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Apple Watch

The Apple Watch app is a companion to the iPhone app. From your wrist you can submit penalties and incidents — manually or by voice — and approve pending penalties, without pulling the phone out of your pocket.

The home screen has three actions — Penalty, Incident, and Approve — plus a microphone button in the top-left for voice submissions.

Apple Watch app home screen with Penalty, Incident, Approve and the voice mic

Setup

The watch app is bundled with the iOS app. With the default Apple Watch settings it installs automatically when you install the iPhone app, and there is no separate sign-in — the watch uses the identity from your paired iPhone.

The watch app only works while the paired iPhone is in race mode. Open the iOS app, join a race, and tap into race mode — the watch app becomes active at that point.

Submitting a penalty

You have two ways in:

  • Manually — tap Penalty, enter the athlete number, then pick the reason. The watch skips the category step from the phone flow and goes straight to a single scrollable Reason list of penalty types. Disqualifications aren't available on the watch.
  • By voice — tap the mic in the top-left of the home screen and speak your report. The audio is sent for AI classification and the penalty (or incident) is pre-filled the same way as on the phone. See Voice commands for what the AI understands and which languages are supported.

For the athlete number you can pick between two inputs and swap with the toggle in the top-right: the digital crown wheel, or a numeric keypad.

Athlete number entry on the watch — crown wheel Athlete number entry on the watch — numeric keypad

If the entered athlete number falls into more than one gender category, the watch asks you to confirm the gender before continuing. Relay submissions add an A/B/C/D step after that.

On drafting races, the drafting penalty appears at the top of the Reason list.

Reason list on the watch with penalty types

Voice input recording on the watch

Photos and videos can't be attached from the watch — submissions that need media still go through the phone.

Submitting an incident

Tap Incident on the home screen — the watch asks for the reason first, then the athlete number. For incident types that don't involve a specific athlete (course obstacles, weather conditions), the athlete-number step is skipped and the submission goes straight to confirm.

You can also use the mic on the home screen to submit an incident by voice — the AI classifies the report the same way as for penalties.

Approving penalties

Officials with approval permissions can approve pending penalties from the watch. Tap Approve on the home screen to open the Approvals list — each row shows the athlete number, penalty type, and submitter. Tap a row to see the details, then drag the Slide to Approve pill to confirm.

Pending penalties list on the watch Penalty approval detail on the watch

Complications

Add a RaceRanger complication to your watch face for one-tap access. Five complications are available:

  • Open the app — launches the watch app.
  • Submit penalty — jumps straight into the penalty flow.
  • Submit incident — jumps straight into the incident flow.
  • Voice — starts a voice submission immediately.
  • Approve — opens the pending approvals list.

RaceRanger complications on the Apple Watch face

Configure complications from the Watch app on your iPhone, or by long-pressing the watch face and editing it.

Requirements

  • An Apple Watch paired to an iPhone that has the RaceRanger app installed.
  • The paired iPhone in race mode for the current event.
  • For voice submissions: voice commands enabled for the event and your role's AI permissions enabled — same gating as on the phone.
  • For approvals: a role with penalty approval permissions.

If you'd rather wear a Garmin, see Garmin watches.