"I figured that since the Health app also takes input from some measurements on the iPhone,
some percentage of the workout could be retained, like distance. In short, NOPE."
Because there seems to be so muh redundancy between the Apple Watch and the iPhone,
I wondered what would happen to your workout recording if the Apple Watch battery expired
during a workout.
Well, last night I found out.
I had never had any challenges with battery life with the Apple Watch v1 until I started
using its workout features. I've progressed to the point where I close the activity rings
every day — that's a stand goal, a move goal, and an exercise goal.
I believe the Apple Watch collects all of this data and it gets recorded by your iPhone
in the Health app, then read from the Health app by the Activity app. Particularly during a
workout, the Apple Watch is very busy recording. Data surfaced through the Activity app
includes two flavors of calorie burn, average heart rate, the weather at the time, and
elevation gains. So it should be of little surprise that all of this data collection can
be demanding on the power source, and that longer workouts will mean greater drain.
I've become used to seeing my Apple Watch report battery levels under 10% by the evening.
Last night we walked about a mile to get Laurel caught up on her workout — it had
rained earlier in the morning, precluding us from following our normal routine. At the time
we left, my battery level was at 3%. There was no way it was going to hang on for longer
than a couple blocks. Still, I figured that since the Health app also takes input from
some measurements on the iPhone itself, some percentage of the workout could be retained,
like distance.
In short, NOPE. Last night when I got home I saw no record at all of the partial workout.
It wasn't showing on my rings, it wasn't showing in the Activity app — it was like nothing
had happened. This morning after powering the Apple Watch back up, the data from the workout
up until the watch died was resident in the Activity app. The map shows the precise location
where the battery gave up, and all of the workout data accounts for only that percentage of
the workout — meaning the record I have shows that I worked out for 4 minutes and a distance
of 0.23mi, burning 21 calories.
Now, the Activity app also shows your total number of steps, though not measured by
workout. That data appears low when compared with the steps shown on my Stridekick app —
just under 8,000 compared to almost 9,500. I don't have an Apple Watch app for Stridekick.
That tells me the Activity app could be ignoring the iPhone data in favor of the Apple Watch
data. But when I examine the data sources for steps in the Health app, both the Apple Watch
and the iPhone are listed.
I'll reach out to Apple Support on this and report back with their response.
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