Apple Watch detecting raised heart rate whilst sleeping

[burritoNinja]

Surely it must be an error in the device. You’ve had proper medical checks and all showing as fine. It’s when you wake up and it shows no beats per minute, that’s when you need to worry or maybe just charge it. Hoping all is well.

[Craikeybaby]

The problem is that I didn't have the checks when it was happening, so it is hard to rule out.

I'm going to get another heart rate monitor, probably a Wahoo Tickr and see if I can get them to both detect a high heart rate whilst I'm sleeping.

[LoonyTunes]

If anything your heart rate naturally tends to drop during sleep. I'd ask your Doctor for a referral to a Cardiologist once you've ruled out the watch itself being the issue.

[Craikeybaby]

I'm not sure if my Watch/heart have fixed themselves, but since getting a separate heart rate monitor I haven't woken up to a high heart rate alert .

[ED209]

Craikeybaby said:

I'm not sure if my Watch/heart have fixed themselves, but since getting a separate heart rate monitor I haven't woken up to a high heart rate alert .

A proper HRM strap is fare more accurate than a watch.

I have a garmin phoenix 3 HR watch with the wrist based led monitor, it throws out some very strange numbers at times during exercise, like my heart rate being 230 bmp which it clearly isn't! My garmin HRM strap always gives readings in line with my perceived effort.

[Craikeybaby]

I've currently got both.

[EdJ]

I was having something similar to the OP when running with my Apple Watch. The HR at the beginning was crazy high and I kept stopping to check as I didn't feel exhausted etc.

I've now got a Wahoo Tickr and it's fine. I think that wrist based HRM are notorious for this sort of periodic inaccuracy. Generally I think they are pretty good, but there will be times when they are way off.

What I don't understand is why they don't just show a blank reading instead of the 180-190bpm readings I was getting. It does make you wonder if something is wrong!

[Craikeybaby]

Over a year later, this has not happened again.