Quick Start Guide

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This Quick Start Guide takes you through the essentials and suggests some great functions to ensure you are across the app.

Tip: if looking for something specific, our Frequently Asked Questions page has tons of commonly asked questions and answers.

Introduction - What is HeartWatch

Your Apple Watch is a highly sophisticated instrument, measuring and capturing your heart rate data and much more throughout the day. The problem for a lot of users however, is knowing how to make sense of all this information!

HeartWatch gives you an easy solution to uncover all these insights. It accesses your heart rate to provide information on your wellness, activity, sleep and workout readings created by your Apple Watch and unlocks the power of this information in a simple, intuitive way.

Follow the steps below to get the most from HeartWatch when starting.

1 - Get Your Apple Watch Ready

(Make sure your Watch is setup correctly to monitor your heart)

Wrist Detection On, Passcode On

Check to make sure Wrist Detection & Passcode are turned on.

Passcode On - Open your iPhone and go into the Apple Watch settings app (its a black icon with image of a Watch). Go into Passcode in the settings app and check you turned on to use a Passcode. This is required for background heart rate. Don't worry, you only need to enter the passcode once when you put your Watch on. If you also enabled Unlock with iPhone, you can auto enter your passcode simply by unlocking your iPhone when you put the Watch on your wrist. The 'Simple Password' option lets you set a 4 digit passcode instead of a 6 digit password, but this up to user preference. Just make sure you have the Passcode On!

Wrist Detection On - As above, on your iPhone go into the Apple Watch settings app (its a black icon with image of a Watch). Go into Passcode in the settings app and check you turned on Wrist Detection. This is also required for background heart rate. Just make sure you have the Wrist Detection On!

Check Health Permissions

Health permissions are asked for when you install the HeartWatch app, but sometimes updates and restores can fiddle with things. It's best to make sure all health categories are on for HeartWatch to be safe. No health data from HeartWatch will ever leave your device.

Go into the iPhone Settings app on your iPhone. Choose Privacy, then Health. Press HeartWatch and make sure that all of the switches are turned on. You should see something similar to the below where all switches are on.

Note: Some customers have discovered a bug in iOS 15's health permission sheet after updating their iPhone.

Try this method instead:

1. Go into Apple Health app on iPhone. It has a white icon with a red heart.

2. Select Sharing tab.

3. Scroll down and select Apps.

4. Select AutoSleep.

You can now manage permissions.

Add Your Date of Birth

Most users already have this setup, but it's important to add to your Health Profile to assist HeartWatch with your monitoring. To check:

1. Go into the Apple Health app (this is an app that comes pre-installed on your iPhone and has a white icon with a red heart, see below image). If you can't find it, swipe right on your home screen until you get to search and then type in "Health".

2. Press your profile icon in the top right corner, then select Health Details.

3. Press the Edit button in the top right corner.

4. You can now edit your details.

Add HeartWatch To Your Watch Face

Complications are widget like displays on your Watch face, and HeartWatch has some great options for all types and sizes. We suggest as a good starting point to use HeartWatch in the middle rectangle on the infographic modular Watch face, as HeartWatch will show you a summary of your heart health.

For information on how to setup complications the Apple site has a great overview here. You can also see all the available HeartWatch complications by going to the Watch Use Settings page.

Can I Use More Than One Apple Watch?

Yes you can use multiple Watches. Just make sure that both Watches are on the same WatchOS version (if possible) and are paired with your iPhone.

Hereโ€™s an explanation of how to set this up.

2 - Getting Best Performance

(Because the Apple Watch is capable of running lots of apps, Apple uses various strategies to decide whether an app is granted background time. The below shows some tips to make sure HeartWatch is setup for best performance on your Watch)

Setup HeartWatch Complication

Firstly, in order to get the background processing time in the Watch to be able to do alert monitoring, you need to have the HeartWatch complication on your watch face (as seen in the point above). The complication should be updating every 10 minutes. This same process also does the alert processing natively on the watch. It will only alert for things that it knows you haven't seen though. The Apple Watch takes background readings every 2-10 minutes so this timing ties in well.

Open HeartWatch When First Put On

It is also best practice to go into the app when you first put your Watch on. This tells the Watch that you use the app and that it is important to you and ensures that any background services are started.

Try Run a Pulse Check

Open the HeartWatch app on your Watch and tap on the top menu item called 'Pulse'. Tap the refresh arrow and a pulse measurement will begin that will record 5 measures for extra accuracy.

