iPhone Fitness app thinks I have an Apple Watch

[Wildsau]

I have been using the Fitness app since I updated to iOS 16 and I enjoy completing the ring (steps only) and the ability to have it on my lock screen.

This morning I opened the app and it said "welcome to fitness app with your apple watch" or something like that. I didn't pay attention to it and tapped through a couple of goal-setting screens. But then I realized the Fitness app is no longer functioning to count my steps towards my goal. It's as if it thinks I have an Apple watch and it's waiting for the data, because it has not registered a single step since then and it's suddenly showing all three rings now as it would if I had an Apple Watch, which I do not. My Health app is continuing to count all my steps.

What happened? How can I tell my Fitness app to go back to just using the phone as a step counter?

 

[0128672]

That's a weird one! does it show as a data device in the Health app settings?

 

[Wildsau]

That's a weird one! does it show as a data device in the Health app settings?

Ooohh I didn’t even know that was a thing! Just checked - it is not on the list.

 

[0128672]

I see you posted the same question on the Apple Community Discussions. Maybe you'll get a good suggestion there too that you might share here.

If this was happening to my phone/fitness app, I'd delete and reinstall the Fitness app. If that didn't work, I might disable in the Health app the Fitness app data sharing setting. If that didn't resolve it, I'd probably delete all the data and devices via the Health app, and then re-add the phone as a device. It's been so long I'm not sure whether it gets automatically added. Some people would be aghast at losing older data, but that's not a big deal for my usage.