Achievement badges are a funny thing. You know they’re just a simple little bit of visual flair, they don’t even do anything, and yet for some reason you just have to collect them. Achievements are great motivators, and the achievement badges for the activity tracking on the Apple Watch have inspired many users to get more exercise.
If you want to maximize your badge count, you’re going to watch to chase down as many activity achievements as you can. Most are available year-round, but there are also some time-limited special events to grab, too. Here’s a list of all the activity achievements for the Apple Watch and how to unlock them.
Standard achievements
Most of the achievements can be earned year-round. If you open the Activityapp on your iPhone, then head over to the Achievements tab, you’ll see some of them listed even before you earn them (in which case they will be represented by a grey outline).
However, there are some achievements that are not shown until you earn them. Past and future monthly challenges, for example, won’t show up, nor do all the various individual exercise workouts.
Here is a list of all the standard badges you can get.
First [exercise] Workout
The first time you perform a new exercise for at least 5 minutes, you’ll get a achievement badge. The workout types eligible for this are:
- Cycling
- Elliptical
- Rowing
- Running
- Stair-stepper
- Swimming
- Walking
Activities with both indoor and outdoor variants, like Cycling and Walking, are bundled together; you can do either activity to get the badge, and can only get it once.
[exercise] Workout Record
Every time you beat your previous best record for calories burned in any of the exercises listed above, you get this badge.
There is one caveat: You must complete five workouts of that type first. If you want to game the system, make sure your first four workouts of each type are relatively short and easy, so it won’t take much effort to beat them.
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7-Workout Week
Simply complete any workout of at least 15 minutes every day of the week. Note that the week is Monday-Sunday, and you have to do a workout on each of those days (you can’t simply do any seven days in a row). If you start a walking workout whenever you walk outside, you can achieve this easily.
New Move Record
Any day that your Move ring goes further than ever before (meaning you burned more calories in a day), you’ll earn this award. There’s one catch: you have to use your Apple Watch for 10 days before you can complete this.
New Exercise Record
This is just like the Move Record achievement, only for the green ring. This one is based on minutes of exercise, not calories burned, so it’s really easy to get. Just like the Move Record achievement, you have to use your Apple Watch for 10 days first.
Move Goal 200%, 300%, 400%
You earn this when you exceed your calorie target (the red Move ring) by 2x, 3x, or 4x, respectively. In other words, it’s given for making the red activity ring go around two, three, or four times in a day. It’s easy to get if you just set your Move goal very low.
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New Move Goal
Every time you change your daily Move goal, and then exceed that new goal, you get this achievement. You can change your Move goal by opening the Activity app on your Apple Watch and force-pressing the screen.
Longest Move Streak
When you hit your Move goal (close the red ring) several days in a row, that’s a “streak.” You get this award when your streak finally ends, if it’s longer than your previous best streak.
Perfect Week
This is given out for four categories: Move, Exercise, Stand, and All Activity. For the first three, simply close the rings (red, green, or blue) every day of the week. To get the Perfect Week (All Activity) badge, close all three rings every day for an entire week. You can earn this multiple times, though it only shows one badge.
Remember, one week in the Activity app is from Monday-Sunday!
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Perfect Month
Unlike Perfect Week, there are not multiple different Perfect Month badges for the different color rings. The lone Perfect Month achievement is for closing the red Move ring every day of the month.
There’s a separate Perfect Month badge for every month and every year, though. So you can earn this in February and again in March, and again in February in the next year.
Monthly Challenge
Each month has its own unique fitness challenge. If you have notifications set for the Activity app on our Apple Watch, you’ll see the goal presented at the beginning of the month, but you’ll also see the current month’s challenge in the Achievements tab of the Activity app on your iPhone. It will be a grey outline before it’s completed, but you can tap on it to see what the challenge entails.
The monthly challenge may task you with burning a specific number of calories, working out a number of times, or traveling a certain distance. There’s no telling what each new month will bring, you just have to look!
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100, 365, 500, 1,000 Move Goals
When you hit your daily Move goal (close the red ring) 100 times, you get an achievement badge. You get another for hitting it 365 times, 500 times, and 1,000 times. These do not need to be in a row; it’s just the total number of times you’ve ever hit the goal.
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Limited Achievements
Apple occasionally posts one-off challenges that are only available for a limited time. Often, they’re only around for one day or one weekend. Some are limited to the U.S. because they’re based off U.S. holidays.
You’ll get a notification on your Apple Watch when one of them is coming up (make sure you have notifications enabled for the Activity app, using the Apple Watch app on your iPhone).
IDGApple makes a number of special time-limited badges available throughout the year.
National Fitness Day (August 8, China only)
There have been plenty of time-limited Activity achievements, and some that are region-specific, but this is the first one dedicated to China.
August 8th has been declared National Fitness Day in China, and according to a tweet from Kyle Seth Grey, Apple is making a special Activity badge available for those in China that complete a 30 minute or longer workout on that day.
Earth Day 2018 (April 22, 2018)
This badge had the same requirements in 2018 as 2017. Go outside and complete a workout activity of at least 30 minutes.
