new Apple Watch & multiple phones - step tracking

Zuzi

Hi all,

I wonder whether anyone can recommend the best course of action. I am a bit obsessed with my step tracking - was very pleased to hear that Martin Lewis himself is a fan, I am nowhere near his stats but I have been doing at least 10K every single day for coming up 2 years now.

I have an iPhone, have had for ages, and the only way I track my step count is whatever the native Health app says at the end of the day. Of course, I realise it only tracks when I carry the phone on me but I do most of the time, certainly outside the house, so I trust the figures.
Last year, I decided to replace my iPhone X with the new iPhone 13. For the first few days, I had both phones on me much of the time, and I noticed that the Health app was double-counting the steps. I want my numbers to be honest, so I was looking at ways of removing that. In the end I disabled the "Fitness Tracking" (in Settings, Privacy, Motion & Fitness) for all but the main phone I use and that seemed to have done the trick then.

Today I got a new Apple Watch, and I wonder whether I should now set the Fitness Tracking on the iPhone 13 to OFF? I know that the Health app seems to have some ranking of source devices within it, but my previous experience as described above shows that it can count steps more than once, so I would love to hear from others about their experience and ways to handle this.

Thanks in advance!

TadleyBaggie

As far as I know an Apple Watch can only be paired with one iPhone at any one time. So any step counting can only come via the iPhone that the watch is paired with.

Zuzi

I paired the watch with my main phone, yes - but I am worried that if I go for a walk with both watch and phone, steps will be duplicated. Anyway, I will play around with it, eventually it's likely that I just want the watch to track (since I will have it on me all the time) so might switch the motion tracking off completely on my phone, to be on the safe side. 

TadleyBaggie

I've never seen any step duplication with an iPhone/watch combination. I've had Apple Watches since the original was released in 2015. I think you are overthinking this.