well done. Starting a new marathon cycle with a new WOD version. Check the tip jar 🙏 Thanks!

 

[muellered]

Yay. Watch app updated on its own last night!

same for me! randomly updated itself!

 

[Buadhai]

This has been a long-term issue with watchOS. Audio interaction with other apps is controlled by watchOS so when there are problems I recommend rebooting the watch.

If that doesn't help then you could try changing the audio interaction setting in the WOD Voice settings to be Mix to see if that helps. WOD just asks watchOS to speak a phrase and that does the rest.

I tried rebooting. I tried setting the audio interaction setting to Mix. The problem persists.

I could understand if the music volume only went down when another app was producing audio, but that seems to not be the case.

This morning I put on the headphones and started music at my normal volume.

As soon as I started a running workout in WOD the volume went down to barely audible. It stayed that way even though no other app nor WOD was producing audio. After a few minutes I stoped running ("pause" as expected) and checked the music app. Volume was still as I set it. I started running again ("resume" as expected) and the volume instantly went up to where I set it and stayed that way until the end of the run.

When I stopped running there was "pause" and the volume went down but only during the pause announcement. This is the behavior I expect.

Next time I run I will do 25 meters and stop and hope that the subsequent pause/resume returns the volume to a normal level.

 

[coachjeffroc]

WorkOutDoors Causes Reduction in Music Volume

AppleWatch Ultra 1 - 11.6.1
iPhone 14 Pro - 18.6.2
WOD 5.5.4
Shokz OpenRun open air BT headphones

Here's what happens:

• I start music on my Watch via the headphones and set the volume
• I start a running workout with WOD
• The music volume immediately drops to barely audible
• I manually pause the workout and check the volume on the Music app. It's as I set it

Regarding the music volume part...

For me, it tends to happen when the music ducks out for WOD to say things, especially if WOD has a stack of things to say like announcing the name of an interval, followed by the interval goal, and maybe a warning all in a row... sometimes the music doesn't "unduck." That's anecdotal, what my oxygen starved brain comes up with when it happens; I didn't experiment with it. I think it only happens when WOD talks. If haptics only, I think, it never occurs.

I discovered accidentally that clicking the crown to go back out to the watch face and then clicking back in to WOD solves the problem for me.

 

[Jschut82]

Is there a way to rename the sports? I want to use HITT for Hyrox. But it gets auto exported to Healthfit, Strava etc as a HITT workout. Ofc I can rename the activity afterwards. But would be nice if I can just change it so my exports can stay auomatic.

 

[cfc]

I tried rebooting. I tried setting the audio interaction setting to Mix. The problem persists.

I could understand if the music volume only went down when another app was producing audio, but that seems to not be the case.

This morning I put on the headphones and started music at my normal volume.

As soon as I started a running workout in WOD the volume went down to barely audible. It stayed that way even though no other app nor WOD was producing audio. After a few minutes I stoped running ("pause" as expected) and checked the music app. Volume was still as I set it. I started running again ("resume" as expected) and the volume instantly went up to where I set it and stayed that way until the end of the run.

When I stopped running there was "pause" and the volume went down but only during the pause announcement. This is the behavior I expect.

Next time I run I will do 25 meters and stop and hope that the subsequent pause/resume returns the volume to a normal level.

The app doesn't do anything with the voice when you pause or resume (apart from speak "Paused" or "Resumed" if you have configured that). Maybe watchOS is doing something behind the scenes.

Hopefully one day the audio interaction will be improved. It only seems to affect a few people but they get it consistently.

 

[cfc]

Is there a way to rename the sports? I want to use HITT for Hyrox. But it gets auto exported to Healthfit, Strava etc as a HITT workout. Ofc I can rename the activity afterwards. But would be nice if I can just change it so my exports can stay auomatic.

Not at the moment but in the future I plan to add the ability to create custom activity types that map to Apple's types.

It is probably the next big feature to add to the app now that navigation is released.