What About Flight Mode, Bluetooth or My iPhone Being Off

Flight Mode / Airplane Mode

HeartWatch will still track your heart if you put your watch into flight mode. The only thing to keep in mind is that the data will not be sent to your iPhone until you turn flight mode off whilst wearing the Watch. This may take a few minutes to complete. You can do this at any time.

Bluetooth Off

You can still track your heart without a bluetooth connection to your iPhone, but as with flight mode above, you'll need to wear the Watch and have a bluetooth connection between your Watch & iPhone again for it to send all the heart rate data to the iPhone.

I Turn my iPhone Off at Night

If you wear the Watch to sleep, you can still turn the iPhone off at night. As with flight mode above, you'll need to wear the Watch and have the iPhone turned on again for it to send all the data to the iPhone.

Low Power Mode

Please be aware that using low power mode on your Apple Watch will turn off background heart measures, heart rate notifications and blood oxygen readings among other things. So it makes tracking of little use as heart rate is the essential health metric in an app called HeartWatch! Try avoid low power mode where possible for accurate tracking. Here is the link to the official Apple site on low power mode and other limitations.

3 - Navigating HeartWatch

(Its time to explore and learn your way around HeartWatch)

View Your Tiles

HeartWatch is organised by showing your heart information in a series of tiles, which look like small rectangle cards. These tiles are grouped into sections on the Today view, including Wellness, Activity, Workouts and Notes. Scroll up and down the page to view all the sections and tiles.

Swipe Your Tiles

HeartWatch tiles can be swiped to display additional information. Use one finger on any tile to swipe left or right which will flip the tile. As you can see in this example below, I have swiped the tile to reveal a gauge tile and can view extra information. The gauge view lets you easily see your current measurements against a 7 day or 21 day average. Have a go swiping all the different tiles. I can swipe back at any time to see my badge views.

Tap Your Tiles

HeartWatch tiles can be tapped to drill into more information or activate a key function. Using one finger just do a single tap on any tile. As you can see in the example below, I have tapped on the Daily tile, which has drilled into my Daily heart rate view for the day where I can view additional information. This is called the Detail view where I can see a trend for my last 21 days at the top, but also scroll down to a breakup of heart rate zones and see my measurements in detail across the day. You can find more information on this in the Wellness page.

Touch & Hold Your Tiles

HeartWatch tiles can be touched and held to open additional information. By using a single finger, hold the touch on the screen for one second to trigger the action. As seen in the example below, when I touch and hold the Daily tile it opens the Dashboards view, pre-loading and presenting all my Daily heart rate data and trends. We explain Dashboard in some more detail below.

Show or Hide Your Tiles

If you have some Tiles that you seldom use, you can easily turn these off by going to Settings and tapping on the HeartWatch Tiles option, or there is also a section on the Today Page to add/remove (see image below). Let's say you have no need to see the Blood Pressure tiles, these can easily be hidden. Any tiles with a tick will show, those without a tick will be hidden, it's that easy.

HeartWatch Navigation Video

If you need some extra help, watch this video to see the navigation actions: HeartWatch Navigation

4 - What Do The Colours Mean?

Badge Colours

Daily, Sedentary & Sleep tiles all show a Badge image which fill with colours depending on your heart rate (see below image). By default, HeartWatch uses the following colours and zones to present your heart rate data, both in heart badges and charts.

  • Red: Greater than or equal to 100bpm. If you see a sustained resting heart rate above 100bpm and a mainly red badge, you should consider seeing a health professional

  • Purple: Greater than or equal to 80 & less than 100bpm. Though this does fall within the parameters of a regular resting heart rate, it is on the high side. Depending on your level of activity or consumption of stimulants, this may indicate that you aren't particularly fit/healthy if you are consistently seeing that your badge is nearly all purple

  • Blue: Greater than or equal to 50 and less than 80bpm. This is recognised as a healthy resting heart rate for the Daily hr. Ideally your badge should be at least half blue. The more blue, the healthier your heart is likely to be. You should however, consider the type of day you have had though. If you have been very active, then purple may be a reflection of what you have been doing

  • Pinkish Brown: Lower than 50 and greater than or equal to 40bpm. If you can see a significant pinkish brown centre in your badge, and you are experiencing fatigue, weakness, dizzyness or feel faint, then this may indicate bradycardia. If you don't have any symptoms, and particularly if you are a well trained athlete this likely isn't a problem. Again, consult your doctor especially if you are experiencing symptoms

  • Brown: Lower than 40bpm. Unless you are a very highly trained athlete, a brown centre in your badge or even seeing a percentage of readings in brown is likely not a good thing. If you are experiencing any fatigue, weakness, dizzyness or feeling faint then even more so, its probably a good idea to see your medical professional

5 - Read Your Health News

(All the key information about your health delivered in a unique news style)

Morning Briefing

Tap on the News tab in the bottom navigation menu and you will see an option to explore the Morning Briefing. This contains all your vital information as you start a new day, you can even get a summary of yesterday. Scroll and read through the news, feel free to tap on any section for more information.

