Apple Watch - criteria for taking non activity heart rate recordings

Thanks but those pages deal with high/low notifications or AFib checks but don’t comment on the regular standard daily heart rate recordings and why the intervals between readings can be many minutes and seem totally random.

As I mentioned above of the issue is the frequency and intervals between heart beat recordings. The more recordings taken will make the daily range far more comprehensive and realistic. To have data based on 1 or 2 readings an hour will hardly present a complete picture rather than say 12 every hour (every 5 minutes). If you do a short activity say run to catch a bus or after your dog it will miss your risen heat beat completely. Yes for some hours (hence random as there appears to be no criteria set out by Apple as to why that particular hour has been chosen) you can get 6 or 8 recording but for other hours very few so the recorded range is not going to be very representative of heart beats for that day if that’s a better way of putting nearly useless and inaccurate.

Are you saying that the standard daily heart rate recordings are only taken when there is a meaningful change in heart beat ? So that if there is a 48 minute interval, which prompted the question, then Apple (algorithms) are saying that that’s because the heart rate hasn’t changed in that time? Please can you direct me to the Apple support page where it sets out this criteria or is this just your supposition and experience. It’s not mine. I can be sitting on the sofa reading a book with a pretty steady heart beat and some hours I might have 12 readings recorded but other times 3 -6 readings and the same frequencies if I was shouting at the TV watching some stressful football. I don’t think I have more than 12 readings per hour regardless of any meaningful increase or decrease in my heart rate. It’s not the randomness of when the recordings are taken it’s the randomness of the frequency of the recordings per hour I’m just trying to understand.

We’re getting away from my question a bit but I’m not wanting to share the data for medical purposes but just want an accurate track of my heart beat during the normal day which might include shopping, walking dog, cutting the grass, playing with kids, reading on sofa with its varying heart rate, during a normal training rest day for me. In activity mode the watch records heart beat about once a second, 3600 an hour. As part of my training I use and monitor my heart using typical heart rate zones as many others do. If the standard daily non activity recording only records ad hoc between 2 and 12 times an hour it’s obviously it’s not going to be a particularly accurate track or fit into the zones very well and might miss a short increase in rate. Sure the more frequent readings will require more battery, perhaps Apple will bring forward an option to set the frequency in future, and I’m not saying standard daily readings need 3,600 an hour to be accurate as you would then just keep the watch in an activity mode all the time, but currently it not very useful.

I note what you say about your cardiologist but if you are using the watch to help identify any abnormal heart rate events, not that Apple says its Watch can be a substitute for a medical device, I would have thought the more frequent recordings the better so as not to miss anything relevant, or just as important to confirm everything is normal.

Thanks again GeeZ06 I have also found nothing in Apple support pages or forums either, but you misunderstand this is not a question on HRV and as I mentioned above this is definitely not a medical question and I’m certainly not asking anything at all about my own heart beats. It’s a general question which applies to everyone who has an Apple Watch not specifically about me.

It’s really a simple question about Apple’s heart beat monitoring algorithms - why does the Apple Watch watch vary how many times it records a heart beat in my experience this is between 2 and 12 times an hour and varies the interval between readings, in my experience between 1 and 48 minutes. What criteria is Apple using ? 

Thanks for your efforts Jeff but none of that is relevant or gets any closer to specifically answering my question. I started this thread with a simple general question which seems to have run away with itself. It’s a very general question which applies to everyone using an Apple Watch. See my reply to GeeZ06 to read it again, and I repeat this is not a medical question, or about using the watch for medical purposes, or a specific question about my own heart (for the avoidance of doubt if you reread my reply above you’ll see that my only mention of abnormal heart rate events was in response to your comments on your use of the Apple Watch with your cardiologist) which seems to be the answers you’re providing. Whether you think it’s a medical question which it’s not, or one about my specific heart beats which its not, or is even a flawed question and one that doesn’t need to be asked is totally irrelevant to my question and the answer sought and does not need to be continually debated. 

There will be a factual answer to Apple’s methodology and the criteria, which has been programmed into the watch, as to the frequency and the intervals between recorded heart beats. Let’s hope someone within Apple Community with actual factual knowledge will be able to provide a specific answer to the question and if so I’ll reply again.

Let’s get back to the question. Hopefully someone in the Apple Community can give a definitive answer.