heart rate spikes

Has anyone else seen spikes like this in their heart rate? I'm sure my heart isn't actually doing this. I made sure the Watch band was tight. Apple support told me to cycle power to the Watch - no difference. They told me to unpair and then pair - no difference. They replaced the Watch - no difference. They never actually acknowledged that this is a problem they have seen before, they just seemed to be offering up solutions that they resort to when they don't know what else to suggest. I understand that the Watch heart rate algorithm might not work for everyone, but I am surprised that I have not yet found a reference to anyone else having a similar problems. Others have complained about the accuracy, but they always report the heart rate measurement to be too low, whereas in my case it spikes to a value that is way too high.

Posted on Dec 20, 2016 12:48 PM

Top-ranking reply

Jstferrfun

Level 1

20 points

Posted on Jan 11, 2018 1:45 PM

So I have had the exact same problem, and am embarrassed to say what I have went through. I was convinced I must be having some type of fibrillation or something. I have seen this on my gen 1 watch for a year now. Did all the things they suggested as well, still got spikes. As a result, I actually went to a heart doctor who hooked me up to a 48 hour heart monitor test...which came back completely normal....no spikes despite seeing them on the Apple Watch during this time. I even joined cariogram and it just takes the data from the watch and gives no diagnostic back. So that was a waste. I just upgraded to a 3 series...same thing. I now have an alert on my watch so it tells me when it happens - but it will not work when you are exercising (which is when it happens to me). So now when I am exercising I hold the heart monitor on the exercise machine...I have caught several times my watch spiking, but zero spike on the exercise machine - completely normal. I don’t know what to say other than this is likely something many people experience. I love the watch and what it does - but this problem is annoying and for me caused considerable angst! I hope it is fixed soon. My biggest worry is if someone does have an actual problem and ignores it because they think it is erroneous. But for me at least it seems to not be accurate.

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124 replies

Jan 29, 2018 10:23 PM in response to jamart65

After 3 days without spike ( I thought it was due to update) I got at least 10 alarms while sleeping. But today I left the watch with sound so every alarm I woke up and took immodeatly the hearth rate and I was at 55 or 60 in reality. Even I took the watch and put it under my pillow and it still got a hearth rate elevated so maybe my pillow has a ghost on it!!! I don’t know what causes this but sure it’s not a problem in hearth

zetrad

Level 1

4 points

Apr 12, 2018 9:25 AM in response to drweiler

I had the same problem. my watched showed random spikes to 198 and one time to over 200. Then one night it showed a drop to 30. Scared the heck out of me, and completely stressed me out. I did everything suggested above, tightened my watch, powered it off, unpared and repared. SO I called my doctor. My EKG was normal, but they had me wear a ZIO heart monitor for 2 weeks and had a cardiologist read the report.. Heart monitor report showed no spikes or drops during that 2 weeks, even though my watch showed some. My doctor said my heart was just fine, and it had to be a glitch with my watch. But it is scary, and it had me checking my watch constantly, every time I thought I felt something, I would check my watch.

My suggest is if this is happening to you, do call your doctor and get it checked out, it's better to safe than sorry. Just know it is very likely just a glitch, so don't stress to much over it.

rexroo

Level 1

13 points

Jun 14, 2018 2:05 PM in response to drweiler

I just had this issue yesterday on a stationary bike. My heart rate jumped from 90 bpm to 177 bpm for 2 of 10 readings at 6:20PM and 5 of 10 readings at 6:21PM then dropped down to 83 bpm. I don't have a bony wrist.

Oct 27, 2018 10:40 AM in response to lux2aeterna

I am also unsatisfied with my watch 3 which I have been using religiously since January. I have logged 274 “move goal days” already.

I am at the gym about 2 hrs a day and record each workout using the app. I record mostly elliptical and occasionally “other” when I have fitness classes.

Clearly the watch is unable to get the proper heart rate. The problem with the algorithm is that it picks up twice the regular heart rate and will oscillate between the true heart rate (around 100 for me) and go to twice it’s value.

I don’t need Apple’s advice to get an external HR monitor. This is clearly an easy fix which they won’t do. I have had this problem continually in the past but ignored it if it wasn’t too big of an issue. Recently I updated to watchOS 5 and the problem seemed to have gotten worse. So I reset the watch and did a recalibration walking outside. The problem is now MUCH WORSE than before such that an entire workout will be at twice the HR as you can see on this graph.

My strap is on tight but not too tight. I am doing rhythmic exercises so none of the usual disclaimers hold. Simply in my opinion I cannot recommend the AW to others who want to get a sports band to track their HR.

(For what it’s worth I am a professor of computer engineering at a top twenty university worldwide. I have expertise in pitch tracking and know the issues of real-time signal analysis. However this problem should not be a difficult one to solve.)

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heart rate spikes