One of the features of the Apple Watch is its built-in heart rate monitor. The monitor is placed on the underside of the watch and unlike more traditional heart rate monitors that need to be worn across the chest, the monitoring on the Apple Watch (and other devices like it) is done using pulses of light.
That being said, it seems that there have been a number of users who have been complaining of the monitor’s inaccurate readings. This has resulted in various threads created on Apple’s Support Communities as well as a dozen or so threads on Reddit. Some users claim to have sent their watch back to Apple for a replacement, but the issue remains.
Apparently the issue here is that the readings displayed on the Apple Watch are lower than expected, especially with intense workouts. This is versus other heart rate monitors, like the ones created by Polar in which the results are found to be vastly different from one another, which we can only assume is attributed to the way both devices collect readings.
According to Apple’s own website, they claim that different types of motions will elicit different readings, claiming that more rhythmic motions like running will provide more accurate readings, versus other kinds of motions that are more erratic like lifting weights, tennis, or boxing. It is unclear as to how Apple might address this, possibly with a software update to calibrate for different motions, but for now many users don’t seem too pleased with it.
Filed in . Read more about Apple Watch, Smartwatch and Wearable Tech.