Apple sets Watch users challenge to be more active in 2017

Got an Apple Watch and fallen in love with earning achievements? Then Apple's opening up a short-term challenge for its smartwatch users.

Known as the 'Ring in the New Year' challenge (oh right - ring, as in 'ring it in' and 'fill the rings'! Clever) anyone with an Apple Watch will get a notification from today 10 minutes after they plop on their timepiece.

The challenge is simple: fill all three rings for seven days in a row in any week in January (Monday to Sunday) to win a special achievement badge and stickers in the Activity app.

To do that you'll need to move enough to hit your pre-defined calorie target, stand for 12 hours per day (in parts... not the whole time) and exercise for 30 minutes each 24 hours period too.

Just 29 minutes more...

The last one will be tough after the excesses of Christmas, but if you're addicted to achievements and like the idea of being forced to actually get exercising as 2017's rolls into our lives, then your Apple Watch will be able to offer a digital kick up the butt to achieve the cannily-named 'Ring in the New Year Achievement'.

The only downside is that you're locked to the Apple Watch, as this would have been an ace challenge for all iPhone users (and those using gadgets that can feed into Apple Health too) but hopefully that'll come in the near future if more short-term achievements pop up.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.