Q: After the Apple Watch 1.0.1 Update, Heart Rate stopped working...

Here's another data point for consideration. If I walk on my treadmill, I can choose either an Indoor Walk workout or an Other workout. Here are the calorie counts for both kinds of workouts, for a 30-minute walk at 3.5 mph:

Indoor Walk: 91

Other:          179

Clearly there is something wrong with one or both of these. They're both counting my heart rate, and one of them knows that I'm walking, whereas the other doesn't know what I'm doing. I would expect, in fact, that the Indoor Walk would yield a higher number, if only because it know's what type of activity I'm doing.

Note that both of these numbers are well below what online calculators suggest. I've discussed that here:

How Does the Apple Watch Calculate Calories for Workouts?

What I'm wondering about now is why there are two different mechanisms for capturing the heart rate in the first place? Power consumption issues, perhaps? If the IR sensors used for the 10 minute checks aren't  working out well, why not just use green LEDs?

To all those of you saying the IR detection may be at fault. How can the world's most valuable company launch a product that it has allegedly been in testing and  developing  for years suddenly change the specs of the device a coupe of weeks after launch to cover up a failing on their part?

If this is the case they should tell the truth and not make it up.

That said, we have no idea why Apple have suddenly changed the watch feature set and they are so secretive we will probably never know.

The frustration continues.

Yes.  The IR sensor is less power hungry.  I would still think the difference is minimal however as the original specs for the watch on Watch OS 1.0 would try first with IR sensor every 10 minutes and then switch to the green LEDs if the IR failed to detect a HR.  I haven't really noticed a difference in 1.0.1 as far as battery life goes, so one would assume the period flashing of the green LEDs didn't deplete the battery much.

The Basis Peak I used prior to the AW flashed the green LEDs continuously (to the point you could always see them flashing) to take continuous readings and it's battery lasted four days.  Granted, it had a e-ink screen, but still, I doubt that they are a huge power drain used as infrequently as they were in the original OS.

This is just stupid. When I'm moving is when I want my heart rate monitored. Do I have to constantly set the "Other" workout when I want my heart rate monitored when I'm moving, doing gardening, etc.? Makes no sense whatsoever. Talk about draining battery life.

I too have the same issue, Apple help!

I Was reading this article and saw something very peculiar. It mentions that you don't have to open up the workout app since the watch automatically detects when you are working out. doesn't sound like that is the case with people's tests here over the past couple of days.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/02/the-apple-watch-as-a-fitness-device/?utm_medi um=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_camp…

This article is so favorable, I wonder if the tested watch was still running 1.0

Exactly!  This has been all over the media and even in Apple's advertisements.  Supposedly you don't even  need the Workout App and the watch is somehow supposed to track your activity regardless.  This is obviously not the case if you do any sort of testing.   My guess is they don't do any comparison tests when doing these reviews and just take Apple's word for it.

This article may not relate directly to this thread, but it should help with the workout app

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/02/the-apple-watch-as-a-fitness-device/?utm_cont ent=bufferb9a5e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I suggest reading the whole article.  It agrees with a lot of what has been stated in this thread

Miller. I have a friend with exactly the same sports watch as me. I have an elliptical cross trainer at home. I'll do a workout wearing both watches. One with the elliptical workout running and one without it running.

I'll post my results in the next couple of days.

Are you guys on different software versions?

He Guys,

I gave it up to think about this HR tool. For me it is not usable at all. Either the frequency of messurements nor the accurance of the accidently messures are acceptable. If on a Cycling workout the HR reading stops  for more than 5 minutes or the readings are jumping between 70 and 150 within a few seconds i cannot trust in those values. Same problems with distance(with GPS). Sometimes it is ok and at another day same distance is (mostly) much to short, up to 10 %.

For workouts i will go back to my garmin watch until Apple solves these problems.

I like the watch, but at the moment not usable at all for the main purpose i bought it, workout messurements.

To those of you questioning if the fitness rings on the iPhone app updated at different speeds depending on whether you have the fitness app running on the watch or not I can confirm the following….

I have just competed a 10 minute elliptical exercise wearing 2 identical Apple Sports watches.  One on each wrist and straps both tightened to the same fitting.  Both watches are running V1.01.  During the workout I reached a heart rate of approximately 140 on both watches.

At the end of the 10 minute exercise the following data was noted:

Watch running the elliptical activity app: 85 total calories and 10 minutes of exercise.

Watch not running any workout: 48 total calories and 6 minutes of exercise.

So you can see by doing exactly the same exercise at the same time on the same person you get 2 totally different results depending if you are running the watch’s activity app or not.

Further more, the actual watch activity app itself recorded 93 total calories.  So why does that differ from the 85 total calories the SAME watch sends its paired iPhone fitness app?  So now we have 3 different calorie burns for the same exercise: 93, 85 and 48!

While I agree I was wearing a friend’s watch as my second testing device, we are of similar build and fitness.  Based on our daily resting calorie comparison we burn a difference of 3.5 calories every 10 minutes.  In this exercise the difference was 37 calories over 10 minutes. Imagine how inaccurate it would be if I exercised for a couple of hours, then multiply that up into days, weeks and months.

Personally, I think the watch data is fundamentally broken and any data it produces should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I'll copy this post to Apple feedback.

That's very interesting. However, in the interest of getting everything just exactly right, did you make sure that each watch was set for the dominant and non-dominant wrist? It may not make a difference for something like an elliptical, but, still, to be totally sure, you should make sure that it's set correctly.