Software shortcoming?: Apple Watch and Polar H7

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Level 1

9 points

Software shortcoming?: Apple Watch and Polar H7

I have been using my Apple Watch for my running workouts and noticed that the heart rate indicator is terrible. I want to have a more accurate reading so I purchased a Polar H7 heart rate monitor. As far as I can tell the monitor works really well. I am able to use it to see my heart rate anytime that I want and it works during workouts consistently. I have it paired to the Apple Watch. The nuts and bolts of my question is that when I use the workouts on my watch I select indoor run or outdoor walk or whatever the workout is and I do not get a heart rate indication during that workout, however, I do to get live heart rate telemetry when I select the "other" workout... And only this "other" workout profile. I want live HR info during my run **** it! I do have power save mode on for workouts to disable the built in HR monitor from being activated. This says it should still be receiving telemetry from other HR monitors, and clearly it is because it works fine when the "other" profile is selected.

When I complete a run I do not get in the summary on my watch any indication that the monitor has recorded any HR during the entire exercise, then when I check my phone it shows that it did get lots of telemetry (at least 1 reading every second) during my exercise and incorporates that in the workout summary displayed on iPhone.

Is this a software short coming or am I doing something wrong? Anyone else have this problem? It seems to me the H7 is working fine and there is a software error not displaying the rate. Any known fixes or workarounds?

Hardware:

iPhone 6 64 GB running iOS 9 .3 .2

Apple Watch Sport 42mm running watchOS 2.2.1

iPhone 6, iOS 9.1

Posted on Jul 6, 2016 6:38 PM

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Answer 1

deggie

Level 10

167,537 points

Jul 6, 2016 6:42 PM in response to LeoUCF

Try it with power save mode turned off.

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Answer 2

LeoUCF Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 6, 2016 7:05 PM in response to deggie

I will try this tomorrow. I only have so many runs in me per day. I am highly skeptical that this will work. I don't see the logic to explain why it will display the live feed of my heart rate in the "other" workout style but not in the "run" Profile.

It may or may not be pertinent, but I have only paired the H7 with the Apple Watch, it is not paired with my iPhone, and it doesn't seem to give me trouble syncing/sharing info between the activity app, the workout tab within, and the health app on iPhone.

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Answer 3

Jonathan UK

Level 10

164,021 points

Jul 7, 2016 1:47 AM in response to LeoUCF

Hi

What you have described is the expected behaviour.

Power Saving Mode disables heart rate tracking on your watch only during indoor and outdoor running and walking workouts.

In addition to turning off Power Saving Mode, for the most accurate results from the Workout app and Activity app, record your workouts under the most appropriate activity type in the Workout app (for example: Outdoor Run).

Your watch can then estimate the results of your activity using using activity-specific calorie calculations and also using the most appropriate data sources. For example: if your iPhone is also taken along on outdoor runs (with Location Services and Bluetooth enabled), your watch knows to check for the availability of GPS data from the iPhone when estimating pace and distance.

More information:

Use the Workout app on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

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