The Heart Rate monitor is one of the most useful features of the Apple Watch for people who use the device for exercise. However, one cannot deny the fact that it also drains the battery faster than other features. For this reason — and perhaps a few others — some people prefer to have the heart rate monitor on their Apple Watch turned off.
How do you use your Apple Watch to check your heart rate?
It’s pretty easy. Just open the app on your Apple Watch and it’ll begin checking your heart rate. Make sure that the Apple Watch fits snugly on your wrist. In addition, it can also monitor your resting, breathing, and recovery rates the whole day. It’s one of the reasons why it consumes battery juice pretty quickly.
If you’re particularly concerned about your heart rate, you can turn on the heart rate notifications.
With this feature turned on, your Apple Watch will closely monitor your heart rate. If it goes unusually above or below a set beats per minute (BPM), your device will notify you right away. Add the Heart Rate app to your watch face so you can easily access it.
While having this feature turned on can truly come in handy, not everyone actually needs it. If you don’t use this feature often anyway, there’s no harm done by turning it off. If anything, turning the Heart Rate monitor off can help save you some battery juice.
How does it drain your Apple Watch’s battery anyway?
For one, this feature automatically checks your heart rate at certain intervals throughout the day. Hence, it’s constantly running in the background of your Apple Watch. Just like any other apps, this consumes battery, too.
If you’re using the Workout app, the monitor will continuously check your heart rate during the whole workout. After your exercise, it will still check your heart rate continuously for 3 minutes to figure out your recovery rate. All of this information is indeed helpful for an active person, but all this monitoring will, of course, drain your Apple Watch’s battery.
Once you’ve decided to turn off your Heart Rate monitor, the next part is to take out your iPhone that is paired with your Apple Watch. Unfortunately, you can’t turn the Heart Rate monitor off from your Apple Watch; you have to use your iPhone for this. Here’s what you need to do:
- On your iPhone, open the Watch app.
- On the bottom left corner of the screen, tap on the My Watch icon.
- Scroll down the list of options and select Privacy.
- Choose Motion and Fitness. You will find the Heart Rate toggle.
- Switch the Heart Rate toggle off.
And that’s it! Do note that with this feature disabled, your Apple Watch will no longer be able to automatically monitor your heart rate. However, you can still check it from time to time by manually taking a reading from your Apple Watch.
One thought on “How to Turn Off Heart Rate on Apple Watch”
But what are the real reasons why heart rate function is undervalued, and why do some people dislike it so much?