PulseGuard watches your heart rate on your Wear OS watch and tells you when it stays above a limit you set, so you can slow down before you overdo it.

FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS TO TAKE IT EASY

Some people have to keep their heart rate under a certain number, and only notice they have gone over it once they already feel it. That includes people living with long covid, ME/CFS or other post-viral fatigue, people building activity back up after an illness or a cardiac rehabilitation programme, and anyone who has simply been told to pace themselves and stay under a number. PulseGuard is a pacing aid for exactly that: it keeps an eye on the number for you and speaks up early, so resting is a choice you make in time instead of one your body makes for you.

HOW IT WORKS

Set your limit, for example 60 bpm. When your heart rate goes over it and stays over it for a few seconds, the watch gives you a gentle nudge: a short vibration, a friendly beep, or both. If nothing changes, the nudge repeats — and after the number of nudges you chose, it escalates to a continuous alarm that keeps sounding until you snooze it or slow down — tap the watch face to snooze. Snoozing is a pause, not an off switch: monitoring resumes by itself after the time you set.

EVERYTHING IS YOURS TO SET

• Heart-rate limit
• How long above the limit before the first nudge
• Time between nudges
• Number of nudges before the alarm
• Snooze length
• Vibration, sound, or both — separately for nudges and for the alarm

ON THE WATCH

A live heart-rate ring that fills towards your limit, one tap to start or stop watching, a tile and a complication for your watch face so your rate is one glance away, and a log with a graph of the day and every nudge, alarm and snooze.

PACING, NOT JUST ALERTING

• A daily budget of minutes spent above your limit, draining as the day goes on, so you can see what you have left before you spend it
• A limit that can follow your own resting rate instead of a fixed number, if you turn that on
• How long it took your rate to come back under the limit after activity, kept over time so you can see the trend
• Activity awareness: when you are deliberately moving, the app can allow a little more room and wait a little longer before it nudges
• Optional Health Connect on the phone, so your readings can sit alongside the rest of your health data

ON THE PHONE

The same settings and the same on/off switch, the day's graph and event log, and a home-screen widget with your latest reading. Change something on either device and it appears on the other. If your watch has not got PulseGuard yet, the phone app offers to install it.

MADE TO RUN ALL DAY

Because it is meant to be on from morning to evening, PulseGuard does not hold the heart-rate sensor open. It samples in short windows while you are calm and switches to continuous measurement only when your rate approaches your limit or an alert is running. Choose Battery saver, Balanced or Fastest to decide how quickly it reacts.

PRIVATE BY DESIGN

No account, no ads, no analytics, no servers. Your readings stay on your watch and your phone, and go nowhere else. You can export your log as a file, or delete it, whenever you like.

FREE, WITH AN OPTIONAL TIP

Every feature is free and stays free. If PulseGuard helps you and you would like to support its development, you can leave an optional one-off tip through Google Play in Settings. Nothing in the app is unlocked, hidden or limited whether you do or not.

IMPORTANT

PulseGuard is a wellness and pacing aid. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition. It is not a substitute for advice from a health professional, and not a supervised alarm system. Consumer wrist sensors are approximate — do not rely on it for anything that matters medically.