Apple Watch and High Heart rates

You might be interested in the Consumer Guide tests:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/04/first-test-results-of-apple-watc h-and-apple-watch-sport/index.htm

(The heart rate is discussed in the video, not the text)

George

It seems to work well for some people, and in the few proper tests carried out so far.

You could try a rest/restart which as improved things; obviously ensuring a snug fit on the outside of the wrist (actually, although Apple doesn't recommend it, I've had it working on the inside of the wrist too).

It's possible there's a problem with the unit - it's definitely not performing as it should (and as it does for me). Maybe a call to support?

My general feedback after comparing to all my Garmin watches (Garmin 610, Fenix 2 and Fenix 3) is the reading is accurate. The only problem I have is my heart rate is high (180~200) during the first 4~5 minutes of my workout. After that the heart rate falls back to my normal range (140-160) and is extremely accurate vs. chest strap heart rate monitors. I have contacted Apple about the big jump in the beginning of my workout without getting much help both on the phone and in store.

Working well here - I;ve used on a variety of workouts and it seems to track pretty well

I used a heart rate monitor side by side with with the watch, and it was significantly different. I had my heart rate up in the 180-190 and it was not even reading properly. At first I thought it was because my wrist were small so I added an extra hole on the band to make it tighter... still no luck.

I had the same problem. I had only one workout so far where I used the Apple Watch and my separate chest-strap HRM to see the differnece. It was a 60-minute high intensity workout where I was doing strength training and cardio mix, my HR was definitely between 120-180 the whole time. The Apple Watch was incredibly inaccurate, to the point that it is not useful at all. The results were:

Apple Watch readings: 112bpm average, 332 cal burned

HRM: 138 average, 450 cal burned

Often during the workout my Apple Watch would read "82" bpm when I was definitely over 150. Unimpressed so far.

If I do a brisk walk workout and the watch isn't tight enough on my wrist, I consistently get 170+ BPM. This goes away for me (down to 120-135 BPM) when I move the watch up towards my forearm a bit and tighten it up. Unfortunately for me, the sport watch band is either a little too tight or a little too loose. So when wanting accurate heart rate, I have to live with slightly too tight.

I used to have the same experience with a Polar chest band monitor - the first 5-10 minutes of my run would show an unreasonably high heart rate, and then it would settle. I used to put it down to the conductivity change as the perspiration built up

I am planning to wet the heart rate contact area during my run later to see if it will resolve the high heart rate issue. I know sometime even the heart rate strap have difficulty with reading without moisture in the contact areas.

Just did my run. Prior to my run I make sure I wet the heart rate contact on my skin. The result is now much better. I did not see any high heart rate during my 5-miles run. Please remember this is just one run. I will keep trying out the next few runs.

I've noticed it's accurate on my 20-30 minute runs where I'm getting a HR of about 160 bpm, give or take.

However, where I am left scratching my head, is when the heart rate monitor is in resting mode where it records my bpm every 10 minutes. Between every 10-20 data points in that resting mode, my resting heart rate jumps from say 62bpm to something in the high 90s or low 100s for only one data point, then it goes back down to the correct number. I know this from the data contained in the Health App on the iPhone.

Moreover, I have swiped up to use the HR Glance screen to see something like your heart was 92bpm 2 minutes ago and when its done with an on demand reading it corrects itself to something in the low 60s, where it should be. Considering calling AppleCare about it or maybe just waiting for OS 1.1.

I'm getting really frustrated with the heart rate monitor on both apple watches I've used. I too have a high heart rate, and it stays between 165-190 when I'm working out hard on the elliptical machine. But as soon as my heart rate goes over 180 (per the sensors on the machine) my apple watch starts to only record 1/3 of my heart rate (so my rate, for example will go from 178, 179, 60, 61, then back to 178. I guess I'm going to have to stick to the cheat strap. 😟

I noticed this morning that when my heart rate hit over 150, the bpm on apple watch jumped to 194+. The correct reading should have been somewhere in the 150s. This happened to me 3 different times while interval training this morning. While my heart rate was coming back down, I hit a 177 on the way down when it should have been around 147.

I think we can expect that there will be some aberrant readings for any number of reasons (mostly fit). As a result, I have been periodically cleaning up the data in the Health app. If something is grossly out of line with the context, I delete it from the data base.

George