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ZDNET's key takeaways
- Your Apple Watch workout data might not be accurate.
- Calibrating your watch improves accuracy.
- Here's how and why you should calibrate.
People wear smartwatches, such as the Apple Watch, to get iPhone-like functions on their wrists and to stay on top of their exercise and sleep data. By recording workouts or tracking daily activity with a smartwatch, you can get a clearer picture of your movement patterns and a more detailed idea of how many calories you're burning each day.
The device can accurately measure a wide range of activity metrics, including pace, heart rate, calories burned, distance covered, and more. I regularly use the watch as I weight train, run, walk, cycle, practice yoga, and dance to monitor my heart rate zones and my exertion levels, and recover well before my next intense workout split.
While Apple has invested millions of dollars in research and development to make its health trackers as accurate as possible, there is one way to capture even more accurate data when you exercise with the Apple Watch. It's a simple feature change that's hidden in your Apple Watch settings.
I'll tell you how to improve your Apple Watch's workout accuracy by enabling this feature and explain why it matters.
Why you should calibrate your Apple Watch
By calibrating your Apple Watch, metrics like distance, pace, and calories burned become personalized to you, effectively improving data accuracy. Calibrating your Apple Watch is the techy equivalent of getting your clothes tailored: once calibrated, both will fit you a little better.
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This tailoring is especially helpful for your Apple Watch when you're exercising in an area with limited GPS. Let's say you're recording a long run in a park with poor signal quality. With a calibrated Apple Watch, the device can more accurately track your stride, even with a bad signal.
This capability also improves distance, pace, and calorie measurements, according to Apple, so it's especially helpful if you also track your intake.
How to calibrate your Apple Watch
Calibrating your Apple Watch is as simple as opening the app and recording a 20-minute walking or running workout, with a few minor tweaks.
First, you'll need to enable the right location and privacy settings on your iPhone. This step ensures streamlined communication between your Apple Watch and iPhone.
Go to your iPhone's Settings app. Click into Privacy & Security, and select Location Services. Make sure Location Services is enabled. Then, scroll down on that same page and select System Services. Then enable Motion Calibration and Distance.
Now it's time to get calibrating. Go to a flat outdoor area with a good GPS signal. If you're using an iPhone (which you presumably are if you're wearing an Apple Watch), you can see GPS signal strength by opening Google Maps, selecting “My Location” in the bottom-right, and checking whether a blue dot appears. This blue dot indicates a strong GPS signal.
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Now, open the Apple Watch Workout app and select Outdoor Walk or Outdoor Run (whichever exercise you'd like to do for 20 minutes). Walk or run at your average pace for 20 minutes. If you regularly walk and run, you'll need to calibrate your Apple Watch twice: walk for 20 minutes and run for 20 minutes.
“Whenever you walk or run outside using the above steps, your Apple Watch continues to calibrate the accelerometer by learning your stride length at different speeds,” Apple explained in a blog post. The device continually learns about your exercise data as you calibrate the smartwatch to your workouts.
How to reset your Apple Watch fitness data
Resetting your Apple Watch fitness data can help recalibrate and clear inaccuracies in your tracking. To reset this data, open your Watch app on your iPhone. Select Privacy, and then select Reset Fitness Calibration Data.
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