How long to acquire heart rate?

[skimcpip]

How long does it take your watch to acquire heart rate? I'm trying to figure out if mine is defective. Is it instant or can it take up to 10-20 seconds?

 

[AppleWes]

I think that's a normal amount of time. Mine seems to take at least 10 seconds or longer too sometimes.

 

[zmunkz]

How long does it take your watch to acquire heart rate? I'm trying to figure out if mine is defective. Is it instant or can it take up to 10-20 seconds?

The normal behavior is 10-20 seconds, which in my opinion makes it "effectively defective" as a useful feature, but it is what it is, at least for now. I almost never get the HR to show before the screen shuts off. Very agitating.

 

[Mike Delta]

Mine takes like 30 seconds.

 

[Smurphy Gherkin]

18 to 19 seconds every time I have ever timed it.

 

[papbot]

How long does it take your watch to acquire heart rate? I'm trying to figure out if mine is defective. Is it instant or can it take up to 10-20 seconds?

I work with pulse oximeters in a hospital. They register your heart rate as well as oxygen saturation. Even on them it can take 10 seconds or more, depending on peripheral circulation and condition of the finger tips, to display an accurate heart rate. These are measuring at the nail bed of your fingertip where your circulation is the most superficial. So it wouldn't be possible for the watch to do it any faster from the top of your wrist where it's not even in the vicinity of an artery. What you're describing is to be expected and sounds perfectly normal to me.