Beatcast: Heart Rate

Heart rate on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island while a session runs. Any Bluetooth sensor, or Apple earbuds through Health. Calories too, if you want them.

Start a session and your heart rate moves into the Dynamic Island and onto the Lock Screen. It stays there while you are in another app, and while the phone is locked in a pocket. On screen it is a big, zone-colored number, readable across a room. Connect a Bluetooth heart rate sensor, or Apple earbuds through Health.

LIVE HEART RATE, EVERYWHERE

• The number, the zone you are in, and the last three minutes as a curve
• Dynamic Island and Lock Screen Live Activity while a session runs
• Home screen widgets: your last reading with the time it was taken, and your last session
• Full-screen mode for when the phone is propped up in front of you
• On iPad: the same session on a bigger screen, paired with a Bluetooth sensor

WORKS WITH YOUR SENSORS

• Straps and bands from Polar, Garmin, Wahoo, Coospo, Magene, Decathlon and Scosche, worn wherever you prefer
• Screenless broadcasters such as the Garmin Cirqa
• Sports watches once their broadcast mode is on: Garmin, COROS, Amazfit, Whoop
• AirPods Pro 3 and Powerbeats Pro 2 as live sensors, through Health
• Without a sensor, a fingertip on the camera does for a spot check. It is not recorded as a session

ALERTS THAT REACH YOU

• Ceiling alert when you go too hard, floor alert when you have recovered
• A short sound, a spoken value, haptic taps, a notification, or any combination of those
• On a paired Apple Watch: the session appears in the Smart Stack alongside your other Live Activities, and notifications arrive there while your iPhone is locked. There is no separate Apple Watch app to install
• Alerts keep working with music playing and the phone in a pocket

ZONES THAT FIT YOU

• Percentage of maximum heart rate, heart rate reserve or threshold
• Two, three or five zones, renamed however you like, or your own boundaries
• Time in zone per session, and a zone bar you can read at a glance

CALORIES, IF YOU WANT THEM Off by default. Enter your weight and sex, and a session shows calories next to your heart rate and the elapsed time. The figure carries through to the Lock Screen, your history and your exports. Apple Health gets it as active energy if you save sessions there. It is an estimate from your heart rate, worked out with a published equation (Keytel et al. 2005), and it counts what you burn above resting. Averaged over many people on a steady effort, it lands within about a fifth. Your own figure can be off by more. A strength set, intervals or a hot room will push it further out. Weight and sex are used for this and for nothing else.

SHARE YOUR HEART RATE Beatcast can act as a Bluetooth heart rate sensor itself. Bikes, treadmills and apps that pair with a monitor read the number it is showing.

YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS

• No account
• No Beatcast server, no analytics, no tracking, no advertising
• Sessions stay on your device
• Export any session as CSV or TCX and take it where you like
• Optional, off by default: save finished sessions to Apple Health

ONE PRICE, ONCE Beatcast is free to try for 14 days with the full app unlocked. After that, a single purchase keeps it yours. No subscription, no renewals.

Beatcast is not a medical device. It is made for training and general wellbeing, and it cannot diagnose, treat or monitor any medical condition. Readings from a fingertip on the camera are an estimate and are less accurate than a dedicated sensor. The calorie figure is calculated from your heart rate and is an estimate, not a measurement.