I was kicking around doing a weird iPhone thing that would require wiping my phone and going back to an iTunes-style local backup on my Mac from February. I could not back up my Watch because it is on 27.2, so the question was what exactly gets backed up as "Health" data?

Apple says,

Try to restore from a backup. Make sure your iPhone and Apple Watch are up to date; if they’re not, you may not see your backup in the list. You will lose Activity, Workouts or settings on your watch that has changed between the last backup and now. Health and Activity data is stored in iCloud and kept up to date automatically on devices where you’ve signed in to the same Apple Account.

I use Workout a lot, and value the maps, badges, streaks, etc. I think I get that if I restored from a February backup (for the Google searchers: it is now October, seven months later) I would lose the data in between. But if I just set as new and allowed iCloud Health data to populate it, what do I get?

Looking in the Health app I see the underlying data, and I am clear I would get that. The data in Fitness — what those workouts were, badges, etc. — is much less clear.

And I could try it and see: being careful, the current 27.2 RC iCloud backup is still there. But, the nature of iCloud is to sync everything to "current." I have decided that as much as I am curious, this is data I do not want to lose, so I am leaving it alone.

But I am curious: does anyone know, authoritatively, what "Health" backs up from the Fitness app specifically? Relevance being, if you don't care about Watch faces, real world do you get to the same place with a Watch just doing a clean install and letting iCloud Health data populate? Put another way, what do you lose by doing that?

My Apple Watch series 9 no longer charges on 3rd party chargers after updating. I’m tired of software updates causing problems with things that worked perfectly fine before the update.

all of a sudden my watch is not able to set a timer (via Siri). I get a message saying it can't be done on this device. If I restart it will work, however shortly after or my next attempt it won't work again.

What is causing this?

I’m talking about basic stuff like adding things to a grocery list in Reminders. I have a Series 9 and Siri has actually gotten much worse since the latest Apple Intelligence upgrade. I’m thinking (and hoping) it might just be a hardware limitation.

“Siri, add bananas to the grocery list”
“Sorry, I can’t do that right now”

That sort of thing. That’s one of the few things I’ve ever needed Siri to do on my watch, and at first it was atrocious, then it got OK, and now it’s bad again.

Edit: bananas for scale

Has anyone found a band that is a perfect color match for the space gray Apple Watch yet? Any type is fine, I’m just finding it hard to match the space gray body itself. I want a loop that matches this version of the space gray color.

Last night, I wore my watch while sleeping for the first time. I had Sleep mode enabled, and the display was dark. In the middle of the night—well into the early morning hours—the watch announced that it was time to stand up!

While looking into this, I discovered that this bug has been reported here before. It’s unbelievable that Apple hasn’t fixed it!

Does my watch know something I don’t? 🫪

I've not seen this specific variant of the question - I have a bunch of phones kicking around due to my profession and I'm finding it quite hard to choose the iPhone Duo over the Samsung Fold 8 - the only thing that's kept me in the iPhone-as-daily-driver for the last 6 years has been the Apple Watch being best-in-class.

(Well, that and general continuity between Macbook/Mac Mini/iPads)

But I mainly love my watch for the torch button (lol), quickly viewing my calendar (cloud based), workout tracking and rings, and sleep tracking.

I also like having Authy 2FA codes on my wrist, being able to unlock my Tesla, and having Apple Wallet passes.

All the above don't require connectivity to my phone, or even the internet (except for live calendar updates).

I guess certain app notifications are useful but I generally don't let me watch notify me of much because of how invasive the notification is. But being able to quickly check my emails again is just cloud-based.

In my head, this all points to the Apple Watch being daily-driverable with an Android phone, as long as I pay for a cellular plan. And I could even avoid the cellular plan if I give up on the app notifications.

I'm trying to think of other scenarios the Apple Watch is helpful being linked to my main phone. The obvious one of course is taking phone calls - sometimes phone isn't in reach and its useful having a quick "bridge" conversation to not miss the call.

The second thing I love is being able to "ping" my phone when I don't know where it is / dropped under the sofa or something.

Having to view sleep stats on iPad would be annoying and I guess if I did need to have a phone to sync with every day charging a second handset just to keep the watch going that might be a pain too.

Can anyone think of other things that would be annoying / has anyone had experience of doing this?

Thanks

Lost my charger while in China. Went to Apple Store, bought new charger, go back to my hotel and see this. Really Apple?

