The five reasons some people wear their Apple Watch on their ankle

A growing number of people are wearing their Apple Watch on their ankle, according to a new report, with five different reasons cited.

The most mundane of these are people with tiny wrists who find that the Watch is too loose during workouts, even with the smallest of bands …

The New York Times reports that this applies to fitness influencer Ana Espinal.

In the old days, back when Ana Espinal was wearing an Apple Watch on her wrist at the gym, she often found that her fitness app would shut down during her workout. Ms. Espinal has tiny wrists, she said, and she wondered if the problem was her loose watch not being able to register her heart rate […]

She sought solutions online, where she found a small community of people who had experienced similar issues and had rectified them in a novel way — by enlisting their ankles.

Some also found that they got more accurate step counts from wearing it on their ankle when walking or running. Step-counting relies on the swinging motion of your arm, which can be less consistent than the more predictable motion of your feet.

Indeed, in some examples given, the Watch wasn’t counting steps at all – like when walking on a treadmill at a standing desk, and pushing a baby stroller with your watch hand.

Some people with wrist tattoos have also reported that heart-rate readings are either unavailable or unreliable when the sensor is wholly or partly blocked by the ink.

Others with skin conditions have found the Watch uncomfortable, while wearing it on the less sensitive skin around their ankles feels ok.

Finally, some medical professions are not allowed to wear watches at all because of hygiene rules in hospitals, so have taken to wearing it around an ankle to track the often substantial number of steps they walk during a shift.

One surprisingly common issue reported by those who do this is people mistaking it for the type of ankle monitor fitted to some convicted criminals or suspects awaiting trial to enforce conditions on where they can be when.

That sort of conversation is common — more common than any of these women would prefer. Mrs Hughley Beasley often feels as if she should be assuring her neighbors that she is not under house arrest.

Photo by Ryan De Hamer on Unsplash