Fitness Habits

While in News tap into Fitness Habits. This delivers your fitness information in a news type format to help you better understand your trends in making fitness a habit. If you have some data from wearing your Watch, you will notice a top graph with the words "stay above the white line to make fitness a habit". This is a great display for setting goals in HeartWatch and watching it progress any minute of the day. You can also forecast the rest of the day and to tomorrow based on your current habits!

Learn all about the exciting News concept here.

6 - Viewing Historical Days

(How to view recent days and open the calendar)

Past 7 Days

At the top of the screen you will see the trailing 7 days available to be tapped to view that days information (see image below). This makes it super easy to access days from the current week, but also quickly see how you are tracking for the week. You can also swipe the calendar banner left or right to keep scrolling the dates backwards or forwards.

Calendar View

A calendar icon is also accessible in the top left corner. Tapping this will open the Dashboards view with a full calendar to select from. Scroll up or down and tap on any date. A tile will appear with the option to navigate to that record. Example below.

Refer to Dashboards Calendar for more information on using this function.

7 - Setup Heart Rate Alerts

Alerts are setup directly from your Watch, as we believe this is the best place to set and modify alerts on the fly. Open the HeartWatch Watch app and tap Settings from the Watch main menu, Alerts will appear at the top. You can toggle alerts to be on or off using the 'Active' toggle. Note that active alerts will exclude your heart rates when exercising (exercising alerts are setup separately in workout alerts).

Refer to the Watch Use Settings page for more information on setting up alerts.

Tip - Ensure you have a complication for HeartWatch setup on your Watch face so that background alerts will work

8 - Use the Speak Function

You can use your iPhone to enter measurements using the Journal, however we find users love how quick and easy it is to speak into your Watch you key measurements. Speak lets you use your voice to easily dictate measurements into the Apple Health database. It's as easy as speaking into your Watch, and the values will then appear in your iPhone. Open the Watch app and tap on Speak from the menu to open the Speak view. When ready to speak, tap the yellow button with the microphone icon in it and say your weight as a test, for example, "seventy nine point five kilograms" and the words will appear on the screen. When happy, select Done in the top right corner when finished.

Measurement examples include:

  • Weight: Say "ninety two point five kilograms" or "two hundred and three pounds".

  • Blood Pressure: Say "one twenty over eighty".

  • Body Temperature: Say "ninety eight point six degrees" or "thirty seven degrees". This will auto determine Fahrenheit or Celsius.

  • Blood Sugar: Say "Sugar seventy" or "Sugar five point one". This will auto determine mg/dl or mmol/L.

  • Caffeine: Say "Fifty milligrams caffeine".

  • Body Fat: Say "fifteen percent".

Refer to the Watch Use Speak page for more information on using the Watch to enter measurements.

Note - if you prefer not to use your Watch, you can also enter the above measurements all on your iPhone using the Journal.

9 - Recording Notes & Journals

(Keeping a heart journal across all your measurements)

Your heart measurements can offer extra insights with some context behind it, which is why we developed Notes. Notes can be found at the bottom of the main Today view on the iPhone app which show all your recorded notes for that day. You can also enter notes directly from your Watch app which makes it very convenient and quick.

There are 2 main options for entering notes:

1 - Entering Notes From Your Watch:

These are notes recorded with your Apple Watch using the HeartWatch app. You can speak notes, scribble the notes, or even use emojis. It's been designed especially for easy Watch based note taking.

Open the HeartWatch app and drill into the Daily menu until you see a graph of your last 3 hours of heart rate measures. Using the crown spin on the side of the Watch, find the measurement you wish to apply the note. Tap the microphone icon located in the bottom right corner and record some notes, noting that previously recorded comments will also show, this is handy for adding common phrases like 'feeling stressed' or 'having a rest'. Confirm the note when prompted and this will be recorded, accessible from Notes in your iPhone.

