If you have an Apple Watch, you don’t need to use your smartphone camera for measurements: Apple Watch can measure your heart rate variability (HRV), and we can calculate your HRV metrics based on the recorded RR intervals (beat-to-beat measurements). Note that HRV measurement is not an electrocardiogram (ECG) recording, and it cannot be used as a substitute for ECG or a medical check-up.

Please see this page to learn more about how Welltory integrates with the Apple Watch.

We recommend Apple Watch as the most accurate device that you can seamlessly sync with Welltory to take measurements on the go. Recent studies confirm that HRV metrics extracted from Apple Watch can be trusted, and measurements taken with Apple Watch are as accurate as those taken with Polar straps and other heart rate monitors.

To use your Apple Watch with Welltory, you need to connect Apple Health:

If the connection has been successful, Apple Health will be marked as connected in the Apps section.

If you’ve already connected Apple Health to Welltory, make sure you’ve allowed Welltory access to your Apple Health data: open Apple Health, go to Profile → Apps → Welltory, and turn all categories on there.

To be able to analyze your HRV measurements and send you the results, we need access to at least your Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, and Mindful Minutes data. However, the more categories you turn on, the more insights about you and your body you’ll see in your feed: we’ll analyze your data about sleep, steps, workouts, nutrition, productivity, and more. Then, we’ll sort it all into handy charts and send you science-backed recommendations, so that you can work, train, sleep, eat, and live better with data.

If you have an Apple Watch Series 1 or later, your watch can record your HRV data automatically. As soon as it does, we’ll do the math and send the measurement results to your feed. However, note that Apple Watch automatically measures your heart rate variability only when you are calm and relaxed. When you are stressed and your heart is beating too fast, the watch won’t automatically write your HRV data to Apple Health.

Tech specs to check if your watch can measure your HRV automatically:

Please note that if you upgraded to WatchOS 9, you might have the Low Power Mode enabled on your Apple Watch. Low Power Mode turns off all background heart rate measurements including HRV measurements. That’s why you might have stopped receiving measurement results in the feed. You can read more about this feature in this Apple Support Help article.

If you feel like taking a manual measurement here and now instead of waiting for your watch to take an automatic one, follow the steps for manual measurements below.

If your Apple Watch does not comply with the above specifications, it can’t record your HRV data automatically. But you still can use it for measurements — by forcing it to check your heart rate and take a manual HRV measurement (see the instruction below).

And, of course, you can always take measurements with your smartphone camera or a heart rate monitor.

Follow these steps to force your Apple Watch to measure your HRV:

In addition to time-domain HRV scores like RMSSD, SDNN, pNN50, and others, you can get frequency analysis with frequency-domain scores. All you need to do is measure your HRV for at least 5 minutes (turn the Digital Crown on your watch to set the length). If your resting heart rate is below 50 beats per minute, we recommend using the smartphone camera instead of the watch to get the frequency analysis (don’t forget to turn on the 300-RR interval duration mode in Menu → Settings).

Also, if your Apple Watch runs watchOS 9 or newer, you can see all new measurement insights on your watch automatically. You can read more about it here.

In the Premium version, users can take an unlimited number of measurements per day.

However, in the free version, you are limited to only one measurement with your Apple Watch per day (from 5 a.m. to 5 a.m. the next day), whether it's an automatic measurement or a manual measurement through the Breathe app.

This can happen due to several reasons, for example:

If you want to use the Breathe/Mindfulness app for mindfulness sessions rather than HRV measurements, open Welltory, go to Menu → Settings → Device, and turn off Use Breathe for measurements.