HT204666: Your heart rate. What it means, and where on Apple Watch you’ll find it.

Learn about Your heart rate. What it means, and where on Apple Watch you’ll find it.
jah224

Q: Three questions.  Does the heart rate monitor play nice with third party apps now?  Can you run those third party apps without the link to your phone?  How much storage?

My experience with the original watch is that the heart rate worked great with the in house apps but did not perform well with third party apps.  The native health apps were sub par at best.  Also, it would NOT run those third party (Strava) apps unless you were linked to your phone.  The new one won't do me much good if this is still the case.  Last, it's great that you can link your headphones now but how much storage does the watch have?  I'm not unrealistic, its understandable if its not much but I hope there's enough for a few apps and enough music to get you through a 4 hr ride.

iPhone 6, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 8, 2016 4:50 AM

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Q: Three questions.  Does the heart rate monitor play nice with third party apps now?  Can you run those third party apps w ... more

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  • by nick101,Helpful

    nick101 nick101 Sep 8, 2016 8:39 AM in response to jah224
    Level 5 (5,103 points)
    Sep 8, 2016 8:39 AM in response to jah224

    1. WatchOS3 makes big changes in this area, and 3rd party apps get direct access to things like HR. OS3 also makes everything much more responsive. The 3rd party apps will have to be updated to play with the HR monitor.

    2. You can run 3rd party apps without the phone with you, but for your kind of application, you'll want a Series 2 watch with GPS. The likes of Runkeeper work OK in the older watch, but without GPS, they don't really do the job you need. Again - 3rd party apps will need updates to work with the watch GPS. The OS3 software has been available to developers for a while now, so I expect software-only updates pretty soon. I don't know whether or when 3rd parties had access to hardware and GPS facilities,s so it may be some while before they have Series 2 updates.

    3. You can store 2GB of music. Obviously, how much music that is depends on format and quality, but certainly several hours.

     

    Hope that helps

  • by jah224,Helpful

    jah224 jah224 Sep 8, 2016 8:47 AM in response to nick101
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple Watch
    Sep 8, 2016 8:47 AM in response to nick101

    Thanks for the reply.  I was disappointed with the first gen watch, expected so much more.  This resulted in short lived ownership, so I really never gave it a chance.  It sounds like OS3, GPS, and water proofing solve most of its short comings.

  • by nick101,

    nick101 nick101 Sep 8, 2016 8:52 AM in response to jah224
    Level 5 (5,103 points)
    Sep 8, 2016 8:52 AM in response to jah224

    OS3 is certainly a big step forward. If you don't have a 1st gen, then GPS and waterproofing make the Series 2 a good bet.

     

    Those of us with Gen 1s are now frantically trying to work out whether to upgrade or not!

  • by matteocarlito,

    matteocarlito matteocarlito Sep 9, 2016 11:27 PM in response to nick101
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 9, 2016 11:27 PM in response to nick101

    Hi Nick, thanks for your help.

    i am trying to understand if 2nd series works for me. nowadays i wear a competitor which has continuos heart rate monitor. i think apple watch 2 still does not have this feature, if i get it right.

    it stills measure your beat once in a while, and not continuos (unless you are running)

    that means: in case of walk outside even for several hours, calories burn won't be accurated, as heart monitor still not works all the time. am i wrong?

    thanks.

    matteo

  • by nick101,

    nick101 nick101 Sep 9, 2016 11:59 PM in response to matteocarlito
    Level 5 (5,103 points)
    Sep 9, 2016 11:59 PM in response to matteocarlito

    matteocarlito wrote:

     

     

    it stills measure your beat once in a while, and not continuos (unless you are running)

    That's not quite accurate - it's continuous if you start a Workout - which could be walking (or cycling or others), not just running.

    matteocarlito wrote:

     

    i think apple watch 2 still does not have this feature, if i get it right.

    Watch 2 operates the same way as 1

     

    matteocarlito wrote:

     

    that means: in case of walk outside even for several hours, calories burn won't be accurated, as heart monitor still not works all the time. am i wrong?

    If you have not started a workout, the watch will calculate calories burned based on your weight, speed of walking and time/distance. I'm not qualified to say how absolutely accurate that calculation is. It's good enough for me, but may not be for others

     

    There's more information here:

     

    https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204666

  • by matteocarlito,

    matteocarlito matteocarlito Sep 10, 2016 12:06 AM in response to nick101
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 10, 2016 12:06 AM in response to nick101

    Thanks for the answer Nick

    as i think, if you simply just go for a walk without turning on any app, hw 2 does not measures your heart rate continuously.

    maybe third part app will solve.

    Thanks again,

    matteo