Angel Step

How to see your steps on Apple Watch

Steps on Apple Watch live in the Activity app: open it and turn the Digital Crown, and after your rings come your total steps, total distance and flights climbed. No built-in watch face has a steps complication: Apple's guide to the faces lists the complications each one offers, in watchOS 27 and watchOS 26, and steps is not among them; the Activity faces show your rings, not a step count.

In the Activity app

  1. Open the Activity app on your Apple Watch.
  2. Turn the Digital Crown to see your totals for the day.
  3. Keep scrolling: after the progress of each ring come your total steps, total distance, flights climbed and activity history.

Apple's user guide gives the same steps for watchOS 27 and watchOS 26. To see the same day's steps on your iPhone, see where Health keeps your step count.

Can the watch face show steps?

No built-in watch face has a steps complication: Apple's guide to the faces lists the complications each one offers, in watchOS 27 and watchOS 26, and steps is not among them. Faces such as Activity Analog show the progress of your rings, which is not the same number as your steps.

To see steps on the face, you need a third-party app that offers a complication. To check them without raising your wrist, an iPhone Lock Screen widget can show the day's steps too.

When steps don't show up or stop updating

If Health records no steps from your watch, make sure Fitness Tracking is on for it: open the Health app on your iPhone, tap the Profile button, then Devices, tap your Apple Watch, tap Privacy Settings and turn on Fitness Tracking.

Your watch also uses what you tell it about yourself: height, weight, sex, age and wheelchair status go into its distance and calorie figures. To change them, open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, tap My Watch, then Apps, then Health, then Health Details, and tap Edit. If you set wheelchair use, the Stand ring becomes the Roll ring.

iPhone and Apple Watch steps are combined, not added

If you carry your iPhone and wear your watch, both count the same walk, and Health takes the similar data from the two and organizes it by where it comes from, rather than adding the two totals. By default, Health puts data you enter by hand first, then data from your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, then data from apps and Bluetooth devices, and you can change the order. That is why the day's total in Health can be lower than the two devices' counts put together; the page on why step counts differ goes through it.

Where Angel Step fits

Angel Step is an iPhone app; there is no Apple Watch app. It reads your step count from Health, so steps your watch counts are in the number once they reach Health, shown as one number on a living sky.

Sources

Updated

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