Apple Watch users who close their rings today will get a cool free package of limited-edition digital prizes matt.evans@futurenet.com (Matt Evans) | usagoldmines.com

• To celebrate 10 years of Apple Watch, Apple has dubbed today (April 24) Global Close Your Rings Day
• Apple Watch users who close their rings get a host of limited-edition prizes
• These include an exclusive badge and stickers for their Messages app

On this day (April 24), 10 years ago, the Apple Watch arrived and changed the smartwatch landscape forever. To this day, the best Apple Watches in their many forms are the most popular smartwatches by a very large margin.

Apple is celebrating this anniversary by making it Global Close Your Rings Day, offering digital (and even physical) rewards for getting active. For today only, if you hit your movement, exercise and standing goals for the day, thereby closing all three of the activity rings on your Apple Watch, you’ll be rewarded with a limited-edition badge.

Badges are used by Apple in its Fitness app as markers of your achievements. Some users enjoy badge collecting, which can be awarded for activities like running a 10K or trying a new activity for the first time, as well as streaks such as closing your rings every day for a week (after which you get the ‘Perfect Week’ badge). A badge only available for one day is enticing for exercise-addicted badge collectors.

In addition to the limited Global Close Your Rings Day badge, closing your rings today will net you a selection of 10 stickers and an animated badge to send to your contacts in the Messages app. Once it hits midnight tonight, you’re out of luck, so make sure you get out there and get your steps in.

You can also get a physical pin to mark Global Close Your Rings Day by visiting your local Apple store while stocks last.

How to close your rings

1. Check your goals by tapping on the Activity Rings on your Apple Watch, or heading to the Fitness app on your iPhone, tapping the ring of choice and selectiong Adjust goal for today or Adjust goal schedule.
2. Fill your Movement ring, which combines exercise with the movement and steps you take throughout the day.
3. Fill your Exercise ring by starting a Workout on your Apple Watch and exercising for the required amount of time.
4. Fill your Stand ring by regularly standing up and moving around. You can toggle prompts on or off by tapping the Stand ring and tapping Stand reminders.

Lord of the Rings

It sounds like a simple step forward from the then-modern pedometers incorporated into smartwatches and the best fitness trackers, such as Fitbit and Pebble, but using an easy-to-see progress bar to track daily exercise has been a powerful tool for Apple, offering an easy gamification of fitness. Research from Apple claims Watch users who frequently close their rings are 73% less likely to experience elevated resting heart rate levels and 57% less likely to report elevated stress, among other benefits.

Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, said: “Apple Watch has changed the way people think about, monitor, and engage with their fitness and health. A decade ago, we introduced Activity rings — and since then, Apple Watch has grown to offer an extensive set of features designed to empower every user.”

Since then, it’s been emulated by its competitors such as Samsung, which offers heart-shaped ‘rings’ of its own, but Apple is the dominant force in the smartwatch industry and, as such, owns the language of ‘closing your rings’.

We’re expecting to see the Apple Watch Series 11 drop in September, alongside the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watch SE 3.

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