How to connect Apple Watch to Planet Fitness gym equipment

You can connect your Apple Watch to gym equipment, like the treadmill at Planet Fitness, for more accurate health data inside the Fitness and Health apps on your iPhone. After all, if you’re working out, you want to make sure your Apple Watch gives you credit for it.

Here’s how.

How to connect an Apple Watch to a Planet Fitness treadmill (and other gym equipment)

Table of Contents:

1. Turn on ‘Detect Gym Equipment’ in Settings

This setting is pretty buried.
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

On your Apple Watch, open Settings > Workout (at the very bottom) and turn on Detect Gym Equipment (halfway down the screen).

You can find these same settings in the Watch app on your iPhone, too.

2. Hold your Apple Watch next to the equipment

Hold your watch next to this icon on the treadmill.
Photo: Apple

With the screen facing the gym equipment, hold your Apple Watch next to the contactless reader. It should be marked with an icon or “Connects to Apple Watch.”

If you hear a tap and a beep, the equipment has been paired to your watch.

3. Press Start on your gym equipment

Press Start on your gym equipment and your Apple Watch will automatically start a workout.

Data will be synced to the Fitness app on your iPhone and the Activity app on your Apple Watch. After all, what’s the point of going to the gym if it isn’t helping you close your rings!

4. Sync the Planet Fitness Workout app with Apple Health

Alternatively, you can use the Planet Fitness Workout app to track your activity on their gym equipment. This works even if you don’t have an Apple Watch.

Download the app and you’ll be prompted to share data with Apple Health. If you enable this, after your workout, the data will appear in both places automatically.

If you already have the Planet Fitness Workout app and this doesn’t work, make sure it’s enabled. Open the Apple Health app, tap on the profile icon in the top right and tap Privacy > Apps and Services. Tap on an app and make sure its data is shared.

From here, you can delete app data, too.

Click here to read more about how to add hospital records, like vaccinations, to the Apple Health app too.