After the Apple Watch 1.0.1 Update, Heart Rate stopped working...

Submitted my feedback again. I think I've done it 3 times and also sent a couple of emails to Mr. Cook.

Same here! Hopefully they will listen as this is outrageous.

If battery drain is Apple's source of concern, why not make it more customizable? Let me configure the frequency I want my HR monitored, with the understanding that I may have to charge more often than someone who just wants periodic checks. That issue aside, it still does a very poor job for me during workouts. Yesterday, I worked out (interval cardio training) with my AW and Polar watch (with chest strap). The AW wasn't even close regarding HR and calorie accuracy. My feedback to Apple has, to this point, gone unanswered.

I wish we had customization too, but this is one area I think Apple really blows it. Too often they overly limit what the buyer can do and for things that, frankly, I don't think Apple should care about. Let me do things my way to fit my needs.

Submitted mine again, funny that the description/problem area is character limited so I wrote what I could.

I ran another test. This one more controlled, along with my wife who has an Apple Watch with the 1.0.0 software on it.

We did a 50 minute walk - the first 25 minutes were without using the Workout App, the second 25 minutes were using "Outdoor Walk" in Workout app.

Wife (Apple Watch 1.0.0)

25 minute walk without Workout app - Total Calories: 108, Exercise minutes: 24

25 minute walk with Workout app enabled - Total Calories: 100, Exercise minutes: 24

Me (Apple Watch 1.0.1)

25 minute walk without Workout app - Total Calories: 147, Exercise minutes: 26

(Note - I glanced at my heart rate after this 25 minute section and saw it hadn't read my heart rate in over 7 hours. So heart rate had nothing to do with this.)

25 minute walk with Workout app enabled - Total Calories: 181, Exercise minutes: 24

This test actually came out OK post update (only 19% different). Yes, my wife's was more consistent (8%), but mine was better than my previous tests which were way off between workout/no workout app. It makes me think Apple has really tuned this watch to monitor calories burned and activity while walking/running. Because both elliptical and golf workouts are tremendously different with and without the Workout app. But when walking, I was actually pretty impressed with how it performed.

I still think it would have to be better for activities like gardening, golfing, hiking, etc. where it is not so dependent on steps if it was monitoring our heart rate and using that as a trigger to put it into higher calorie burn state.

Since men and women have variations when exercising, it would be really good if you went for a walk, but you used both watches to compare the results.

I'm not getting what you are saying. Yes we used two different watches. And yes my calories are different from hers. That is to be expected. But the test is to see how consistent the watch is with and without the Workout App. At least in walking, it is pretty consistent. Hers was even more consistent (presumably due to heart rate monitoring actually working). We were walking on the same terrain at the same speed. So there were a lot of variables reduced with this test.

I was just looking at it from a "minimize variables" viewpoint. By wearing both watches, that would do so. If there was time, I would also test by switching where each watch is worn on two different tests - just in case one arm (or position on the same arm) has an effect.

For one thing, this would let you see how the different OS versions compare with the same person on the same exercise.

But you could also have one set to START with a workout while the other starts with normal use mode. Then reverse them. So, again, you would be comparing the exact same exercise on the same person at the same time.

Doesn't have to be done, of course, but I've found that sometimes a variable that I didn't think would matter much would turn out to matter a lot. So I'm always looking at ways to reduce the variables.

But her watch is already set up for her stats (weight, age, gender, etc.) and that also goes into calorie counting. Wearing someone else's watch wouldn't really eliminate variables due to that. If anything, it would be more accurate if she wears her watch since it is calibrated to her. If you had two watches that were set up for you, then yes, that would be an even better test. But the tests I'm running are simply to track variance within each watch itself. The only purpose of bringing my wife's watch into the mix was to see if the 1.0.0 software was even more consistent with itself with or without the workout app.

Ah, forgot about that personal info being in there.

I think that you could still do some good testing anyway - yes, the calorie count will be off if you wear her watch, but since it would be so on both tests, that may not matter when making comparisons. OTOH, it may be really interesting to see how the HR numbers compare, at least during an activity since the new software won't give you much.

You just need to do lots more different tests! 😁

It's one of the reasons I haven't done more - every time I think of one, I come up with variations I need to to do lock things down and it just takes so much time!

Another blog, WatchAware, weighs in with an educated guess as to why Apple is acting this way. Different point of view.

http://watchaware.com/post/12635/apple-inconsistent-heart-rate-tracking-a-featur e-not-a-bug

19% different is terrible and not acceptable.

The thing I'm interested in is if the HR readings in 1.0 contributed to calorie calculation or if it was just for the show. I don't actually care for looking at my heart rate during the day but in 1.0.1 it's apparently only detecting exercise by waking speed above xx min/km. So if I'm waking up a long steep hill it will not count as exercise in 1.0.1 because the speed is to low even though HR is high. In the marketing for the watch it was implied that it would use HR reading every 10 minute to detect exercise in this kind of situations. So did it actually use HR to detect exercise here or was it just gimmick?

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