How to Disable Automatic Gym Equipment Detection on Apple Watch

How-To Geek

By Justin Duino

Published Aug 9, 2019

Worried about your Apple Watch automatically syncing data with smart gym equipment? Here's how you can turn the feature off.

Some newer pieces of gym equipment include the ability to connect to your Apple Watch to sync data automatically. If you don't want this pairing process to happen automatically, you can disable the gym equipment detection on your iPhone. Here's how.

Open the "Watch" app on your iPhone.

In the main menu, tap on the "Workout" option, located halfway down the list.

Scroll down to the bottom of the list and toggle off "Detect Gym Equipment."

Apple iPhone Apple Watch App Workout Menu

If you ever want to revert the setting, you can jump back into the "Workout" menu and toggle "Detect Gym Equipment" back on.

And that's it. Your Apple Watch will no longer automatically detect and connect to GymKit-compatible gym equipment.

If you still want to sync data from smart gym equipment to your Apple Watch, you can even with the automatic detection feature turned off. All you have to do is open the Workout app on your watch and then hold the watch near the device.