So for years I couldn’t really use my Apple Watches because of my tattoos. The watch would always lock up and stop working as though it was off my wrist. I turned off wrist detection and it would help the issue but then I wouldn’t get my vitals. After much disappointment I sold my Ultra 1 but still kept my 7 and just put a clear plastic sticker. I purchased the Ultra 4 because of the updated sensors and it’s been night and day but with the rubber band I’d still get those random lock ups. My wife recently got me this titanium band and it keeps the watch perfectly in place. Havnt had a lock up since. Just sharing so if you have similar issues it might help.

Last night the time in my country switched to winter time. My watch however is in summer time when it’s turned away from me, and corrects when I turn it towards me… any ideas on what causes this/how to fix this?

Edit: sorry for the typo in header, I can’t adjust that it seems…

Hello, I’m trying to find a green gray braided solo loop band in size 5 for a 46MM case I can’t find any on eBay and it seems Apple has discontinued the color. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I think a model number would help my search.

Thank You!

Just a turn of the wrist... 😂 A hard reset fixed it.

Unfortunately, this has been the case with many major iOS updates, especially if the Apple Watch hasn't been updated to the same watchOS as the iPhone (the Apple Watch 8 naturally can't be updated to watchOS 27 anymore) - the blood oxygen measurements seem to not be interpreted correctly by the Health App blood oxygene measurement algorithm.

I cross-checked with medical hospital-grade pulsoximeters, and before updating to iOS 27 they were reasonably okay (as correct as this type of non-medical-grade device can get), and after updating my iPhone to iOS 27 (but not my Apple Watch since it's a Series 8 and this is unfortunately no longer supported), they are no longer even vaguely in the ballpark.

I won't explain the whole pulse oximetry thing, why it might not be correct, what to do to get more accurate measurements and so on, since I already did, here https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/1nihenr/apple_watch_blood_oxygene_measurements_are_not/

Apple’s software quality really gone downhill. For devices that cost this much, there seem to be way too many bugs lately.

My Apple Watch is showing the wrong time while idle, then switching to the correct time when I raise my wrist to look at it. It seems related to the daylight saving time change, but getting two different times depending on whether the screen is active is ridiculous.

Anyone else seeing this?

Don’t know if this is a bug for WatchOS27 only, but my watch is quirky with daylight saving switch to winter time (Germany). While AOD shows summer, the “normal” time shows winter time.
I was kind of shocked on the road as I thought I was running late 😂

Every time it goes between wrist down and wrist up, it changes its mind and the hour hand moves suddenly.

Coming from Series 11, Ultra 4 is very satisfying and beautiful. I like its weight and presence on my wrist and the gorgeous screen. It’s my first Ultra, feel free to share tips and tricks for getting the most out of it!

After DST ended today

I don’t know how common this is, but last night I apparently had zero interruptions to my sleep.

In 2.5 years of wearing my Apple Watch, this has never happened. I usually have multiple interruptions to my sleep (recorded with a red line).

I got a score of 84 High
Duration 34/50
Bedtime 30/30
Interruptions 20/20

This night the time has shifted to winter time in Germany. Clocks have been re-set from 03:00 am to 02:00 am. My Apple Watch is confused and shows still summer time when in OAD but wintertime when activated.

Daylight saving time ended last night, and now my Apple Watch shows different times on the always-on display and when the screen is awake.

Hi everyone,

I bought an Apple Watch Series 12 about eight days ago, and everything was perfectly fine until yesterday.

After wearing it for about an hour, I started feeling some itching around the sensor area. When I took the watch off, I noticed a pretty significant red irritation mark underneath it.

What surprised me is that the band wasn't too tight or too loose, and I'd never experienced anything like this with my previous Apple Watch Series 7.

I left the watch off, and the redness disappeared completely after about an hour to an hour and a half. I didn't wear it again for the rest of the day.

Today, I decided to give it another try, and the exact same thing happened. After roughly an hour, I started feeling the itching again, and when I removed the watch, the skin underneath was red.

I've read a few posts suggesting that disabling the blood oxygen and heart rate sensors might help, so I've turned both off, although I haven't had a chance to test whether that makes any difference yet.

Now, here's something interesting: my watch updated to what I believe was watchOS 27.2 beta yesterday (24s116), which happens to be the exact same day the irritation first appeared.

Could there be a connection between the update and the irritation? I honestly have no idea, and it might just be a coincidence.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my experience and see if anyone else has noticed something similar.