Welltory allows you to measure and analyze your heart rate variability (HRV), which is widely used to assess what's going on with a person’s body — there are about 20,000 relevant studies on PubMed. Note that HRV measurement is not an electrocardiogram (ECG) recording, and it can't be used as a substitute for ECG or a medical check-up.
You can measure your heart rate variability:
using Apple Watch (learn more about the technology behind it here),
by pressing your finger to a smartphone camera (thanks to the photoplethysmography technique, which we have thoroughly researched), or
using a heart rate monitor.
After each measurement, you'll see a message with key heart rate variability metrics in your feed. These metrics are backed by clinical guidelines and multiple scientific studies on HRV, and broadly used in sports physiology and daily clinical practice.
However, they may not quite match the way you feel, because they are based on general normal ranges and know nothing about you, your activities, or your habits. To understand what's going on with your body, check out the message with our interpretation of standard HRV metrics — personalized and turned into comprehensible Stress, Energy, and Health scores.
The message with a chart in your feed will help you get a general understanding of your measurement results. And its detailed description will show you all the metrics along with their meaning.
What exactly will I see in my feed after the measurement?
The short message with a histogram that shows:
how many of your metrics are within the normal range;
SDNN — standard deviation of normal heartbeat intervals and one of the most critical heart rate variability metrics;
a histogram — a chart that shows how the time intervals between heartbeats were changing during your measurement.
Histograms are commonly used to illustrate and interpret heart rate variability metrics. When the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are in balance, the histogram is similar to a triangle with two equal sides or a pyramid.
The sharper the upward slope, the higher your stress levels, and vice versa.
The color of the chart means how close your metrics are within the normal range:
Green means everything is well.
Yellow indicates that your metrics are not that good but within the normal range.
Red shows that your results fall outside the normal range.
The positioning of the histogram depends on your heart rate. When your heart rate is high, the histogram will be closer to the left side. When your heart rate is low, it will move to the right side.
What will I see if I tap “see details”?
Your heartbeat rhythms chart and a detailed description of standard heart rate variability metrics.
The chart you’ll see shows how your heartbeat rhythm was changing during the measurement. You'll also see the Total beats (the total number of intervals), representing the length of your measurement.
Time Domain scores — RMSSD, SDNN, pNN50, and others — are used to analyze the time intervals between successive heartbeats.
Frequency Domain scores — Total Power, VLF, LF, and HF — show the power of different waves generated by your heart. If you want to get Frequency analysis, you need to take a longer measurement in 300-RR interval duration mode. Just head to Menu → Settings and enable the 300-beat mode.
To find out the meaning of a specific score, tap on the question icon next to it. And check out the color of highlights to understand whether your results fall into the normal range.
If the value of a specific score falls outside the normal range and colored red, we'll add the chart with your recent measurements so you can track the trend of this score.
Note that the access to all detailed stats will last for the first three days after the sign-up unless you go Premium. But you can keep the preview messages as long as you use the app and measure your HRV. With Welltory Premium, you'll keep all the detailed descriptions of your scores handy at all times. Check out other benefits you’ll get with the upgrade and see why it’s worth a try.