Apple Watch Heart Rate sensor not giving proper readings during intense exercises like P90x3 and Insanity

ok, so this morning I changed my band to the M/L length and strapped it on my arm well above the flex point. I started an "Other" workout on the workout app and did a 30 minute weight training workout. I did notice that the HRM monitor was slightly more accurate at more points throughout the workout but still wildly inaccurate for most of it. Still instances of knowing my HR was at 120BPM but Apple Watch showing 55BPM. Afterward I checked another weight training workout earlier in the week where I left the band on my wrist and it showed 10-15 less calories burned so it may have been able to maintain a correct reading for longer in the position I used today. I would still like to know how often it updates the heart rate! All throughout my workout I'm looking at a HR on the watch, for up to a full minute, that would be correct if I was half dead. I'm thinking that if the HRM updated faster then it wouldn't matter so much if it missed the mark several times throughout the workout. I'm going to open a support request from Apple and ask them about this.

So I opened a case with Apple today and spoke for about 30 minutes with support. He didn't have any solutions for me but we did look through the data from my workouts and found some interesting info. We were trying to figure out how often the watch measures your HR during a workout and I looked at the heart rate data from my "Other" workout this morning. According to the data it was giving a HR reading about 5-6 times a minute. So a few times during my workout the HR reading dropped to 50-56 BPM for 3 minutes straight. Why is this happening? Even after I stop moving and make sure the band is snug, it sits at the wrong BPM for three minutes. Something is throwing the Apple Watch for a loop and causing crazy readings. It almost seems like it is a software issue. At 56BPM the watch should know that something is wrong and send a notification like, Apple Watch has lost your HR or something.

That's one of the things that jumped out at me. I'd often get a measurement of 55 or 60 when I was pretty certain the actual rate was somewhere around 140bpm. I don't have an HR of 60 when I'm lying in bed, let alone during DDP Yoga. I seem to remember reading somewhere that for "Other" workouts, that the watch would basically give you credit for 60 if it wasn't making decent contact, which struck me as stupid considering for many that registers as barely alive.

I typically see about 12 readings logged per minute or every 5 seconds, not sure if it reads more often and just posts a value. Often during any one of these spans I will see the oddball low reading like chugging along at 100 plus and then 1 or more readings at something like 56 or less, which is physically impossible. I will see a spike up to something like 116 within the multiple readings spanning one minute, this also is highly unlikely - I see the low value a lot more. I frankly think Apple threw the app together as an afterthought. its crazy that apple has not developed some algorithms to filter the data, let us enter our resting heart rate and then toss out any readings below that, do a moving average and compre the readings and toss out the outliers. There are lots of ways the data can be filtered so we're are presented with something useful. They do allow us to manually delete values but it's a royal pain to scroll through the numbers manually. for what it's worth, I hear similar complaints about fit bit's. They use the same green light technology. Slough I also heard the newer models do better. If apple wants the watch to be positioned as a series fitness tool, then they will need to develop some improved algorithms. In my situation, I'm on beta blockers and other meds that limit my heart rate and I also know from multiple tests that my resting heart rate has been fairly consistent at 60-62. I just registered MotiFIT which allows setting custom heart rates so is a lot better for me. only had one workout using it so can't say if it handles the odd readings any better. Hopefully watch os 3 has a major improvement for fitnes.

My original watch and my new Series 2 watch fail to record heartbeat correctly at the most intense part of may daily mountain walk. I hit a steep part of the hike and it shows something like 85 or 110 when it should be greater than 150. I'm going to have to go back to a Wahoo chest band which never fails.

I would like to know what app you have that shows this data. I can't find it on my iPhone.