Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features
- Thread starter cfc
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Possibly. I plan to refine the algorithm over time and the ability to control the sensitivity may be part of that.
I just started using the app and I’m very impressed by all the different functions and workout customisations.
There is one thing I can’t figure out though. How do I disable haptic and especially sound notifications for auto pause? I get pinged multiple times for every auto pause and it’s quite annoying.
There is one thing I can’t figure out though. How do I disable haptic and especially sound notifications for auto pause? I get pinged multiple times for every auto pause and it’s quite annoying.
Go to Settings / Pausing and then disable the Haptics option in the Auto-Pausing section.
Glad you like the app!
Sorry no. I don't even know if it is possible for the app to know when headphone are being used.
The best workaround is to go to Settings / Voice and disable the voice alerts there, and then switch them back on when you want them.
[humor] So, I thought I finally got this sorted. I had set screen lock at four taps. But, turns out I'm old, uncoordinated with a slight tremor so it's quite hard for me to reliably and accurately quadruple tap the screen while cycling. So, I settled for a double tap, which I can do. Trouble is, my sweat soaked UV jacket can also do a credible double tap. And, it turns out, a single long tap. So, two thirds of the way through this mornings 35K ride, I notice that the Big Button screen is displayed. So, roll up the left sleeve even further, get back to cycling screen 1 and once again double tap to lock the screen. Please, sleeve, no more taps.
Hi Ian, thanks again for making such and amazing app. Wanted to plug a request for triathlon / multi sport mode. You could really do something special here by inputting the courses beforehand for each sport, measuring transition times and having a special sequence of buttons to go from sport to sport (eg side + crown, or action + side).
Apple’s implementation of multi sport is extremely basic and requires touch screen if you’re not on the ultra which is untenable for triathletes with wet hands coming off the swim.
I have an Ironman in 2 weeks and wish I could use WOD for the whole thing!
Thanks again for everything you do!
Apple’s implementation of multi sport is extremely basic and requires touch screen if you’re not on the ultra which is untenable for triathletes with wet hands coming off the swim.
I have an Ironman in 2 weeks and wish I could use WOD for the whole thing!
Thanks again for everything you do!
You may find that pressing both side buttons at the same time is easier to use and less likely to be done accidentally (although I have heard of gloves doing pressing them).
Multi-sport activities like triathlon have been on my to-do list since the app was first released over 8 years ago. I expected them to be one of the first things I added but it turned out they were not requested very often and other features were much more in demand.
They still aren't requested very often (maybe every couple of weeks) and as a result have never got near the top of my list. They would also be a lot of work, which always counts against less frequently requested features. Sorry about that.
To be honest I don't know because I have never tried it. However I don't recommend it and can't guarantee that it won't break something.
The fact that the app runs a workout session may mean that it gets some sort of background privileges anyway, but I don't know.
The best way to save battery is to use low power mode. And for extreme battery saving disable Wake on Raise so that you need to tap the screen to see it.
I had a 3h30 run yesterday, started it at 100% and plugged the the Apple Watch 7 41mm when it reached 17% to avoid interrupting navigation and recording.
On my previous outdoors run (in cooler ambient temp) it shut off at ~13%.
Today I'm looking at ways to improve the battery life without significant compromises in experience and I found something.
With an External HR sensor paired in WOD, the internal HR sensor is still activated:
It's the behavior Garmin and I believe other sports watch follow today.
On my previous outdoors run (in cooler ambient temp) it shut off at ~13%.
Today I'm looking at ways to improve the battery life without significant compromises in experience and I found something.
With an External HR sensor paired in WOD, the internal HR sensor is still activated:
- With active connection and receiving HR data
- When the connection is lost
Expected behavior
- When an External HR sensor is paired, selected as source in WOD, and connected when starting the activity, the Apple Watch optical heart rate sensor should be disabled in order to save power
- If the activity is started without External HR connection, optionally: Internal HR gets turn on ON and becomes the active source
- During an activity with External HR as active source connected, if connection is lost: WOD should turn on and fall back to the Apple Watch internal OHR as source until the External HR sensor is re-connected.
Partial workaround
Connecting the External HR sensor to Watch OS from the Bluetooth Settings already provides the expected behavior, including the internal HR fallback.Drawbacks
- Watch OS doesn't notify of External HR disconnection
- Watch OS doesn't reconnect to the External HR sensor automatically, keeping the internal HR sensor as a source. (breaks my use case, AW can't measure HR from the wrist reliably during runs)
- WOD loses the battery % of the heart rate sensor anymore.
Conclusion
Although the battery drain of running the internal Apple Watch HR sensor unnecessarily is likely small compared to the display, GPS, speaker and haptics, it would be preferable to keep it off when unused and use it as optional fallback on External HR sensor disconnection.It's the behavior Garmin and I believe other sports watch follow today.
The app does not use the internal sensor when an external HR sensor is being used. It specifically tells watchOS that it does not require HR updates. However watchOS will still use the internal sensor every few minutes as it does for the rest of the day (regardless of the fact that WOD is saving HR updates from the external sensor). It just won't use the internal watch sensor every few seconds like it does during a workout.
If you are concerned about this then unpair the sensor from WOD and instead connect it via the Bluetooth screen in the watchOS Settings app.
WOD will then not know that the HR readings are coming from an external sensor rather than the watch sensor, but watchOS will disable its own sensor and should failover to the watch sensor if it loses connection.
It also means that you are only using one Bluetooth connection out of the limit of 2 for all third party apps. This helps if you want to use 2 other sensors but also if you just want to use one other sensor because being on the 2 sensor limit can cause issues because the Bluetooth system seems to take a while to disconnect.
