My apple watch activity is not syncing with iphone

Having problems trying to sync your Activity App to your watchOS 7 Apple Watch?

We’re all excited to update our devices to iOS 14 and watchOS 7. Apple gave us a lot of new features to play around with. For mobile devices, we were introduced to widget customizations, the App Library, camera software upgrades, among others.

On the other hand, literally, Apple Watch enthusiasts welcome new watch faces, the Sleep App, more fitness modes, the Handwashing feature, and much more. However, Apple’s forums are full of complaints regarding bugs and glitches.

Here at Saint, we work to bring our readers timely, relevant, and effective solutions for their problems. In this article, we will be going over several methods you can try that should help fix this problem.

Let’s get started!

• 1. General Troubleshooting.
• 2. Make Sure Fitness Tracking Is Enabled.
• 3. Enable and Disable Airplane Mode.
• 4. Restart Your Devices.
• 5. Pair via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
• 6. Pair Your Apple Watch As New.
• 7. Update Your iOS.

1. General Troubleshooting.

Before we start fiddling with your settings and possibly resetting some parts of your phone, let’s start by troubleshooting.

Have you tried waiting a while for your Activity App to sync to your watch? The Activity App may not automatically sync as an effect of a software bug but might sync later on.

Most software bugs can be fixed by restarting your device, which will be explained in the next method. Another general fix is to try and take a 20-minute walk, which should function as a way to recalibrate the data on your device. Before you start walking, close and reopen the Activity App for good measure.

Lastly, switching your ‘Progress Updates’ setting to None might do the job. The ‘Progress Updates’ feature was added as an option to set the length of intervals between receiving an update on your activity progress.

Here’s how you can configure the ‘Progress Updates’ setting:

1. First, open the Watch app on your iPhone and navigate to My Watch. This is located at the bottom-left corner of your screen.
2. Next, scroll down and navigate to Activity.
3. Finally, a list of options should be displayed. Go ahead and select on Progress Updates, and change the setting to None.

Once you’re done with that try and see if your Activity App has finally synced with your Apple Watch. If it didn’t, don’t worry! Proceed to the next method.

2. Make Sure Fitness Tracking Is Enabled.

Tracking your fitness statistics is a voluntary feature that’s configurable in your iPhone’s settings. If your ‘Fitness Tracking’ option is disabled, your Apple Watch will not receive any updates concerning your health and fitness activities.

You might recall and think that you had already enabled this feature a long time ago. However, a bug can happen when you update your iPhone to iOS 14, which corrupts or resets some of your personal settings. Checking to see if your ‘Fitness Tracking’ option is enabled before proceeding to the other methods might be worth it.

Here’s how you can enable ‘Fitness Tracking’ on your iPhone:

1. Go ahead and open up your Settings app and navigate to Privacy.
2. Then, scroll down a little bit until you can reach and tap on Motion & Fitness.
3. When you’re there, make sure that the Fitness Tracking option is enabled.

If this option was disabled, the chances are that after enabling this feature, your Activity App should work like normal.

3. Enable and Disable Airplane Mode.

Let’s try severing the connection between your devices and reconnecting them. ‘Airplane mode’ is a feature that was added to phones to make sure they are completely disabled from sending and receiving cellular radio waves.

This still means you can still use your Wi-Fi connection, but you’ll have to manually turn that on since initially enabling Airplane mode will turn off all wireless communication. This is a great feature to take advantage of when you want to terminate any faulty connections with your devices, which might be the case with your Apple Watch.

Here’s how you can enable and disable Airplane mode for your iPhone:

1. Start by swiping up on your home screen to bring up your iPhone’s Control Center.
2. Now, on the top-left side of your screen, tap on the Airplane icon. This should enable Airplane mode, which is indicated by the Airplane symbol being where your cellular signal should be.

1. Finally, wait for a couple of seconds and disable Airplane mode by tapping on the Airplane icon again.

Before reconnecting your devices, here’s how you can enable and disable airplane mode for your Apple Watch:

1. Similarly to the iPhone, swipe up on your watch’s screen to access the Control Center.
2. Then, tap on the Airplane icon.

1. Lastly, after several seconds go ahead and tap on the Airplane icon again to disable Airplane mode.

Now both your devices should have their wireless connections reset, connect them with each other, and check your Activity App for the syncing issue.

4. Restart Your Devices.

The oldest fix on this list, but a timeless classic. Restarting your devices will terminate any running programs and have them boot again like normal when your device powers on. This will eradicate any software applications that are malfunctioning and bugging out.

Contrary to a lot of misleading articles, ‘force restarting’ your device is no different from a conventional restart. Restarting your device will completely shut off all processes, fully rebooting your phone on the software level.

Force restarting your iPhone will deliberately cut off the power supply from your battery to your device, which will shut down and restart your phone. Apple added this feature for devices that have problems with freezing, where a force restart is the only way of restarting the phone.

Since background apps continually run in your phone, abruptly cutting off the power will cause it to have unsaved changes that can be potentially hazardous to your mobile phone. A quick analogy for this is like unplugging your computer to shut it off.

