Footpath for Apple Watch Elite

With Footpath Elite, you can send routes to your Apple Watch, with full support for GPS tracking, turn-by-turn audio navigation, and topo maps, even offline.

Sending routes to your Apple Watch

Open the cue sheet:

• Open the saved route
• Tap the “Cue Sheet” tab at the bottom
• Tap “Send to Watch”

You should feel a buzz on your wrist and Footpath will open automatically with your route loaded. Footpath will automatically download the route maps for offline use.

Navigating offline

Footpath can navigate 100% offline on your Apple Watch. No need to carry your phone to navigate with full turn-by-turn audio directions.

Just be sure to send the route to your watch before you lose service or disconnect from your iPhone, and Footpath will keep the route loaded on your watch. When you send the route to your watch, Footpath will automatically download all of the topographic maps it needs.

Topo maps for Apple Watch

Footpath can display full topographic maps in the Apple Watch app. Just tap the metrics or navigation screen during a recording to view the map. You can drag your finger to pan around, or you can zoom in and out with the digital crown.

Action button for Apple Watch Ultra

With the Apple Watch Ultra, you can configure the action button to toggle the map during a Footpath workout. This is particularly useful if you plan to use Footpath with gloves on.

To configure the action button:

• Just visit the Settings app on your watch > Action Button
• Select “Action” > “Workout”
• Select “App” > “Footpath”

Customizable metrics

You can swipe vertically between 3 pages of metrics screens. Long press any metric on the screen to customize the metric displayed. You can choose from metrics such as elevation gain, running power, cadence, calories burned, current battery life, etc.

Elevation profiles

After you’ve sent a route to your watch and started a recording, swipe vertically through the metrics screens until you find the elevation profile screen.

You can tap or double tap the elevation profile to zoom in. Footpath will automatically zoom in the graph when you start a climb, so you can keep track of your progress to the summit.

Tips and tricks

If you generally don’t need audio instructions, you can just use the mute button at the top of the screen to turn off audio instructions. Then when you’re out on your route, just double tap the navigation screen and Footpath will tell you where to turn, at your request.

Quickly pause and resume your workout by pressing the digital crown and side buttons at the same time.

Navigation with another workout app

If you’d like to use Footpath for navigation alongside another workout app, such as the default Apple Workouts app, you’ll need to enable a special setting before you start navigation with Footpath. WatchOS only allows one active workout app to run at any given time, so you need to tell Footpath that you’re going to run another workout app instead.

Just tap the activity button below the start button to access the settings screen, and then select “Use with other workout app”. You’ll need to enable this every time you want to navigate along side another workout app.

When this happens, Footpath lets the other workout app stay in the foreground, while Footpath provides turn guidance through interactive notifications and audio. You can tap the turn notifications to jump over to Footpath to check the map or your upcoming turns. After you lower your wrist, your workout app will return to the foreground.

Just remember to return to Footpath to stop navigation after you end your workout. Footpath will still save the GPS recording to Footpath on your iPhone, but it won’t automatically save the workout to Apple Health in order to prevent a duplicate activity.

Ending navigation

Footpath won’t automatically end navigation and your GPS recording when you arrive at your destination, in case you’re competing in a race or want to continue recording GPS beyond your destination.

To end the recording, simply swipe to the left and tap the “Pause” button, and then press the red “Stop” button.

If you’ve moved over 0.25 miles or 400 meters, Footpath will automatically save your recording and send it to your iPhone.

Just open the iPhone app and select the “Tracks” tab to see a map, summary, and analysis of your track.

Using Footpath alongside music and podcast apps

Footpath on Apple Watch can be used for turn-by-turn audio navigation alongside the native Music and Podcasts apps, as well as most third-party audio apps.

Overcast is one of the few third-party apps reported to have issues with Footpath navigation on Apple Watch (both apps work fine together on iPhone). The developer has not implemented audio interruptions correctly in the Apple Watch app, and Overcast does not resume playback after Footpath speaks a turn instruction. To work around this, just use the playback controls on your headphones to resume your podcast. You can also mute the turn instructions in Footpath, and instead use your headphones to pause Overcast when you want Footpath to play a turn instruction at your command.

If you are using a third-party audio app on your iPhone while using navigation in Footpath on your Apple Watch, you may on rare occasions see an issue where the music pauses after Footpath announces a turn instruction. This is due to a system bug that occurs if the Apple Watch is temporarily unable to communicate with your iPhone and your headphones switch from your iPhone to your Apple Watch. If this occurs, simply swipe to the rightmost music controls screen in Footpath to resume the music on your iPhone.