2 - Entering Journals From Your iPhone

A Daily Journal feature is available to capture any ad-hoc notes for any day in the HeartWatch iPhone app. Simply select the day you wish to record the journal for and tap on the notepad icon in the top right corner, the Daily Journal will appear (see below). Feel free to record as many notes as you like during the day. You can edit the journal by tapping on the yellow notepad in the middle of the screen.

Viewing Your Notes

Regardless of where the note was captured, from your Watch or iPhone, a Notes List View is an easy way to see all in the one place. It will categorise notes with an icon to identify if it was taken during workouts, heart/pulse readings or journal entries (see below the different icons). You then tap a note to view more detail or edit, with extra links to follow to the actual record. For example, I can easily follow my workout note below on the 2 January all the way to the actual workout.

Refer to the Notes page for more information.

10 - Setup Smart Activity Goals

(If Appleโ€™s daily activity rings do not work for you because every day is not the same, then HeartWatch Activity is your answer! We created smart activity trackers to better guide your health that analyses your long term trends to set realistic goals each day)

With HeartWatch Activity tiles, your targets will automatically update every minute of the day! HeartWatch analyses your short and long term activity data and recommends goals based on your trends in order to help you improve. It can even forecast your activity depending on how your tracking during the day. HeartWatch lets you see your activity across six views, including Character, Forecast, Move, Steps, Distance and Weight. Activity aligns perfectly with the Fitness Habits that is found in News.

For our Quick Guide we will concentrate on setting up Move Goals, but refer to the Activity page for additional information on all Activity tiles such as Steps, Distance, Weight and Forecasts.

In this example, on the Today view in HeartWatch, see below the Move Tile I have currently achieved 18% of my Move Goal, having completed 171 calories to my goal of 932.

Tap on the Move tile to drill into the Move Status Habit. This view analyses your previous 21 days and shows you what habit you are developing for your Move via a speed-gauge in the middle of the screen with an overall indicator, such as 'Easing up' or 'Improving'. This indicator is set by looking at your trends and suggesting a range to improve over time.

While in the Move Habit Status view, tap on Goals in the top right corner or tap on the Recommended link, this will open the Move Goals to tailor your activity targets.

  • Default Goal - this is the standard goal setup with your Apple Activity Rings. Unless you manually update it, it will always stay the same. Using HeartWatch Activity goals will automatically update every day based on what you do (or don't do) if you select to use the recommended goal

  • Use Recommended Goal - this will apply the HeartWatch smart goals as your preferred targets within HeartWatch. This is the important toggle to activate the new automated recommended targets

  • Your Minimum Goal - a safety net is always handy, so if you have a minimum number of cals/kjs that you want to make sure HeartWatch keeps you above each day, enter that here

  • Use for character & ring - This will replace your Apple Watch move goal with the HeartWatch move goal when displaying your character's appearance & related red move ring. We recommend turning this on if using the HeartWatch goals.

  • Sedentary in Evening - we know that some people take it easy in the evening, but others don't. If you do generally relax in the evening, toggle this on so that HeartWatch can better understand and predict your forecasts

  • Progress Updates - this allows notifications to send to your Apple Watch. You will receive progress updates during the day and also current day forecasts. Set the times for the alerts that would best help you meet your goals. By default all 3 alerts will turn on, but you can turn off any of the alerts by holding down the "-" option and it will scroll to 'off'. This is handy if you would only like an evening alerts and not any others during the day

Once you are comfortable with the Move Goals, you can go and setup Goals for Steps and Distance also. Refer to the Activity page for additional information on all Activity tiles such as Steps, Distance, Weight and Forecasts.

Once comfortable with goals you can also explore the Forecasts tile which will predict yours days activity for today and tomorrow.

The best way to track these goals is via the Fitness Habits in News.

11 - Do a Workout

(Time to get a sweat up with your Apple Watch!)

Workouts allow you to capture all those exercise sessions, with a huge amount of key features like customised metrics, heart rate zone alerts, music player and even sending your live workout view to your iPhone while you exercise.

Open your Watch app and tap Workouts from the menu and select Start when ready to see a list of workouts available, this list includes over 100+ outdoor and indoor activities to select from. The workouts list will show your favourites at the top of the list so you can quickly get into your regular sessions. To add a new favourite, simply select the 'Fave' option and a yellow star will highlight it for next time.

