How To Start And Complete An Apple Watch Activity Competition In watchOS 5

Starting with watchOS 5 you have a new motivation option to make sure that you complete your daily Activity rings and workout tasks. The feature is called Activity Competition and it allows you to challenge a friend to a seven-day race, that’s won by the one that’s the most active. Participants are rewarded with points for filling their Apple Watch rings each day. The points are summed up for a week to establish a winner.

At the moment you can only complete with one other iOS contact. You can start multiple Activity competitions at a time but the time but you can’t include more than one Apple Watch owner to a challenge. To be able to start an competition with a friend you need to share your Activity information with the person that you wish to challenge. This is done from the Activity app, available on the paired iPhone, as described here.

How To Start An Activity Competition In watchOS 5
The easiest way to challenge another Apple Watch owner to an Activity race is from the Activity app, available on the paired iPhone:
1. Open the Activity app on your iPhone.
2. Tap on the Sharing tab, available in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
3. Select one of the contacts that you’re already sharing Activity data with, as explained above.
4. Tap on “Compete with [friend’s name]”.
5. Wait until the contact accepts the challenge.
Tip: To initiate it from the Apple Watch, open the Activity app, tap on the friend’s name and hit “Compete” to dispatch the invite!

watchOS 5 Activity Competition Facts
– The competition starts in 48 hours after the request has been accepted.
– It starts in the morning so that everyone has equal changes of completing all rings.
– It lasts exactly seven days. If you start Wednesday morning, the competition will end the next Tuesday evening.
– Points are earned for closing the Stand, Move and Exercise rings. Further points are awarded for exceeding goals and reaching additional move and exercise limits.
– Competitors receive 1 point for each percent completed in the Stand, Move and Exercise goals. Additional points are added for percentages exceeding your goals. However you can’t earn more than 600 points per day or 4200 points per week. The one that counts the most points at the end of the 7-day period wins the competition!
– The winner receives an extra badge for being victorious along with the regular badge received by both players for taking part and completing the challenge.

How To Check Activity Competition Status
You can check the status of your challenge on your iPhone or directly on the Apple Watch. If you do it on the iOS device you will get more extended info:
1. Open the Activity app on your iPhone.
2. Tap the Sharing tab.
3. Tap the name of the competition available in the “Competitions” section.
Fact: Check the total number of points each participant has collected, as well as the daily progress. More info about the current day is displayed to. You’re informed about how many steps your friend has completed in the current day and what distance he has covered.

Tip: You can tease your friend by sending messages during the competition. Whenever a competitor completes a challenge the other participant receives a notification (unless you decide to mute them in Activity -> Sharing -> Competition -> Mute Notifications). You can reply to this notification via the Apple Watch, or send a competition related message whenever you want from the Activity app available on the iPhone or AW!