Ski Tracks and AppleWatch 3 – Desaster or Skiers Paradise?

To answear the question of the headline as fast as possible: both!

To be more precise: desaster as first step, then, yes then – all dreams about ski tracking come true 😉

Starting at the beginning. I looked after a sport watch to replace my seven year old Garmin Forerunner 405. I had in mind the Garmin Fenix 5. But one day my son said: why dont you buy an Apple Watch? My answer: No, are you crazy? The Apple Watch is for lifestyle victims not for real sportlers, who need precise data and tough hardware. Discussion finished. But in my head it worked form this day on. In the next weeks I walked in our local electronics market from the apple desk to the garmin desk and vice versa. At the end I deciced to buy the apple watch, as recommended by my son.

No Comment. You better listen to your son belonging to tec gadget discussions.

The Apple Watch looks smarter, is not that huge on the wrist and collects in series 3 as much data as needed for skiers – barometer included. GPS connects very fast, there is no annoying waiting time before starting your sport.

But … On the watch there is no skiers acitivity installed per default. You have to look for an app which supports smartphone and watch. I choosed Ski Tracks because of its well organized data dashboard on the smartphone. The installation on the phone was easy and tracking my piste and ski-lift kilometers worked well. In the evening at dinner we had a lot of fun to compare data between Ski Tracks, Skiline and other tracking apps.

Only I, myself and me were unhappy. Why? Beause the installation of Ski Tracks on the watch doesn’t worked. Ok, for this I found a simple solution: update watchOS! It is possible that in the installing notes of Ski Tracks it was written that the precondition for using the app on the watch is an actual watchOS. Ok Sven, wear sackcloth and ashes!

After the update on WatchOS 4.2 Ski Tracks appeared with one click on my watch. Puuh!

BUT – the next day on the piste, my Ski Tacks App interface said again and again: save your previous data to start a new track! WTF! I. had. no. track. so. far. It was the first day with the app on the watch. I saw myself in an inner discussion loop: you had better bought a garmin 😉 . Never trust your son in a tec gadget discussion. He is an Apple evangelist. And so on. After drinking a Zillertaler naturtrübes Radler (or two) I started a massive internet recherche. Nothing. No hint at all. Time after time, after reading and searching the web from A to Z and also in the CoreCoders manual, information consolidated around the Apple Health App. I never used it. I never actived it. I never looked in it. Whyever should I?

The solution was simple: you have to active the health app to use the Ski Tracks App on the watch! Yesses!

Dear CoreCoders – please share this information with your ski fans!

For example like this: You have to activate the health app once, when you want to track your ski activity (mobile, without phone) on your watch! One sentence not more.

Smart Watch á la Dick Tracy: „Hey Siri, show me the fastest track to a Zillertaler naturtrübes Radler!„ Source/Copyright: http://deducedreckoning.blogs.heraldtribune.com/10089/from-bag-phones-to-dick-tracy-devices/

The health app seems to be the data hub for the/ for all tracking data collected on your watch without using the phone simultaneously. After skiing with the watch (only) you can (expected for a long time) save data, which will be stored in the health app in the category acitivites, skiing downhill. And then, yes then, you can import these tracking data into your Ski Tracks App on the phone.

It was a long way to Zillertaler Ski Tracking.

But the result is smart.

1. Use your watch.
2. Let your phone at home (it is even warmer at home for the battery pack)
3. And syncronize data at dinner …
4. … to start discussion about piste and ski-lift kilometer
5. altitude
6. and top speed 😉

You better listen to your sons argumentation when choosing a sports watch!

How to use Ski Tracks on Apple Watch Step-by-Step or spend two long lasting nights to find out on your own. No Joke.

1. Update to watchOS 4.2
2. Install Ski Tracks on Phone and then on Watch
3. Give in Health > Sources Ski Tracks the permisson to write and read acitivity data
4. Go Skiing and Choose in Ski Tracks > Skiing Downhill on Watch
5. Stop Tracking
6. Close App
7. Open Ski Tracks and actualize ski piste
8. Have fun with your ski acitvity data – f.e. compare Ski Tracks data with Skiline Data
9. If you want to delete ski piste data do this at first in Health (!) > Acitivity Ski Downhill > Show all Data – after this in Ski Tracks

to 3. Give in Health > Sources Ski Tracks the permisson to write and read acitivity data

to 4. Go skiing and choose in Ski Tracks > Skiing Downhill on Watch

to 5. Stop Tracking (or pause for a Almhütten-Stop)

to 6. Close App to save data

to 7. Open Ski Tracks and actualize ski piste – maximum speed 82.3 km/h – not that bad 😉

to 8. Have fun with your ski acitvity data – f.e. compare Ski Tracks data with Skiline Data

to 9. If you want to delete ski piste data do this at first in Health (!) > Acitivity Ski Downhill > Show all data – after this in Ski Tracks