In watchOS 5, there's a new Apple Watch activity feature that's designed to motivate people to work out and get active through competitions with friends.

You can challenge any friend to a seven-day competition on Apple Watch, with each person earning points for filling their rings each day.

applewatchcompetition

How to Start a Competition

You can begin a competition on the Apple Watch itself or within the Activity app on the iPhone, with the latter method being the easiest way to get going.

Before a competition can start, you need to be sharing your activity information with the person you're challenging, which you can do by following these steps:

activitysharing

  1. Open up the Activity app.
  2. Tap the Sharing tab.
  3. Press the "+" button to invite one or more contacts with an Apple Watch.
  4. Choose the "Send" button to send them an invite to share activity data with you.
  5. Wait for your friend to accept the invitation.

Once you're sharing data with someone, you can begin a competition. Again, this is easiest in the Activity app on the iPhone.

applewatchcompetition

  1. Open the Activity app.
  2. Tap the Sharing tab.
  3. Choose a friend you're sharing data with.
  4. Tap on "Compete with [friend's name]."
  5. Wait for your friend to accept the challenge.

You can invite friends you're already sharing with to competitions using the Apple Watch if preferred.

Just open the Activity app on Apple Watch, tap on a friend's name, and then tap "Compete" twice through the subsequent menus to launch a competition.

Competition Rules

Your friend will have 48 hours to respond to your invite, with a competition officially starting after 48 hours if the invite was accepted. Competitions will last for seven days, so if your competition started on a Saturday morning, for example, it will end on the following Friday evening.

Competitions start in the morning so no one is caught off guard and so each person has seven full days to complete all of their movement goals. You can have more than one competition going at once, but you can only compete with one person per competition, so you can't have three or more people competing together.

Each person earns points for closing the Stand ring, the Move ring, and the Exercise ring. Points are awarded for exceeding each goal and hitting additional move and exercise goals.

As with all activity sharing, you will receive notifications whenever your friend completes a workout. If you want to mute these notifications, open up the Activity app, choose the Sharing tab, select a competition, and the scroll down to the bottom of the screen to find the "Mute Notifications" option.

How Points Are Calculated

Each person participating in the competition receives one point for every percent added to the Stand, Move, and Exercise rings, with up to 600 points available to be earned per day.

So, for example, if you exceed your move goal by 300 percent, you'll receive 300 points for the day. Similar calculations are used for the stand and exercise options.

A total of 4,200 points can be earned for the week, with the award going to whoever earns the most points.

Checking on Your Competition Status

You can view how many points you have compared to the person you're competing with either through the Activity app on iPhone or the Activity app on Apple Watch.

applewatchcompetitionstatus 1
It's best to view this data on the iPhone because you can see more information about how the competition is going, with full data for each day of the competition available.

applewatchcompetitionstatus

  1. Open the Activity app.
  2. Select the Sharing tab.
  3. Tap the relevant competition listing under the "Competitions" header.

In this section of the Activity app, you can see the total of number of points each person has earned and then a breakdown of the points earned each day of the competition.

You can also see your friend's total movement, exercise, and stand rankings for the current day, plus steps and total distance traveled.

Sending Kudos

When your competitor completes a workout during the challenge, you'll get a notification, and you can send a message using the Apple Watch. You can also initiate conversations within the Activity App on the Apple Watch or the Activity app on iPhone by selecting the person's name and tapping on "Send Message."

applewatchcompetitionkudos

Winning a Competition

When you win a competition with a friend, you earn a badge for completing a competition and a separate badge for being victorious.

applewatchcompetitionend
From there, you can start a new challenge with the same friend, and under the sharing interface, you'll see your respective number of wins and losses.

applewatchcompetitionbadge
All of your badges can be viewed in the Activity app either on the Apple Watch or on the iPhone.

Related Roundup: Apple Watch 10
Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)

Top Rated Comments

alFR Avatar
86 months ago
The fact that these tutorials seem necessary is not a good look on the usability of the product...
Did you actually read it? There's nothing there that you couldn't have worked out yourself, MR is just highlighting the fact that it's a feature (and looking for some clicks as well, I reckon). The fact that this exists says precisely nothing about how usable the product is.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
drumcat Avatar
86 months ago
The fact that these tutorials seem necessary is not a good look on the usability of the product...
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

cook trump

Trump Responds to Apple Keeping Diversity Policies

Wednesday February 26, 2025 6:32 am PST by
In an all-caps post on Truth Social today, U.S. President Donald Trump said Apple should fully end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Tim Cook meeting with President Trump in 2017 "APPLE SHOULD GET RID OF DEI RULES, NOT JUST MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEM," he wrote. Trump's post comes one day after Apple held its annual shareholders meeting, during which a majority of...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
iOS 18

Apple Says iOS 18.4 Will Be Released in April With These New Features

Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April. From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
iPhone Fold Vertical Feature

Apple's 2026 Foldable iPhone Has No Visible Display Crease – Report

Tuesday February 25, 2025 2:58 am PST by
Apple is making significant headway on its long-rumored foldable iPhone, with a new report suggesting the company has achieved a major breakthrough by effectively eliminating the screen crease that plagues current foldable devices. According to Korean publication ETNews, Apple is finalizing its component suppliers for the foldable iPhone, with the selection process expected to be completed...
trump iphone dictation issue

Apple Fixing 'Trump' Dictation Processing Bug

Tuesday February 25, 2025 1:18 pm PST by
Multiple iPhone owners today noticed a pronunciation processing issue that causes the word "Trump" to momentarily show up when using dictation to send a message with the word "racist." In some cases, when speaking the word racist through the iPhone's built-in dictation feature, the iPhone briefly interprets the spoken word as "Trump" and "Trump" text shows up in the Messages app before being ...
airtag orange

AirTag 2 Rumored to Launch in May or June With These New Features

Monday February 24, 2025 6:11 am PST by
Apple plans to launch a second-generation AirTag in May or June this year, according to a post today from a leaker known as Kosutami. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously reported that a new AirTag would be released in mid-2025. May or June would align with that timeframe. Below, we recap three new features rumored for the AirTag 2: With a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, the...
airpods pro purple

Here's When AirPods Pro 3 Are Rumored to Launch

Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year. The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time. Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...
ios 18 4 carplay

iOS 18.4 Includes a Small But Useful Change for CarPlay

Sunday February 23, 2025 2:23 pm PST by
The first beta of iOS 18.4 is now available, and it includes a small but useful change for CarPlay. As we noted in our list of iOS 18.4 features, CarPlay now shows a third row of icons, up from two rows previously. However, this change is only visible in vehicles with a larger center display. For example, a MacRumors Forums member noticed the change in a Toyota Tundra, which can be equipped...