There are many users who sometimes criticize that the Apple Watch does not detect well the distance they walk or run along the street, showing almost half the kilometers that have actually been made. To be able to solve and improve our outdoor workouts and also in the gym it is recommended to perform a series of checks on our iPhone and proceed to calibrate the Apple Watch by following the steps that we will explain below.
Check your location settings
On many occasions when we want to save battery on our iPhone we begin to withdraw access to our location to the system causing the Apple Watch can not track us correctly.
It is important that we have one of the location options enabled. To verify that it is correctly activated we must follow the following steps on the iPhone:
- Go to Settings> Privacy.
- Access the ‘Location’ option that we found at the beginning.
- Scroll to the bottom of the list of services and access the ‘System Services’ tab.
- Once here we must find the option ‘Displacement calibration’ and make sure it is active.
It is vital that this option is active so that our Apple Watch is much more precise when it comes to knowing where we are and the path we follow in our outdoor training.
Calibrate your Apple Watch walking down the street
It is important that to perform the calibration of the Apple Watch you are on the street, in a clear area where the GPS signal is good in addition to not doing it when it rains or there is enough cloudiness. This will allow the Apple Watch to have no problems when geolocating us.
Is it necessary to carry the iPhone over when performing this calibration? The truth is that it will depend on which Apple Watch model we have in our possession. Obviously the Apple Watch Series 2 onwards will not depend on having the iPhone nearby as it has the integrated GPS function. If, on the other hand, we have an earlier version of the Series 1 if we have to take our iPhone close as it will depend on it to have the GPS function. It is important that in this case the iPhone is not put in a pocket or purse , but we must have it in the hand or in a bracelet to avoid losses of the GPS connection.
Once we have taken into account all these previous considerations, we can begin to calibrate our smart watch. To do this we must go to the Training application on the Watch and click on the three points found in the upper right corner of the ‘Running’ training card. Here we can select the duration of the training that should be about 20 minutes.
These 20 minutes you don’t have to complete them in one training session but you can do it with several free training sessions. It is important that if our normal training is to run on the street, these 20 minutes of calibration will be done by running at the rate that we normally follow. In short, we must do this 20 minute calibration if we have several rhythms of running or walking.
With this we will ensure that the Apple Watch has knowledge of the type of stride and pace that we have in order to have greater accuracy when the GPS connection is quite weak or simply null, showing us despite this the correct information of our training. In addition, this calibration is totally necessary if you want to perform training on a gym belt, since if you do not do the calibration the data shown in this training will be totally wrong. Even before starting this training, the watch will notify you that it is necessary to perform this pre-calibration.
If you want to reset your calibration data to register them again if you appreciate that it continues to show incorrect information at the end of your training you must enter the Clock application on the iPhone and go to Privacy> Reset exercise calibration.
Whenever you follow these instructions and do an outdoor workout for 20 minutes with the active location options as we have shown you, you will be performing the Apple Watch calibration.
Always keep your personal data updated
To get a better accuracy in the data offered by the Apple Watch when doing our workouts, it is important that we have all our personal data updated in the Clock application. To calculate the calories burned you need your age, sex, height and weight.
This is why we must update our weight quite frequently, which is the body measure that can vary most dramatically. You can do this in the Clock application on the iPhone and in the “Health” section we can edit all this information.
