How to turn on High Heart Rate notifications and alerts on Apple Watch

The Apple Watch includes quite a few different features to keep you moving and keep track of your health. Perhaps the most useful features reside in the heart rate department.

The Watch features a heart rate sensor that makes use of either green and infrared LEDs. This keeps track of both your heart rate when you’re not working out and when you are.

Another benefit of the heart rate sensor on the Apple Watch is its notifications. If you have been susceptible to elevated heart rates, then you can actually be notified when this occurs.

Sadly, both low and high (elevated) heart rate notifications are available only on Apple Watch Series 1 or later.

Related reading

• How to pair your Apple Watch to a new iPhone and keep your health data
• Fitbit heart rate not working or inaccurate? Let’s fix it
• Does Fitbit, Garmin, or other wearable devices offer a Pulse Oximeter?
• The Xiaomi Mi Band 3 is just $30 and offers a heart-rate monitor and more
• Apple hopes to help you better manage your time with Screen Time
• Apple Watch gets approval in South Korea for ECG feature

Why heart rate alerts are important and potentially life-saving

When your heart rate is too high or too low and you aren’t engaged in some physical activity or slow-down, you may need to seek immediate help.

That’s why Apple Watch alerts are so important, so you can seek help when you need it most.

For anyone with an Apple Watch, setting your heart rate thresholds (for low and high) is a must. Plus, it’s super easy, and once done, you can forget about it (until you need it.)

Check your iPhone’s Watch app settings and turn on heart rate data

Enable High Heart Rate Notifications

These notifications are turned off automatically when you first start up your Apple Watch. However, here are the steps you need to take to enable them:

1. Open the Watch app
2. Tap My Watch
3. Scroll and select Heart or Heart Rate
4. Tap High Heart Rate or Elevated Heart Rate 
5. Select the BPM (beats per minute) of your choice. There are a few different choices running from 100-150

After you have selected the threshold, then there is nothing else that you will need to do. In the future, if your heart rate ever passes your set threshold, your Apple Watch notifies you.

Looking at your last inactive 10 minutes

On the bright side, this notification only occurs if you are not working out or engaging in physical activity for at least 10 minutes.

It’s highly unusual for your heart rate to surge while you are not working out or getting physical. So it should be a regular occurrence if you are working out and pushing your body in physically demanding ways!

Keep it to 120 bpm

It’s important to note that most people should not have to select a threshold higher than 120 BPM. However, this can change depending on your age, whether you smoke or not, or other factors.

Set your low heart rate notification too!

Want to keep track of your heart rate on a regular basis?

There are a few ways!

First, you can simply open the Heart Rate app on your Apple Watch.

To see your current heart rate on your Apple Watch 

Use a watch face complication

1. With your current watch face showing, firmly press the display, then tap Customize 
2. Swipe left all the way to the end
3. If your current face offers complications, look at options on that last screen
4. Tap a complication to highlight and select it 
5. Turn the Digital Crown to choose Heart Rate
6. When finished, press in the Digital Crown again to save your changes
7. And then tap the watch face to switch to it

When you use a watch face with the heart rate complication, your heart rate monitors are just a tap away.

This makes life easy for those who need to keep an eye on your heart rate.

There’s so much you can track with Apple’s heart rate monitor functions!

Check your heart rate during a workout

All of this information syncs with the Apple Health app so that you can view your information at a glance. This can become extremely useful if you’ve noticed elevated heart rates and want to consult a doctor.

If you have any more questions about the Heart Rate monitor on the Apple Watch, let us know.

We’ll be sure to respond to any questions that may arise. But if you see some irregularities, be sure to check with your doctor.