How to sync your wearable's steps to Apple Health

A watch, band or ring does not talk to Apple Health directly. Its own app on your iPhone does: Garmin Connect, Google Health, the Oura app, the WHOOP app or Polar Flow. Once you allow it, that app copies your steps into Apple Health, and from there every app you have given Health access can read them. Until you allow it, your steps stay inside the brand’s app, and Apple Health shows only what your iPhone counted while it was in your pocket.

The short answer

Turn on the sharing and allow Steps. Most brands put the switch in their own app (Fitbit, Oura, Polar). Garmin is the exception: you turn it on in the Health app, under your profile picture → Privacy → Apps. Then check that it worked: in the Health app, Steps should list that app as a source for today.

Brand by brand

• Garmin: Garmin to Apple Health
• Fitbit: Fitbit to Apple Health, through the Google Health app
• Oura Ring: Oura to Apple Health
• WHOOP: see the steps on our support page.
• Polar: open Polar Flow, tap More → General settings, turn on the Apple Health toggle, choose the categories to sync (or Turn All Categories On) and tap Allow.
• Apple Watch: nothing to set up. It writes to Apple Health on its own, because Health is Apple’s app.

Check that it worked

Open the Health app and go to Steps. Apple’s own help puts it this way: tap a category, then a subcategory, scroll down and tap Data Sources & Access. The list there shows every app and device that has written steps. If your wearable’s app is on it, the connection works.

New steps arrive when the wearable syncs with its app on your iPhone, so they can lag a little. Opening the brand’s app is usually the quickest way to push them through.

When the iPhone and the watch both count the same walk

Your iPhone counts steps too, so on a walk with both, two sources record the same steps. Health does not add them up. In Apple’s words, “if multiple sources contribute the same data type, the data source at the top will take priority over others.” No walk is counted twice.

Which one ends up on top matters, because the counts differ: your watch is on your wrist the whole time, your phone only when it is with you. Apple’s default order puts data you enter by hand first, then your iPhone and Apple Watch, then other apps and devices, but a new app or device you add goes to the top of the list automatically, above your iPhone. To change the order: in Data Sources & Access, tap Edit, then touch and hold the handle next to a source and drag it up or down.

On Android

Android phones use Health Connect instead of Apple Health, and each brand has its own way in. Our support page has the steps for Garmin, Galaxy Watch, Fitbit, Polar, Oura and WHOOP on Android.

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