Using Apple Watch and Siri to check your health and fitness stats and a lot more!

January 26, 2023

Everyone knows Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, but did you know that Apple Watch users can use Siri to perform numerous health and fitness-related actions?

That’s right! You can use Siri to complete your daily fitness and health tasks more efficiently.

What exactly can Siri do? Keep reading to learn what health and fitness stats Siri can check via an Apple Watch.

Questions you can ask Siri about your fitness and activity

Siri can do a lot, especially with Apple’s Activity and Workout apps. There are numerous questions and commands you can give Siri regarding your activity.

Here are some prompts for what you can ask Siri and what action follows it:

How many steps have I walked?

When you ask Siri about your step count, the virtual assistant opens your Activity app and automatically scrolls down to your step count.

What activity have I done today?

By asking this question, Siri opens the activity app and directly brings you to the section where you can see your activity and movement progress.

What’s my heart rate?

After asking this question, Siri opens the Heart Rate app on your Apple Watch and takes your current heart rate.

How much of my activity rings (or Move/Exercise/Stand goals) have I hit today?

Siri can help you keep track of your Apple Activity goals when you ask this question. After you ask this question, Siri opens the Activity app and displays your progress so far.

Start workout

You can also command Siri to start a workout for you on the Apple Watch!

Just tell Siri which workout you want to start, and the AI brings up the Workout app and starts recording the workout automatically.

Open app

Siri also opens any app you ask for it to open, including third-party apps like Strava. This feature is useful for third-party apps specifically.

Set medication and other reminders

I love using Siri to set reminders to take my medication. That way, I won’t miss or skip a dose unintentionally.

There are a lot more questions you can ask Siri about your fitness and health, depending on what features and apps you use.

My personal favorites are finding out about the weather before I head out the door for an outdoor workout or walk, settings timers and stopwatches to monitor how much time I spend on an activity or count it down, and getting Siri to control the music app.

If you don’t want Siri to speak out loud or not in certain settings, you can also change that in the Settings app on your Apple Watch. Select Settings > Siri > Siri Responses.

Always On: Siri speaks responses, even when your Apple Watch is in silent mode.
Control With Silent Mode: Siri is silenced when your Apple Watch is muted.
Headphones Only: Siri only speaks responses when your Apple Watch connects to wireless headphones.

Scroll further down for some additional settings:

Always Show Siri Captions: What Siri says is always displayed as text on your watch’s screen.
Always Show Speech: What you say is always shown on the watch’s screen.

You ask Siri to do quite a lot to make your day easier…and less forgetful.

Is this all Siri can do?

Not quite! Lots of apps have the option to create a Siri Shortcut.

We particularly like the Apple Watch Accessibility Assistant shortcut for anyone with vision, hearing, mobility, or cognitive issues!

What is a Siri Shortcut?

A Siri Shortcut is a feature that speeds up actions you typically perform in an app by utilizing Siri to make it even faster for you. Basically, Shortcuts are a quick way to get one or more tasks done with your apps by automating them using Siri.

For example, one of my favorite shortcuts is the Calculate Tip shortcut which quickly calculates what the tip should be based on the total bill and a chosen percentage tip I want to give (with options from 12-20%).

A good variety of apps can use Shortcuts to make their apps more convenient. Choose ready-made shortcuts from the Shortcuts apps Gallery, or even build your own using different apps to run multiple steps in a task.

And for Apple Watch, you can run a shortcut from the watch’s Shortcuts app, ask Siri to run the shortcut, or add them as complications to your watch face.

Pretty cool, right?

Check what shortcuts work for Apple Watch

Unfortunately, not every app supports Shortcuts, AND not all shortcuts work on Apple Watch. But there are a lot of shortcuts available out there, especially for fitness and health apps!

There are a few caveats, however

You can only create shortcuts on your paired iPhone. You cannot create a new shortcut using the Shortcuts app on your Apple Watch–at least not yet!
Not all shortcuts you create on your iPhone work on your Apple Watch.
Requires iOS 12 or iPadOS 13 or later. And an Apple Watch Series 3 or later running watchOS 7 or later.
For third-party apps, check you must allow them to work with Shortcuts. Open the Settings app > Siri & Search and tap the app, then toggle on Use with Siri.

If you already added some shortcuts to your iPhone, some of those may also work on your Apple Watch. So let’s check.

Open the Shortcuts app on your paired iPhone.
Choose the Shortcuts tab at the bottom.
1. If you see a list of All Shortcuts, tap the Back button at the top to get to the shortcuts category page.
Under Shortcuts, look for the Apple Watch category and tap that.
Listed, you find all your current shortcuts that work on your Apple Watch!

If you don’t see a shortcut for something you’d like to do, it’s easy to add new ones!

Many third-party apps support Shortcuts and offer prebuilt shortcuts–just look for the Add to Siri button in your favorite apps.

There’s also a Shortcuts Gallery in the Shortcuts app to explore and add shortcuts built by others that you can use too. Or you can build your own if you’re feeling adventurous!

How to find Shortcuts in the Gallery for your Apple Watch

Open the Shortcuts app and choose the Gallery tab at the bottom.
Search for a shortcut you want and tap it to see its details.
Scroll to the About This Shortcut section.
Any shortcut that works on Apple Watch says it Appears on Apple Watch.
1. If you don’t see that, the shortcut doesn’t currently work on Apple Watch. See if you can find something similar that does work on Apple Watch.
Also, look at the directions on how to ask Siri to run the shortcut–it’s usually “Hey Siri” followed by the shortcut’s name.
To add the shortcut to your watch, tap Set Up Shortcut
Then, choose its configuration and tap Add Shortcut.

Now test your newly added shortcut, raise your wrist and say “Hey Siri” and the shortcut name into the watch, or open the Shortcuts app and tap the shortcut’s name. And watch Siri and Shortcuts do their magic!

How to run a shortcut with Siri

Once you have activated or created a shortcut, say “Hey Siri” to your Apple Watch and then say the name of the shortcut you want Siri to run.

You can also open the Shortcuts app and tap the name of the shortcut to run it, or tap the shortcuts complication on your watch face, then choose Run.

Add a shortcut complication to your Apple Watch face

Press and hold the watch face on your Apple Watch, then tap Edit.
Swipe left to the Complications screen, then tap a complication area.
Scroll to Shortcuts, then choose the shortcut you want to see as a complication.
Press the Digital Crown twice to save updates.
Test it out from your watch face!

Final thoughts

Being able to use Siri to check various health and fitness information on the Apple Watch is such a cool feature! It almost feels like Siri is your very own personal fitness coach! Plus, the addition of Siri Shortcuts makes things so much easier!

So many different kinds of apps work well with Shortcuts like sleep trackers (AutoSleep), blood pressure checkers (Qardio), performance and training apps, workout apps, vital monitors, habit trackers, reminder apps, meditation apps, and more.

What’s your favorite Siri shortcut? Let us know!

Using Apple Watch and Siri to check your health and fitness stats and a lot more!

Suggested reading:

Questions you can ask Siri about your fitness and activity