How to disable Live Activity on Apple Watch while keeping it enabled on iPhone?

Question

Created Oct ’24

Replies 4

Boosts 0

Participants 5

I'm using Live Activity features in my app, but I want to customize the user experience across different Apple devices. Specifically, I'd like to:

Keep Live Activity enabled and functioning on the iPhone Disable or prevent Live Activity from appearing on the connected Apple Watch

Is this level of device-specific control possible with Live Activity? If so, what's the best approach to implement this functionality? What I've tried:

I've looked through Apple's documentation on Live Activity, but couldn't find specific information about device-level control. I've experimented with ActivityKit, but haven't found a clear way to distinguish between iPhone and Apple Watch when pushing updates.

Answered by Frameworks Engineer in 807858022

No, live activities are forwarded to the watch automatically on purpose. You can customize the experience for Apple Watch if you like by indicating that your Live Activity supports the .small supplementalActivityFamily and providing a custom view for .small.

Is there something about this customization option that is insufficient for your needs?

Boost

Answer 1

Frameworks Engineer OP

Apple

Oct ’24

Recommended

No, live activities are forwarded to the watch automatically on purpose. You can customize the experience for Apple Watch if you like by indicating that your Live Activity supports the .small supplementalActivityFamily and providing a custom view for .small.

Is there something about this customization option that is insufficient for your needs?

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Answer 2

Frameworks Engineer OP

Apple

Oct ’24

As noted above, there is not You are just making explicit the automatic behavior when you specify support only for .medium.

Your options as a developer are to allow the automatic behavior or customize the appearance as in m original reply. It’s up to the Watch wearer to disable the forwarding if they do not find it useful.

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Answer 3

andrewfromCanada OP

Oct ’24

What about the case where a companion watchOS app is running a workout with WorkoutKit?

We have a similar issue, where we have an iOS app with a watch companion. During a workout (we're a workout app), we display a live activity on the phone, which syncs to the watch.

The watch smart stack then shows TWO widgets:

The native workout widget
The mirrored live activity from the phone

This feels a bit redundant and unnecessary, but from what I'm reading there is no way to disable mirroring of the live activity all together, only disable customization.

1

Answer 4

eschos24 OP

Oct ’24

I also am working on a workout app, and it makes no sense to have a live activity for it on the watch. We have a watchOS app already, which shows all the workout info as you workout, so having a live activity is redundant and confusing.

I also worry that it causes issues with the connection between iPhone and Apple Watch. We already have issues occasionally with delayed communication between the devices (usually due to interference from lots of other nearby devices), so this will only make it worse if the phone is sending even more information to the watch that is unnecessary and unhelpful.

This honestly has me considering removing the Live Activity feature from the app altogether, especially since iOS 18 drastically reduced the frequency of updates allowed. Instead of being able to update the Live Activity every second, now it's down to once every 5 - 15 seconds, which just feels ridiculous for a workout app.

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