Really obvious high heart rate notifications not working?

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Heart rate notifications on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

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Hi R_O_B_Apple,

Thanks for posting this update. I am curious if this issue was ever remedied by Apple?

I ask because I saw that during the nighttime from 04.13 to 05.17, a period of over one hour, the heart rate recorded ranged consistently from 119 - 129 with no notification.

The high heart rate notification feature has worked in the past, but seems to have stopped working as I recall noticing this happen previously during the past several months. Like you, this is a significant reason for purchasing an Apple Watch.

My current setup is:

• • iPhone Xs iOS running 14.2
  • iWatch 4 series watch running os 7.1

And I have tried all the classic first-line remedies like restarting devices and such.

Any thoughts you have, or any of those from the eagle-eyed folks at Apple support, would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi LderMan11,

Dont freak out - if you think by any chance that the measurements are accurate - check with your doctor. There are many reasons that can cause this and some of them are not much to worry.

Now if you believe that a technical error might be the cause, then what I would do is:

• try to wear your watch on the other hand and see if you can reproduce. For me it seems that it only happens when i wear the watch on the left hand and i do suspect that it can be something related to movement or the position of the arm that causes this. And i also get sometimes 10-15 high measurements in a row, so that does not tell much.
• not sure which version of watch you have, but check your hrv measurement if available during the period of high heart rate; what i noticed is that in between those 10-15 high readings it usually comes a hrv measurement which takes a sample every second for a minute and that is normal for sleep (for me around 50-55). Check for the beat to beat measurements data. There are differences in the way the 2 types of measurement use the sensors so a software/hardware error might explain the high measurements.
• what you can also do is try to use an app like cardiogram and record your heartrate continuously for the night; this will mess up your stats as the watch will think that you are working out the whole night but it will give you a nice continuous heart rate to check in the morning
• if available, you can try to use a second watch/fitness tracker on your other arm and compare the results

Hope this helps! And remember - always check with your doctor when in doubt.

Apple Watch 6

iPhone 11

• My watch has never sent me any notifications since I purchased the 6 the day it came out. The notifications are on, the nominal which I believe are 50/120. I have heart rates in the 40s and heart rates up to 180 as seen in the health app. These are at all times, not just during rest - I don’t wear my watch to sleep. Actually, the only time i got a notification was when I used the ECG app while working out. I work in cardiology and run a pacemaker clinic. It’s important to have these notifications work, and I find it inaceptable that they don’t. My dad wants to purchase a watch to help monitor if he goes into AFib and I told him not to based off of my experience and the experience in this thread.
• if anyone finds a resolution, please keep us updated.

Devices: Apple Watch Series 4 (44mm) running watchOS 7.02 with iPhone 11 Pro Max running OS14.2

Hi all, I am experiencing the same problem.

Last night my BPM jumped from 70 to 144 around 1:30am while I was asleep. This high heart rate (according to the data Apple shows me) remained consistently high around the 130-140BPM mark for several hours, dropping back down to my normal resting heart rate range in the 60s some time after 4am. Images included below:

I received no high heart rate alerts, and I never have before. I would have thought this example was a clear situation where the notification should have occurred.

I know some are sceptical of the accuracy of the Apple Heart Monitoring, but I am inclined to believe the heart rate in this instance was somewhat accurate as I have recently begun using a doctor prescribed medication where periods of tachycardia are a known temporary side effect, and I have been experiencing this at times during the day, but not for longer than a few minutes. And as of tomorrow I am actually going to be wearing a heart and blood pressure monitor for 24hours to pick up abnormalities (organised before this episode with my Apple Watch data).

Anyway I am very keen to know why the advertised function of notifications are not occurring.

Even if the BPM data is not entirely accurate - when the data shows sustained BPM over the 100BPM threshold I have set and lasts beyond the 10mins required, the notification feature should be kicking in regardless. And it currently is not.

Apple really needs to address this issue with customers, whether it be to clarify the potential misunderstanding between advertised functionality and customer expectation, or to fix it as a known issue, or acknowledge at the very least an issue yet to be fixed. It is dangerous to set an expectation around functionality and then not perform accordingly, when it related to heart health.

Hello Rob and Razvd,

first of all I want to thank you guys for getting back to me this quickly with great replies like this! It is much appreciated! I was definitely freaking out because of this because I am a bit of a hypochondriac and feel bad about bothering my doctor with this during the current lockdown.

i have checked the “Beat to beat” section in the HVR section and unfortunately, there was no measurement for last night during the time of the elevated heart rate. This is kind of strange because usually there is a measurement every two hours which could be an indication that the watch was not able to get an accurate HVR measurement during that time which could mean a sensor/software error.

There was however a HVR measurement for when this happens on November 21st. And sure enough, that measurement is totally normal (about 48 bpm). This is actually also reflected in the normal heart rate measurement with the only below 100 dot in the attached screenshot coinciding exactly with the HVR measurement.

It it also strange that neither of there events triggers an elevated heart rate warning even thought I have received multiple low heart rate warnings (below 45) during my sleep in the last weeks and my Apple Watch is also listed as a device providing data in the high heart rate warning section in the health app.

so it could be that the Apple Watch notices that the readings are abnormal and does not trigger a warning because of that.

i will wear my girlfriends Apple Watch on my other arm for a few nights and report back!

I sympathise & have the same problem I.e. getting high heart rates while asleep but no notifications. My “data sources” also empty. This is my first iWatch & all the heart rate notifications (Irregular, high & low) have the same issue with no data source so looks like none of them will work? Have you had any answers from elsewhere?

Thank-you R_O_B_Apple.

I had an online chat with Apple Support but they only recommended taking my watch back to factory settings & seeing if that helped. Well, I've done that but now need to wait until my heart does something worthy of a notification - which to date has only happened every month or so i.e. high heart rates while asleep - before getting back to them for any further help. I'm not optimistic but you never know...

I think you're right that the data source only gets populated when there's a notifiable event since my wife's watch has notified her once of a low heart rate but the others have no sources.

R_O_B_Apple

An update - today I spoke on the phone with Apple Health Support who said they didn't think the high heart rate notification worked while the watch thinks you're asleep - so in our cases that would rule out notifications! They have escalated this to somewhere else & will call me back next week with a more detailed answer & confirm if this 'sleeping' issue is correct. I asked how the watch 'knew' I was asleep & got the answer that if I was 'still' for more than 'a while' it would assume I was asleep. Since this is quite ambiguous that's why they are escalating for a more precise answer. I'll let you know how this goes.

I then also asked if this would also be the case for low & irregular heart rate notifications - they were unsure about this but will get this resolved, hopefully, via the same escalation. If so then a significant part of the reasons I bought an Apple Watch will have been negated.