How to check your heart rate using the Apple Watch

BY Kelly Hodgkins

Published 1 May 2015

ChooseYourAppleWatch

The Apple Watch ships with a cluster of sensors that monitor your heart rate. By default, the Apple Watch will track your heart rate every ten minutes automatically when you are idle and more frequently when you are working out. You also can manually check your pulse whenever you would like. Read on to find out how to access this manual option.

Heartbeat Glance Installation

The only way to monitor your heart rate on demand is to open the heartbeat tool, which is available in the Glances. The Apple Watch ships with the heartbeat Glance enabled by default, but you may have deleted it while you were initially configuring your Watch. To see if it is installed in Glances, just open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and then select Glances.

The Heartbeat app will appear at the top of the list if it is configured to be part of your available Glances. If the Heartbeat Glance is not listed as an installed Glance, you can drag it back to the top and drop it among the other Glances. You can add it anywhere in that list and then drag and drop to arrange these Glances in any order you would like.

Using the Heartbeat Glance

heartbeat-measuring

You can manually check your heartbeat by following the steps below:

  1. Access Glances from the clock face of the Apple Watch by swiping upwards
  2. Swipe left or right through the glances until your find the Heartbeat
  3. Wait about 10-20 seconds while the Watch measures and displays your heart rate.

apple-health-heart-rate

When you are done measuring your hear rate, you can view this data in the Health app on your iPhone. Just open the Health app, tap Health Data at the bottom and then Vitals. In the vitals section, there is a section for the heart rate data.

If you want to learn more about the Apple Watch, you can view additional tutorials on our Apple Watch Tips and Tricks page  and our Watch Help page. If you have an area you would like to see covered in this ongoing series of Watch tutorials or have discovered your own handy tips or tricks, please share them in the comments.