Now the fun starts. Your workout has commenced and you have some fantastic functionality in HeartWatch at your fingertips. The Workouts consist of 3 primary screens which are viewed by swiping the watch face left and right:

  1. Main View - lets you see your key metrics like heart rate, distance and pace

  2. Control View - allows you to set HR alerts, take notes, lock, live stream and end your workout

  3. Music View - play your favourite music while you exercise without having to leave the HeartWatch app

To learn more refer to the Watch use Workouts page.

12 - View Your Workout Results

(Amazing summary and breakup views on your iPhone)

Workouts Summary

A complete summary of all your daily workouts combined into the one graph can be viewed under the Workouts section. This lets you combine one or more workouts to see how much time you are spending in each heart rate zone for the entire day. So if I completed 2 workouts in one day, the Workout Summary would add them all together for a complete picture of the different time spent in each heart rate zone.

Tip - Did we mention that HeartWatch also accepts any workouts from 3rd party apps that write to Health, however we recommend using HeartWatch to experience all the features.

Workouts Tiles

For every workout you complete in a day, a new Workout tile will appear for that specific activity. The Workout tile shows a summary of the workout, but you can also also swipe the tile to flip it and see additional information. You can then tap the tile to see your workout in finer detail, see below where I have tapped into a Running session. Give this a try once you have a workout recorded.

Workouts 6 Week Breakdown

A 6 week breakdown view can be viewed under the Workouts section. This lets you see where you are spending the most energy, time or training load on your activities. The bigger the piece of pie, the more of that activity you are completing!

The pie chart will show your top 5 activities by name, then group any remaining into 'other'. You can change the pie chart metric by tapping either Cals/Kjs, Time or Load (Training Load). See below.

Refer to the Workouts page for more information on viewing your activity.

13 - View Your Trends

(One of the best interactive graph displays you will see on an iPhone, letting you view and compare 30+ health metrics)

Opening Dashboards

The Dashboards view can be opened from a number of places in HeartWatch, but when getting started the easiest way would be to tap the calendar icon in the top left corner when on the Today view (see below). Once you get some experience with the HeartWatch navigation, you will discover that you can access Dashboards when 'Press & Holding' tiles on the front Today view, or by tapping on the banner when in the details view which even pre-loads the data you are currently looking at!

Exploring Dashboards

Dashboards contains a lot of functionality, so have a play around by tapping through the categories and sub-categories which work like menu tabs to organise your health data. Also try change the time period by tapping on the '6W' dropdown as you can go up to years worth of data. Next, try apply a trend by tapping on '7 Day trend' or '21 Day Trend' and watching an overlay appear. Once you are familiar you can even overlap trend lines! The options are nearly endless. See the example below where I have selected the category of Wellness, with the sub category of Daily showing.

Refer to the Dashboards page to learn more.

14 - Track Your Sleep

What If I Already Use AutoSleep

HeartWatch is developed by the same owners of the popular sleep app AutoSleep. HeartWatch integrates superbly with AutoSleep for those users with both apps installed. If you are using AutoSleep, then you DO NOT need to use this feature in HeartWatch. It is automatic and all your sleep stats will appear in the Wellness section under the Sleep, Sleep Time and Restfulness tiles.

Record Your Sleep

Select Sleep from the main menu on your Watch app. A heart rate gauge will appear and measure your current pulse. Select Start when ready for to sleep. A view will appear with the current time and the sleep counter will begin. When you wake, press the Stop button. This will then display the Finish panel on your Watch. You are also able to edit the finish time. Touch the hour or minute and turn the crown. This will recalculate the sleep time and display it in the blue timer below. When finished, press Done and this will save your sleep data.

Refer to the Watch Use Sleep page for additional information.

15 - Export Your Data

(A great function to understand if you have a need to export your data)

Up to 4 different export options are available to cater for different needs. All exports are produced as a CSV file, which can easily be opened with a program like Excel. For more information on each of these refer to the Exports page.

To produce an export follow follow these steps:

1. Go into Settings (little cog top right on the Today view)

2. Under the Export menu, select Summary or Workouts depending on the data your looking to extract

3. Select a date range for the export by tapping the available date fields. By default the last month will pre-fill. The maximum time period available for export is one years worth of data from todays date

4. If you would like to include any recorded HeartWatch Notes, tap on the notes toggle

5. Tap on the Export button at the bottom of the screen to produce the comma separated values (csv) file. Its that easy.

You can also watch the video on how to use exports in HeatWatch here.

16 - Keep Up To Date

Keep discovering the amazing benefits of HeartWatch. The User Guide contains information on all the different parts of HeartWatch, plus we post key updates on our Twitter feeds.

Follow us on Twitter

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