22 Comments
Mar 27, 2023Liked by Marco Altini

Hi Marco, I am doing HRV with the Apple Watch now for 4 years, and i fully agree with your assessment.

There is one glitch I like to point out: I noticed that the Health App does not immediately update the HRV reading. It can happen that HRV4training reads the last value before the Breath App was used. Therefore I made it a habit to open the Health App after using Breath, and make sure that the latest reading is available in Health.

One feature that i am missing in HRV4training is a way to scroll through the Health App values and select the right one to be imported to HRV4TRAINING.

Also, the Limitation to the last 3 hrs of readings could be revised. Sometimes I take a reading but forget about it, but later I delete all “rubbish” values from Health and try to import, and HRV4TRAINING refuses, because the data is older than 3 hrs. I don’t really see why this Limitation is implemented.

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Jan 21·edited Jan 21Liked by Marco Altini

Hi there Marco! I'm ready to buy HRV4Training app, also I am familiar with your recommended HRV measuring protcol. Now, I have Apple Watch, that I want to use not only for HRV measurements, but also for RHR and sleep tracking. When sleep mode is on, Apple Watch does not include heart rate during night and does not provide me RHR values that are based on night, but rather it changes during a day, which I think is pointless (I had a couple of times that I sat down after intensive training, was cooling down, and apple watch picked it up as my resting heart rate increasing value from 50 to 70 for that day). Do you have any recommendations on how to keep tracking those 3 values, maybe its possible with HRV4Training? I guess I could just sell my apple watch and buy ie. Garmin to measure those things without all the hassle.

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Jan 9Liked by Marco Altini

Marco, I found this work very insightful and purchased your app after being frustrated with HRV data being presented by my Apple Watch. Yet it just says “measurements are hidden” when I open the app after collecting HRV data. I have checked Apple Health and all permissions between the two apps are allowed, and the primary collection method in your app is set to “Apple Health”. What am I doing wrong here?

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Dec 21, 2023Liked by Marco Altini

Hi Marco,

Great post thanks - Can you verify if the research behind HeartMath is superior technology when it comes to HRV? Or is there a better technology that you recommend? Or just stick to the camera functionality mentioned in other comments? Thanks (Specifically the InnerBalance product that I purchased from them: https://store.heartmath.com/innerbalance-btle )

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Mar 27, 2023Liked by Marco Altini

Hi Marco. I have been using the HRV training app for several years, always measuring with the phone camera every morning when I wake up. I also have an apple watch. Marco, do you recommend measuring with the phone camera or better measuring with the apple watch? Which of these two do you think would be the best measurement method? thanks

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Mar 27, 2023Liked by Marco Altini

Hi Marco,

Would it be possible to get HRV from ECG readings? I believe there’s an API for importing/exporting the ECG waveform. It would then need some post-processing to calculate HRV.

Some possible advantages:

- More accurate

- Results are not mixed with the random HRV measurements from the watch.

- Could get a manual HRV reading at almost anytime.

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Mar 27, 2023Liked by Marco Altini

Hi Marco,

Thanks and I enjoy reading your articles. As a 'veteran" athlete I find HRV useful, especially as overtraining is easy to do as you get older. It might be worth mentioning in the article that "Breathe" is found in the Mindfulness app on the Apple watch and there is no separate Breathe app. The app is useful as it makes you breathe at a fixed rate and respiratory pattern over a minute which I guess may improve the standardisation of the reading.

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deletedMar 6, 2023Liked by Marco Altini
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