If you’ve recently received an Apple Watch as a gift, there are numerous tips and tricks to help you maximize its use. Continue reading for useful insights into our top features for health tracking, activity monitoring, customization, and more.
Configuring Your Activity Rings on the Apple Watch
The Apple Watch primarily serves as a fitness-oriented device for many users. Central to this functionality are three rings, each color-coded: red for moving, green for exercising, and blue for standing.
By default, you close your green exercise ring after 30 minutes of vigorous activity, the blue stand ring after moving for at least one minute in 12 different hours, and the red move ring upon reaching your personal active calorie goal for the day.
Apple allows for customization of your exercise and standing goals. For example, if you’re recovering from an injury, you can adjust the goals to accommodate your current state. Additionally, many users have asked for Apple to implement rest days in the rings system, providing users with more flexibility.
To modify your Apple Watch’s move, exercise, and stand targets, follow these steps:
- Launch the Activity app on your Apple Watch.
- Scroll to the bottom to find the “Change Goals” button.
- Adjust your goals using the + or – buttons or the Digital Crown.
- Press “OK” to save your adjustments.
You can increase or decrease your exercise goal in increments of five minutes, ranging from 10 to 60 minutes. The stand goal can be adjusted in single-hour increments, from a minimum of six hours to a maximum of 16 hours.
Furthermore, the Fitness app allows you to establish custom schedules to maintain a healthier lifestyle, including options for scheduling rest days and temporarily pausing your activity rings.
Personalizing Your Watch Face
Your watch face serves as the main interface for your Apple Watch. You can enhance it with “complications,” which provide information like weather forecasts, activity stats, heart rate data, and more. Crafting an Apple Watch face is simplest via the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
Navigate to the “Face Gallery” section of the app to explore the entire selection of watch faces. As you create them, you can save faces to your collection for easy access. Once you have multiple watch faces set up, you can swipe through them on your Apple Watch, allowing for quick adjustments depending on your needs.
Accessing the Apple Watch App Store
The App Store for the Apple Watch features applications designed specifically for it. Just press the digital crown on your Apple Watch to find the App Store icon. Here, you can conveniently discover and install Apple Watch-specific apps without needing to use your iPhone.
Sharing Your Activity
One way I stay motivated with my Apple Watch is by sharing my activity data with friends and family. This lets you see when your friends complete workouts, track their progress towards goals, and celebrate their achievements.
To share your Apple Watch activity data, follow these steps:
- Open the Fitness app on your iPhone.
- Select the sharing icon in the bottom-right corner.
- Tap the “+” button in the upper corner.
- Type a name and select it when it appears. If the person also has an Apple Watch, their name will turn red.
- Press the Send button and wait for your friend to accept your Activity request. You will receive notification on your Apple Watch once they approve.
This is one of the features I love most about the Apple Watch, especially since it also enables one-on-one weekly competitions with friends.
Activating Health Monitoring Features
The Apple Watch is useful not only for tracking fitness goals actively but also for monitoring your health passively.
Fall Detection
This feature, Fall Detection, uses the gyroscope and accelerometer to determine if you’ve fallen—and more importantly, if you’re unable to get back up. By default, it’s turned off for users under 65, but you can enable it by following these steps:
- Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
- Select Emergency SOS.
- Locate the Fall Detection toggle
- Apple advises that very active users may trigger Fall Detection even without having fallen, due to high-impact activities.
- Confirm your choice.
Heart Monitoring
You can also activate features in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone that assist in monitoring your heart health. Head to the Heart category within the Apple Watch app to enable the following:
- Install the ECG app on compatible devices (Series 4 and later).
- Set your Cardio Fitness Levels and receive notifications, which indicate your overall health.
- Enable Irregular Rhythm notifications to alert you when your Apple Watch identifies underlying issues with heart rhythm.
- Receive notifications for High Heart Rate when a significant rise in heart rate occurs while you appear inactive.
- Get notified for Low Heart Rate when your BPM drops below 50 for ten minutes.
Crash Detection
The Crash Detection feature is designed to identify severe car accidents, including front, side, and rear collisions, as well as rollovers across various vehicle types.
Upon detecting a severe crash:
- Your Apple Watch taps your wrist, rings, and prompts you on the screen. If you only have the watch, it displays an Emergency Call slider. If your watch is cellular-enabled or connected to Wi-Fi, it can call for help.
- If your iPhone is paired with the watch, the Emergency Call slider will show on your watch, and the call audio plays through it.
- If able, you can choose to call emergency services or decline the alert.
- If unresponsive, your device will automatically reach out to emergency services after a 20-second delay.
- If you’ve added emergency contacts, the device will message them with your location and inform them that you’ve been in a severe accident.
- If you have set up your Medical ID, an option will appear for emergency responders to access your medical details.
Managing Notifications
The Apple Watch simplifies notification management, sending a tap on your wrist and a sound whenever an app sends a notification. However, you might find this overwhelming at times.
To manage notifications, open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and navigate to the Notifications section. Here, you can review and adjust notification settings for different apps. I recommend minimizing notifications on your watch to prevent feeling inundated.
Explore Apple Fitness+
Apple Fitness+ provides access to a vast library of on-demand workouts across a variety of categories, including running, cycling, HIIT, rowing, yoga, and more.
The integration with the Apple Watch allows your workout data to appear live on your screen during exercises. Plus, if you’ve recently acquired a new Apple Watch, you probably have three months of complimentary access to this service.
You can access Apple Fitness+ through the Fitness app on your iPhone or Apple TV. It is also available on iPad, which you can download from the iPadOS App Store to start your fitness journey.
Apple Watch Accessories
Finally, you may want to enhance your new Apple Watch with various accessories such as charging docks and watch bands. Here are some of our top recommendations.
Top Apple Watch Charging Docks:
Best Apple Watch Bands:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
