Apple Watch Series 3 Workout not adding to my Exercise ring! Why not?

Is your walk actually exercise?

Considering the intermittent nature of your issue, I’m wondering whether all your walks are actually exercise?

According to the Health app on your iPhone:

Every full minute of movement equal to or exceeding the intensity of a brisk walk counts towards your daily Exercise Minutes.

^{NOTE: Emphasis mine}

So, if you’re just going for a casual walk it’s not likely to count towards this ring. If your walk happens to be at a faster pace, it will. This would explain the intermittent nature of your experience with the Exercise ring, and also explains why the Move ring still works, because even a casual walk will burn calories.

The bottom line is that it does not work properly. It does count the movement that exceeds the heartbeat level of a brisk walk, however, it does not add the exercise if you start a workout. The problem here is that unless you maintain a high activity level all throughout your workout it only counts a partial exercise out of your full workout. Like I said, bottom line is that it does not work and it is annoying. The Polar M430 and the Fitbit surge works much better if all you are concern is your fitness tracking.

People have been posting this question for over a year. Some work outs are reported reliably to the exercise ring, but others aren't. In particular, the outdoor walk work outs are not reported, despite accurately reporting distance, route, time and heart rates under the Workouts tab of the Activities App. The data just doesn't reliably flow into the exercise ring of the Activity App. The only workout that will flow the time exercised into the exercise ring is the "Other" work out, which records only time and no other useful data.

Please use the Apple Product Feedback website to complain about this bug. If Apple hears enough complaints, they may eventually assign some engineers to fix this bug. Otherwise, the Apple Watch fails as a fitness tracker if you intend to use the work out apps to record outdoor walking and other workouts that don't reliably report data to the exercise ring.