It was only about a week ago and I reviewed Heartwatch for iOS. Click HERE to recap on the mini review.
And just like that along comes Heartwatch 2 for iOS and what a huge update it is.
HeartWatch 2 introduces heart badges. These are a simple glanceable graphic that lets you quickly see how your heart is doing for different types of events. The colours represent time in zones overlayed with an average.
For regular heart rate readings, the ideal is to have a completely blue badge. The bigger the red ring around the badge, the more time spent with an elevated heart rate. Even though averages can appear to be similar, the badge shows a clear picture of how your heart has really been tracking and alerts you about excessively high or low readings.
For workouts, you can easily see the zonal makeup of your workout at a glance.
If you own an Apple Watch there is now an intelligent complication. When your iPhone detects a new high heart rate, it displays it on your Watch face. This links in to the fast Watch app. No spinning cursor. No waiting. Press the complication and an instant background update has you seeing your latest heart rate and a summary of your day.
You can also capture key HealthKit measurements just by saying them, take notes about your day and track sleep. Even take your waking pulse.
The watch app changes how it looks when you are working out to help you stay in your training zone. Just start your workout as usual using your favourite app. Your readings are big & colour keyed by zone. Red is intense, yellow is fitness, green is fat burning, aqua is health etc. You’ll never see “Measuring…” again.
Whether you are looking for heart rate irregularities or checking on your workout progress, HeartWatch makes things very easy via a 12 week big picture.
If you aren’t too concerned about sleep cycles and phases, and just want an idea of how you slept, HeartWatch analyses restless vs basal energy captured by the Watch whilst asleep and shows your “battery charge” for last night and the trailing week. It even overlays this over your heart rate readings for easy cross reference.
Then of course there are all the features from version 1 along with notifications. This app really adds a lot of value if you own an Apple Watch.
To read more about Heartwatch 2 for iOS head over to the Apple App Store.
Gavin's Gadgets & Photography 
And with it a price increase…… But that will be because it now has watch support.
What a lot of users do not realise is Apple have so many rules in place they do to a degree hamper developers. Often it is not the fault of the developer for increases but obviously they take the hit as it is their name that is one the price increased app.
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The developer got in contact with me a couple of days ago thanking me for my original review. He mentioned the price going up and for 2 reasons. The new update took hundreds of hours of work and many people told him his app was too cheap. Regardless of the reasons it is the one app that makes me feel like the Apple Watch had more usefulness than previously.
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That is good to hear in this instance it was nothing to do with Apples rules. I know of a good few devs who feel quite restrained by Apple.
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Here’s a quick question Gavin:- What are the readings to do with ‘% since previous and % this week’?
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Sorry Mike I can’t remember and not using watch currently.
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No problem Favin.
I’m thinking of purchasing but wondered what it meant as others have asked the same question.
Thanks all the same 👍
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