Here’s how you can restart your iPhone:

1. On the right side of your mobile phone, press and hold the power button for a couple of seconds.
2. This should cause a slider that says ‘Slide to power off’ to pop up. Drag this slider to the right to turn off your device.

1. Lastly, when your device is fully powered off, hold down the power button again to turn it back on.

Next, here’s how you can restart your Apple Watch:

1. Just like the iPhone, on the right side of your Apple Watch, there should be a power button. Press and hold it.
2. Now, a list of options should appear, but you’ll only want to drag the Power Off slider to the right to turn off your watch.

1. Finally, after a couple of seconds go ahead and press the button again to turn your watch back on.

Now try connecting your two devices together via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and see if that fixed the Activity App not syncing with your Apple Watch.

5. Pair via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

A good feature utilized by the Apple Watch is being able to pair through either your Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. This gives it a good amount of versatility and speed, as some Wi-Fi connections can be faster than your iPhone’s Bluetooth.

Your Apple Watch utilizes both wireless connections for many purposes. Though it might be mainly connected to your Bluetooth, the watch can still use your Wi-Fi to enhance its location services. In this method, we will be isolating the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection to make sure your Apple Watch and iPhone are only communicating through one line.

Here’s how you can pair via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth:

1. Go ahead and swipe up on your iPhone’s home screen to bring up the Control Center.
2. Now, both the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth icons should be present at the top-left corner of your screen. Disable any between the two so you can start connecting your Apple Watch through only one wireless network.

1. Next, try and sync your Activity App between your two devices to see if the issue is fixed. If the problem persists, open up the Control Center again and re-enable the option you previously disabled while disabling the other one.
2. Finally, test the Activity App again.

6. Pair Your Apple Watch As New.

If all the methods above didn’t work, terminating all the files and caches between your two devices might be your nuclear lifesaver. This method will completely erase all personal settings related to your Apple Watch, which will require you to reconfigure the settings again once you’re done.

Unpairing your device will completely delete cache files from your phone and watch’s memory. In doing so, you’ll be able to connect them again like new which should hopefully clear any bugs and have both devices working again.

Here’s how you can unpair your Apple Watch with your iPhone:

1. With your iPhone and Apple Watch close to each other, open up the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and proceed to the My Watch tab on the lower-left corner.
2. Next, click on your watch at the top of the screen to open a list of all currently paired watches to your iPhone. Click on the info button ( i ) next to the watch you want to unpair.

1. Now, select the Unpair Apple Watch. You might be asked if you want to keep or remove your plan. Go ahead and keep it.
2. Finally, tap on Confirm to fully unpair your Apple Watch. Restart both your devices for good measure.

Next, let’s re-pair your watch and phone by following these steps:

1. Start by opening up the Apple Watch app again and navigate to Start Pairing.
2. Then, your back camera should open. Align your Apple Watch behind the camera and make sure that your watch fits inside the square viewfinder.

1. Lastly, once they’re paired go ahead and revert your settings back to how you preferred them.

Now try testing the Activity App. Is it finally syncing with your iPhone? If it isn’t, you can proceed to the final few methods.

7. Update Your iOS.

Apple’s new iOS 14 operating system has been the cause of many bugs and glitches. Since its initial release, Apple has been updating the operating system with a bunch of software fixes in each new patch. As of September 30, 2020, the latest iOS and watchOS version is iOS 14.0.1 and watchOS 7.0.1.

Go ahead and check your settings for any new software updates. If a new one is available, updating to that version might have a good chance of fixing your problem. Do this for both your devices.

Here’s how you can check for software updates for your iPhone:

1. First, open up your Settings app and navigate to General.
2. Once you’re there, scroll down and tap on Software Update.

1. If a software update is present, a clear indication should be on your screen. Just tap on Install Now and proceed through the prompts. If not, go ahead and check your Apple Watch for a newer watchOS version.

Here’s how you can check for watchOS updates on your Apple Watch:

1. Like the iPhone, open up your Settings app and go to General.
2. Now, look and tap on Software Update.

1. If there is an update, simply select Install Now and follow the prompts.

A new software update for either of your devices should help solve your issue. If this didn’t work, you could try resetting all your iPhone’s settings or considering a factory reset.

Although a lot of articles might ask you to reset all your iPhone’s settings, we at Saint feel that this might not be necessary. An iPhone setting reset will revert all your settings back to its default orientation, which fixes more iPhone issues than Apple Watch-related ones. At the same time, some users find this fix ineffective.

If your iPhone is the main culprit of this problem, this might fix your issue. However, we’d like to remind you that iOS 14 has only been out for a couple of weeks and is still under the process of being stabilized through patch fixes.

We feel that if all the methods above did not fix your problem, then it might be in your best interest to wait for Apple’s next patch. But, if you’re still interested in trying these methods out. You can read about resetting all your iPhone’s settings here, as well as these two links for factory resetting your Apple Watch and iPhone.

Now that you’ve reached the end of this article, we hope that we’ve helped fix your ‘Activity App not syncing with Apple Watch’ issue. If you have any questions regarding the article, feel free to leave a comment down below and perhaps discuss with our other readers.

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂

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