heart rate spikes

Same here. I have a Series 3 42mm cell model. Running the latest OS (4.0.1) and during an outdoor cycling workout, the watch will quite often read HR spikes that are off the charts for me. For instance, yesterday (10/16) the watch read a max of 197bpm, while my Garmin chest strap read a max of 156. The watch also had a bunch of drop outs where it read nothing at all for large periods of time. For the 2 hour workout the watch then had an avg of 145bpm, while the Garmin showed a much more realistic 132bpm. (Screenshot follows at end.)

Now this experience is completely the opposite of my 42mm S0 watch. It was steady as a rock on every workout in all kinds of weather. It never had drop outs that I can recall, and it rarely had HR spikes. I used to use my S0 to tell when it was time to replace the Garmin HR strap (the strap sensors wear out from the salt in sweat). Now with the S3 I feel I can't rely on it all. The S0 was running the latest OS 3.x release not OS 4.

I'm having the same issue on Series 3 watch. First few weeks everything worked great (even tested it against a chest strap HR monitor and matched it perfectly). Then I was getting short spikes. But now I'm getting spikes that last 15 minutes!! Has anyone resolved this issue? does getting a replacement fix it? I wear it tight during exercise. This is a light jog I do all the time. I also checked with the apple heart rate app to rule out the 3rd party software and it was high also.

I have the exact same problem here with my apple watch series 3 during sleep. I would say that around 3 nights a week I get alerts regarding elevated heart rate. Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for almost an hour.

I went to the doctor and got the 24 hours ECG monitoring strapped on my chest. During that night, apple watch said I had several minutes of elevated heart rate (above 120). I came back to the doctor the next day, and to my surprise the ECG monitoring did not detect anything. It was all fine. So the problem here is the heart rate sensor on the apple watch. I have tried tightening and loosing it on my wrist, but it didn't help.

This is also happening quite often for me too. Here are three different nights shown in one picture. Sure hope they can get this figured out. Pretty annoying. Sort of scared me at first but then realized it wasn’t real. I started wearing my Fitbit Blaze on my other arm and it doesn’t detect any heart rate spikes like that.

I found the good solution to have the best heart rate measurement during a running 🙂

I precise that i have a small wrist and i had bad measures because my watch often moved while i sweat.

I now wear the watch 2cm above my bone wrist and wear tight, i use the new strap band witch is more confortable.

Thanks to that, i now have a normal graphic of my HRM 😉

Before :

After :

I noticed it would spike at random times but could never figure it out until one day I turned on the heart rate complication on the face of the watch. I sit on my hands sometimes at work and found this was the cause of the spikes. I can see why sleeping with it on would cause the same spike issues if you happened to be sleeping on your arm or hand.

I have noted also a random ultra high heart rate reading roughly once a day using my Apple Watch 2. At one point I received a heart warning notice of 145 for 10 minutes, after having checked the time in the morning. I had set the watch down on its heart reader on a ceramic counter in the bathroom... I wasn’t wearing it! I notified Cardiogram App folks thinking it was their heart rate algorithm (I joined a heart study at the time) and they told me all readings were controlled by the watch workout app and Apple algorithms, not the app. Genius Bar replaced the unit. But I still do have one wack-out high reading nearly daily, 30-60 points above nearby normal readings, and a low reading (50’s-60’s) when I’m up on my feet, when my ‘normal’ is mid 80’s to mid 90’s.

I do have heart murmur, that I erased 10 years ago with focused weight training over several years. Its possible a random reading is tied to that condition. Guess I will return to diligent weight training again!

I had a same problem while running, with heart ra spiking up to 210. When I talked to my physician about this, she ordered 24 hour Holter Monitor. I went running with this as usual. My Apple Watch recorded HR spike at 208. Holter monitor result did not show any abnormal HR spikes at all. Maybe Apple Watch is not accurate during a vigorous activity.

There is certainly an issue with some folks seen when a workout is started that involves some rhythmic activity. I'm a regular 64 yo runner with HR usually in mid 40s. I've had a series 2 watch for 2 years, and now a series 4. The same issue is seen on both - resting HR accurate, but almost every time when I start a run the watch reports a spike, typically to 170-185, that plateaus for 3-4 minutes then suddenly drops to the expected (and correct when checked) 120-130 and stays there for the rest of the run. Pulse when actually taken during the abnormal spike is the 100-120 or so expected for initial rise with exercise. This pattern is quite reproducible - always at beginning of run (unless I stop for a bit for some reason and restart, at which point I may see another brief spike). I then counted my step rate at the beginning of runs, and it seemed to correlate well with the perceived spike - a bit lower if I ran slower, faster with quicker step cadence. So for me, and for some other users who see the identical pattern, it seems the watch on occasion will pick up a step count rather than HR before it corrects itself. Perhaps intermittent but regular skin contact is the culprit.

I am having this issue too. I just started wearing the Apple 3 watch. I swim laps and my heart rate spikes to 210! I don’t notice though. Happened on the stationary bike too and I was just getting started and my hands were on my lap. I was not tured, out of breath etc. happens when I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom- 159! Ever get any answers? Its freaking me out.

ivlillion wrote:

Mine has spiked to 471 from sitting for an hour, the Dr says the watch is faulty. I was experiencing some sort of internal distress at the time, but it quickly failed. Did you find out anything further on this? Also while it showed on my watch, the data never made it to my phone.

I replied four days ago to your related question here, including providing links for contacting Apple Support if you believe that your Apple Watch may be defective:

Heart rate recordings

Here's some more info on my setup:

Obviously my S0 was paired to my phone. My S3 cell + AirPods is the best thing since sliced bread. I love not having to carry my phone, so I don't.

I only notice HR spikes during a workout. With the S3 improved battery times, I'm able to wear the watch to sleep now. No problems with HR spikes at all. Since the HR is recorded a lot less in non-workout mode it's hard to tell if there's been data drops, but I did notice one period where HR was not recorded at all during a 2 hour period of basically doing nothing but putzing around the house.

I wear my S3 the same as the S0, the strap is quite snug. I can get my index finger under it, but not all the way through.

Place your iwatch on a desk and select the heart rate. Strange my desk is alive and well at 72 and then it spikes all over the map, so when your watch is not making contact the readings are meaningless and go all over the map causing concern for many.

Apple Engineers please insert a few lines of code to validate if the current t reading is within reason compared to the last couple of readings, and if not look at the next reading to see if the spike is continual. If it is then it’s a valid reading, but if not you need to suppress these spikes as they are garbage and are of no value to anyone. A simple validity check will resolve these spikes and provide us all a useful heart rate monitor.

Currently in my opinion the iwatch heart monitor is of no value to me and should be ignored until it’s addressed with a validity check.

I have the series 2 iwatch every since I downloaded OS4 I have been getting those alerts of spikes while resting .

and so I started watching my daily heart rate which spike several times during the day above 120 . The highest was 194 which means I should have felt my heart beating very fast but no not a thing . I reported the spikes in heart rate by my iwatch to my primary care physican and now I am wearing this stupid heart rate monitor from a cardiologist for next 30 days .
<Edited by Host>

A couple of times at wakeup I noticed spikes at 120 bpm starting at 2am and lasting 10 min.

I was asleep and didn’t remember anything particular. I told the doctor but he gave no importance to this evidence at all.