So generally it is better to connect HR sensors via watchOS. The only advantages of connecting via the app are the auto-start when the sensor connects; seeing the H at the top of the screen when connected; and viewing live HRV during and after a workout (if the sensor supports it).
Thanks for the reply 😌
Okay so what I'm seeing is that when opening the Running activity precision start dialog that I configured for this test, WOD starts the Apple Watch OHR sensor as it attempts to connect via Bluetooth to the External Sensor.
Even after the External Sensor is connected, the Apple Watch internal OHR is not shut off immediately but keeps going for a long time. I'll try to identify for how long that is.
Yep I confirmed that.
However in the test I completed earlier, Watch OS did not reconnect to the External HR sensor automatically when it became available again.
I noticed that on long runs, depending on what I'm wearing, sweat rate etc, there can be a couple disconnections of the External HR sensor.
I started to run with the Apple Watch over long sleeves as temps are going down here Sweden, so an External HR disconnection would mean losing HR permanently, until navigating to the Settings app / Bluetooth and manually reconnecting while running.
That's between difficult and impractical on technical trail runs.
There are clear benefits to connecting the external HR sensor to Watch OS instead of the WOD app indeed.
What do you think about the automatic re-connection concern?
I'll check out how the Apple Workouts app does and report here.
Last edited:
WOD does not start the watch sensor if you have configured an external sensor. It cannot control when watchOS uses the heart sensor. It can request to get updates frequently during a workout session (which is what it does if you haven't configured an external sensor in the app) but it cannot tell watchOS to not do its usual HR checks. Maybe watchOS always does a check when an app starts a workout session.
The app does try to reconnect if there is a disconnection, but there is no failover to the watch sensor if it cannot reconnect. I may add that one day but it's not high on my list because it's fiddly (how many times to do you try or how long do you wait?) and rarely requested. It's interesting that watchOS doesn't do it either. That makes me feel a bit better about the app not doing it.
- 18 minutes after starting a running activity with External HR sensor connected
- External HR sensor is paired and connected to WOD only
- Wrist Detection ON
- Activity was started from WOD Precision Start Dialog
- Apple Watch 7 internal HR turned on immediately after entering WOD Precision Start Dialog
I confirm that the Apple Watch optical HR sensor stays on when WOD is connected to the External HR sensor.
Since it's not the intended behavior, I guess this is a new bug! 🪲
26 minutes as I'm posting this, still on.
As I say, the app cannot control what watchOS does but it does tell it that it doesn't need HR updates.
Is that a bug you can report to Apple then? like.
"My workout class app doesn't use the heart rate sensor yet WatchOS 26 turns it on for the whole duration anyway"
It seems it stays on for ~5min afterwards as well by the way.
Edit: this reminds me of other wearable that switch from periodic HR polling for lower power drain to continuous 1Hz HR recording automatically when auto detect an activity using their accelerometer.
And possibly Watch OS doing the same when a workout kind app declares it's recording an activity.
I'll check what disabling wrist detection does.
"My workout class app doesn't use the heart rate sensor yet WatchOS 26 turns it on for the whole duration anyway"
It seems it stays on for ~5min afterwards as well by the way.
Edit: this reminds me of other wearable that switch from periodic HR polling for lower power drain to continuous 1Hz HR recording automatically when auto detect an activity using their accelerometer.
And possibly Watch OS doing the same when a workout kind app declares it's recording an activity.
I'll check what disabling wrist detection does.
Last edited:
I assume they have their reasons for using the sensor, which may be completely unrelated to whether a workout is running. And to be honest it doesn't use much power anyway. And if you are worried about it then connect it via watchOS.
If lots of people complain then I may investigate but as just one guy I have to pick and choose what I focus on, especially now, which is the busiest time of the year.
As described in the edit of the my previous message, it seems likely the HR sensor is switched to continuous 1Hz recording when an app says it's recording a workout.
I'll investigate ways to extend the battery life with a few measurements to quantify the effect of various configurations, and share the results here.
Things I'm thinking about already:
- external HR sensor via WOD vs Watch OS
- Brightness level
- Always On display On vs Off
- Power saving mode
Is there a known way to keep Always On Display active while charging, or at least get a quick access to WOD?
I noticed that while charging, the charging screen comes on and it requires 2 interactions to WOD: one that wakes up the display and then a press on the crown to get to WOD.
I noticed that while charging, the charging screen comes on and it requires 2 interactions to WOD: one that wakes up the display and then a press on the crown to get to WOD.
That is probably the best way to see the app whilst charging.
The watch isn't really designed for charging during workouts. It is usually possible but done at your own risk. Workout apps are usually protected from being killed off by watchOS but this protection disappears when paused or when the watch is off your wrist. So if watchOS needed to grab resources for something that it considered higher priority (e.g. a phone call or a notification) then it may kill off the app. It is rare but can happen.
Thanks, yeah WOD seems to still work pretty well during charging when Wrist Detection is set to off, but it's good to know that it being killed is a possibility.
Although my hope was to charge while running for ~20 min then revert to normal, in my last run it seems the AW7 41mm charged much slower than expected, from ~17% to ~30% in 50 minutes.
I'm looking at 2nd hand larger models and AW Ultra, now that I'm integrating that charging during the activity, despite being practical even for navigation comes with real tradeoffs.
Although my hope was to charge while running for ~20 min then revert to normal, in my last run it seems the AW7 41mm charged much slower than expected, from ~17% to ~30% in 50 minutes.
I'm looking at 2nd hand larger models and AW Ultra, now that I'm integrating that charging during the activity, despite being practical even for navigation comes with real tradeoffs.