I will freely admit I have an Apple problem.
I am a fully paid up member of the Apple Fan Boy Club. I am on board with the Apple ecosystem at home and have no issues that that. Well, perhaps my bank balance does!
I have used an Apple Watch since it first arrived back in April 2015. As a smartwatch, it’s been amazing.
As a fitness device, I have found it lacking. It’s got better over the years, and this takes things to a new level.
Enter WorkOutDoors
Apps have fuelled a revolution, and in WorkOutDoors, you have something that turns the Apple Watch into a serious piece of kit.
This won’t be a review of the Apple Watch, just the App!
Workouts
This is the question I most get asked - How do I create workouts on an Apple Watch. WorkOutDoors is how.
It is all done on the accompanying iPhone app. It’s effortless.
If I have a Threshold Interval session to do, I will quickly set that up on the phone and then load it onto the watch, and away we go. The Apple Watch even speaks the interval out loud for you when it starts.
You can even set Target Heart Rate Zones for the Intervals.
Here is a 6 x 3 minutes Threshold Session created on the phone app.
Creating complex workouts is just as easy. Here you can see a 2 x 3 x 1km workout. So that is 2 sets of 3 repetitions of 1km.
What is just incredible with WorkOutDoors is you can customise the screen on each section of the workout. Your Cool Down screen can look different from your Interval Screen.
Maps
Seeing a beautiful colour map on your wrist has made exploring new routes a breeze. As a directionally challenged individual, this has been awesome.
Combine with the ability to send routes from your iPhone to the watch. You can get out and explore on your runs.
You can’t create a route on the iPhone. Instead, you’ll need a .gpx file. This gets loaded onto the iPhone and then transfered to the Apple Watch. Once you’ve done this process once, it’s straightforward and doing it again won’t be a hassle.
There are loads of .gpx files online, and we’ll share a Blog Post about how to find them and what to do in a few weeks.
If you run without your iPhone or don’t have the cellular version of the Apple Watch, you can download parts of the map onto the watch to store it there. Really useful, especially if you are travelling to a new city and going running.
Alerts
There are endless alerts you can set up on WorkOutDoors to customise the experience for you. These alerts are custom to each workout.
You can have a Drink and an Eat Reminder - these are two different alerts. You choose after how many minutes it’ll remind you. You can customise the screen text (perhaps having how many calories you have burned on the eat reminder) and whether you get a voice alert too.
I love that my running reminders are different to my cycling ones.
There are so many alert options it can be a bit overwhelming. You certainly wouldn’t want all the alerts on. Otherwise, your run would just be alerts! You can choose your alerts depending on what’s important to you and why you are running.
Strava Integration
You can set WorkOutDoors to sync to Strava, sending your sessions directly online. You can even export your workouts into Garmin Connect if you want to, but this is a manual export process.
Some Issues
These issues are more Apple Watch based than WorkOutDoors so it does feel a little disingenuous having them here.
You are limited by the Apple Watch’s battery. There are ways to make it last longer but it isn’t going to last many ultra marathons.
Other Sports Watches offer a lot more sports related data. Garmin have been the industry lead here for years and you don’t get thing like their Recovery Advisor and Race Predictors.
Overall
I don’t love the way the App looks. I am really picky here, but something about it feels somewhat not in keeping with the Apple Watch aesthetic.
The choices they have given you are terrific, but I wonder how many people will make use of them all.
But way cooler to have them than not.
If you own an Apple Watch and use it for a lot of running (hiking or many other sports), then you need this App. There is nothing like it out there at the moment. It makes the stock activities App feel incredibly underpowered.
Priced at £5.99, it is undoubtedly worth the money. WorkOutDoors
I purchased the Apple Watch and WorkOutDoors. We are not compensated in anyway for this review.
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