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Apple Watch 4/OS-5 still no continuous heart rate?
- Thread starter Senfinger
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#1 - communication between watch and the phone it's paired with
#2 - use bluetooth headphones directly with the watch for music or calls - for example I leave my phone behind when I go out for a run. I play music to my headphones directly from my watch.
As for your original question, the "gives you full credit for anything all day" part is unclear what you're seeking. Maybe rephrase it?
I'm not sure what you want either. You're not going to see 24/7 every second HR monitoring with the current optical HR technology. It would kill battery life.
But between motion detection, smart HR monitoring, and constant tracking during exercise, you get a pretty good daily HR profile from the Apple Watch, and you get "full credit" for your daily activities.
As an example of the utility of the current technology, I ran a marathon on Sunday, and my Apple Watch reports that my resting HR (not the lowest rates recorded, but what Apple calculates and reports as the resting HR) overnight Sunday night was 57 bpm, compared to my usual 48-50 bpm. And it has still been 55 bpm the last 3 nights. If I didn't already know from experience that I'm not really recovered from a marathon after 3 days, even if the soreness has faded, my still elevated resting HR would give me a clue. (I also usually see a small jump when I get sick, often showing up the night before I start feeling any other symptoms.)
Garmin, Polar, Fitbit all do 24/7 1 sec optical HR recording with much smaller batteries and for days on end without needing charging. I have no doubt Apple is trying to save energy wherever they can for features like the new always on screen but the optical HR sensor isn't such a barrier anymore, its just Apple has decided to put its priorities elsewhere.
That's not the way Polar, for example, describes their "continuous heart rate tracking:"
https://www.polar.com/us-en/continuous_heart_rate_tracking
INSIDE THE TECH
POLAR’S CONTINUOUS WRIST-BASED HEART RATE
Continuous heart rate tracking with Polar is dynamic, intelligent and optimized. It takes advantage of Polar’s proprietary optical heart rate solution that measures your heart rate with the help of LED lights and a light-detecting photodiode. The LED’s shine green light on the skin, and the photodiode measures the intensity of the light reflecting back. Polar’s scientifically developed algorithm translates this data into heart rate readings.
DYNAMIC HEART RATE TRACKING
The intelligent technology checks your heart rate at regular short intervals. It detects if your heart rate is high and automatically records it until your heart rate goes down.
INTENSITY DETECTION
When your arm is moving and the accelerometer on your Polar product detects a high activity level, heart rate recording will start automatically.
LOWEST HEART RATE
When you haven’t been moving for a while, your Polar product automatically starts to record heart rate to look for the lowest heart rate of the day. For the lowest heart rate of the night, your heart rate is checked at regular short intervals during your sleep.
POLAR’S CONTINUOUS WRIST-BASED HEART RATE
Continuous heart rate tracking with Polar is dynamic, intelligent and optimized. It takes advantage of Polar’s proprietary optical heart rate solution that measures your heart rate with the help of LED lights and a light-detecting photodiode. The LED’s shine green light on the skin, and the photodiode measures the intensity of the light reflecting back. Polar’s scientifically developed algorithm translates this data into heart rate readings.
DYNAMIC HEART RATE TRACKING
The intelligent technology checks your heart rate at regular short intervals. It detects if your heart rate is high and automatically records it until your heart rate goes down.
INTENSITY DETECTION
When your arm is moving and the accelerometer on your Polar product detects a high activity level, heart rate recording will start automatically.
LOWEST HEART RATE
When you haven’t been moving for a while, your Polar product automatically starts to record heart rate to look for the lowest heart rate of the day. For the lowest heart rate of the night, your heart rate is checked at regular short intervals during your sleep.
That's describing an algorithm very similar to Apple's.
If you can point to documentation of any 24-hour/1-second interval (86,400 samples per day) optical HR smart watch or fitness tracker, I will be surprised. I'm not saying that it's impossible, I'm just not aware that it exists.
From the footnote on the Fenix 6 page:
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/641479
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/legal/atdisclaimer/
Accuracy of Wrist-based Heart Rate (Elevate)
The optical wrist heart rate (HR) monitor for Garmin wearables is a valuable tool that can provide an accurate estimation of the user’s heart rate at any given point in time. The optical HR monitor is designed to attempt to monitor a user’s heart rate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The frequency at which heart rate is measured varies, and may depend on the level of activity of the user. When you start an activity with your Garmin optical HR device, the optical HR monitor measures more frequently. The intent is to provide the user with a more frequent and accurate heart rate reading during a given activity.
