Apple Watch - am I missing something?

[OrangeSunset]

Got myself a discounted Apple Watch via Vitality. However I’m a bit underwhelmed after a few days.
I’m usually a Garmin girl for running, riding and swimming, but my Garmin is a bit chunky and the aesthetics of the Apple Watch appealed.

BUT
I can’t sync my apple watch workouts to Strava. It doesn’t look like you can set interval running workouts and head out the door waiting for the beeps.

I see lots of people wearing them in the gym, so wonder if I’m missing something in the functionality.

I do it the other way round - I have Strava on the Apple Watch, use it to track my run and then the data transfers into Apple workouts. I prefer to do it this way as I like the social / routes and segments bit I Strava.

One of the issues I have though is that I can't run an Interval timing app on the Apple Watch at the same time as Strava is tracking a run on the watch as 'workouts' can't deal with two things at the same time.

My workaround for this is to either use an interval timer on my phone (in my headphones) and set it to not transfer data to workouts or to use a GymBoss if I'm running without headphones.

It's been frustrating that such a pricey piece of kit doesn't do the specific thing I bought it for but my Apple loving DH says new things are launching for the workouts App in the autumn.

It is possible to do it the other way round - Apple workout data into Strava - using an paid-for App called Run Gap

theapplewatchtriathlete.com/blog-1/2017/9/25/uploading-workout-data-from-apple-watch-to-strava-and-others

but I started to get double activity counting going on, so for everything other than running, I just use the workouts app alone.

Ah yes so I'll do that with Strava but agree that a lack of internals is annoying. Just one of the reasons a Garmin is so good!

Next challenge is to work out how to get the activity data in to Vitality.

Oh I can help with that. Do you have the Vitality app? It's a bit rubbish though...In the app, go to Rewards, then link your device, and choose Apple Health. I think that's it (it's been a while since I did it...). There are good step by step instructions on the proper vitality website.

The app is pretty glitchy and can take a while to load points, but they generally get there eventually.