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.
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Contents
- 1 Why heart rate alerts are important and potentially life-saving
- 2 Check your iPhone’s Watch app settings and turn on heart rate data
- 3 Enable High Heart Rate Notifications
- 4 Set your low heart rate notification too!
- 5 Want to keep track of your heart rate on a regular basis?
- 6 There’s so much you can track with Apple’s heart rate monitor functions!
- 7 Wrapping it up!
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
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone
- Tap My Watch
- Choose Privacy
- Toggle on Heart Rate
- Once on, your Apple Watch monitors your heart rate for the Heart Rate app, workouts, and Breathe sessions
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:
- Open the Watch app
- Tap My Watch
- Scroll and select Heart or Heart Rate
- Tap High Heart Rate or Elevated Heart Rate
- 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!
If your heart rate remains below a chosen beats per minute (BPM) for an inactive period of 10 minutes, your Apple Watch can also notify you of that.
- On your iPhone, open the Watch app
- Tap the My Watch tab
- Choose the Heart app
- Tap Low Heart Rate, then choose your lowest BPM
Low heart rate notifications are available only on Apple Watch Series 1 or later. 
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 
- Just open the Heart Rate app–that’s it!
- As long as you wear your Apple Watch, it continues to measure your heart rate
Use a watch face complication
- With your current watch face showing, firmly press the display, then tap Customize
- Swipe left all the way to the end
- If your current face offers complications, look at options on that last screen
- Tap a complication to highlight and select it
- Turn the Digital Crown to choose Heart Rate
- When finished, press in the Digital Crown again to save your changes
- 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
- Open the Watch app
- Go to My Watch > Workout > Workout View
- Tap a workout and take a look at your stats
See a graph of your heart rate data and check out your heart rate information over the last hour, day, week, month, or year.
- Open the Health app on your iPhone
- Tap Browse
- Choose Heart and then Heart Rate
- To add Heart Rate to your Summary, swipe up and tap Add to Favorites
- Tap Show All Filters to see the range of your heart rate during a selected time period.
Take a look at your resting, walking average, workout, and breathe rates. And of course, make note of any high or low heart rate notifications.
Wrapping it up!
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.
Like!! Thank you for your information for setting my watch’s heart rate warnings!