Polar, Garmin, and Apple all have good HR tech. Each probably has advantages. But it doesn't really make sense to sample 86,400 times per day. If the watch measures a HR of 55, detects no significant motion, measures 56, detects no significant motion, measures 55, etc. There is no reason for it to shift into high-sample mode, because I'm probably sitting at my desk. They can all detect motion and vary sample frequency. They can detect a high variation in readings and increase sample frequency.The optical wrist heart rate (HR) monitor for Garmin wearables is a valuable tool that can provide an accurate estimation of the user’s heart rate at any given point in time. The optical HR monitor is designed to attempt to monitor a user’s heart rate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The frequency at which heart rate is measured varies, and may depend on the level of activity of the user. When you start an activity with your Garmin optical HR device, the optical HR monitor measures more frequently. The intent is to provide the user with a more frequent and accurate heart rate reading during a given activity.
The pulse ox sensor on the Fenix 6 looks interesting, along with the solar charging on the most expensive model. I'd like to see that tech integrated into an Apple Watch.
And now I'm going to bed. I'm curious to see what my HR is overnight tonight.
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@jhfenton I’m just going from the DCRainmaker review. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/08/garmin-fenix6-pro-solar-series-review.html
I don’t see the point of 1-sec HR recording outside a workout though.
Perhaps someone can explain what benefit they expect it to provide?
I don’t see the point of 1-sec HR recording outside a workout though.
Perhaps someone can explain what benefit they expect it to provide?
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Exactly... I keep waiting for Apple to up their game on this actually being a true health device... I get credit for everything I do on my Fitbit Versa SE and can do a deficit plan and constantly see drop/improvements. The Apple watch was a yoyo disaster of eating highly under or not getting credit and in the dark. Apple stated yeah unfortunately we can only do it for 6 hours straight... Guess you have your "Ring People" and "Athletes" = )
Can you point to a wrist-based device that does 82,400 HR samples per day? I still haven't seen any evidence that there is one on the market.
I'm happy to acknowledge the merits of various fitness watches from different companies. And I have actual complaints about the Apple Watch's often absurd monthly activity challenges and the limitations of the Exercise app. But I don't see a coherent complaint in your post. What exactly do you expect the Apple Watch to do? It doesn't track eating. (It does, however, have the most realistic running calorie calculations of any device or program I've used, and those can feed into MyFitnessPal or any similar calorie-tracking app.)
I'm not winning any Olympic medals, but this "Ring" person is a 2:51 marathoner in his 40's who expects to soon be a sub-3 marathoner in his 50's. (I hope it will be at the Boston Marathon in April, my first marathon as a 50-year-old.) You'll have to let me know if that makes me an athlete or not.
As I stated above... All newer fitbits have no issue doing this with Active Pure Pulse... I have already opened high level calls with Apple on this and they admit its an issue for people really wanting to get the bigger picture; and that it can only handle 6 hours of actual sampling before the battery dies... and everything else is a broad algorithm. I spent months working with my AW3/4 and Support and it appears the 5 and OS6 isn't an option either. So Fitbit for now until Apple can produce all day results.
Regardless congrats on your running, the BM would be amazing- = )
Regardless congrats on your running, the BM would be amazing- = )
I can't find a specific frequency defined for PurePulse's "continuous" tracking. The companies all say "continuous" when what they mean technically is "intermittently at variable intervals throughout the day." One forum discussion referenced readings every 5 seconds during rest, shifting to every-second recording during exercise. That is certainly more frequent than the Apple Watch, and, as a data junkie, I would like to see that on the Apple Watch as opposed to seeing readings every 1-8 minutes (most often about every 5 minutes) during periods of inactivity.
But I'm not sure what additional actionable information that would provide to me. 70-90 readings throughout the night is more than enough to see a trend. (My overnight HR was finally back down to pre-marathon levels on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. You can see the 10-beat jump from pre-marathon to post-marathon and the gradual decline over the 9 days post-marathon.)
Thanks. I've run Boston twice before, in 2007 and 2008, but I figured it was time to run it again at 50. Boston has the absolute best finish. You really do feel like a rock star running between the crowds on Boylston. (I'm trying to run a marathon in every state, so I'm typically not repeating marathons. 27 down, 23 or 24 to go, depending on whether I count DC.)