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Let's be real, HOW ACCURATE IS THE HEART RATE MONITOR?

I have a Polar chest strap for comparison.

I find that when I ask the watch for my heart rate (manually or during workouts) it's very accurate (within a few BPM of the chest strap). When it's running in the background, I find it's recording values a fair bit lower (~15 BPM) than they actually are.

A little weird, but overall I'd much rather be wearing a watch than the chest strap and a wrist display.
 
Mine has been taking forever to lock on during my outdoor runs. What's odd is that if I cancel my workout and restart, it seems to lock on just fine relatively quickly. I've adjusted tightness a bunch of times without success.

I just looked at the glance view, and it said my heart rate was last taken an hour ago. Any thoughts on whether mine could be defective? Other devices that I've tested (Mio watch, Microsoft Band, etc.) have been must faster than the watch.
 
I wouldn't expect good accuracy, i mean it's just a gimmick, not a proper medical device.
 
Cyberstven said:
Mine has been taking forever to lock on during my outdoor runs. What's odd is that if I cancel my workout and restart, it seems to lock on just fine relatively quickly. I've adjusted tightness a bunch of times without success.

I just looked at the glance view, and it said my heart rate was last taken an hour ago. Any thoughts on whether mine could be defective? Other devices that I've tested (Mio watch, Microsoft Band, etc.) have been must faster than the watch.
Click to expand...

Are you using the workout app?
 
honestly

AleXXXa said:
I wouldn't expect good accuracy, i mean it's just a gimmick, not a proper medical device.
Click to expand...

honestly though this type of electro-optical heart rate sensor is technically the MOST accurate with quality implementations being the closest to an actual EKG with near 99% accuracy.
 
I have done a few tests of the Apple Watch vs. Polar Bluetooth Chest Strap. I am amazed at how the two of them are alike. It's the calculation of calories that is way far off between them depending on the counter (Apple Exercise App vs. Digifit). More on that later.

Basically, if I go on a very tough walk with the Digifit I am told I have burned 500 calories. If I do the same walk with the Apple Watch App with the Bluetooth Chest Strap or with just the Apple Watch monitoring my heart, I come up with 275 calories burned.

Which one is right?
 
ItsGavinC said:
With the activity app, it monitors all of the time. It takes 10 seconds to aquire the rate, and gives you 6 readings every minute. So a 20 minute workout would yield 120 unique heart rate readings. If the activity app isn't used, then the same 20 minute workout would yield 2 readings (one every 10 minutes).

You can view (and verify) this in the Health app on your phone.
Click to expand...
Will the activity app run in the BG of the watch all day long? In which case no problem. Just turn on the activity app and leave it on. Constant Heart Rate updates all day long.
 
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