Welltory: Heart Rate Monitor Reviews

I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a disorder that affects my autonomic nervous system. Some consequences are that I frequently have an unusually high heart rate as well as unusually low heart rate variability (along with sometimes dangerously low blood pressure). I got a this app subscription because I like being able to get more fine grained data about my heart functioning, and I love that part! I can take an extended measurement using the Breathe app and get a lot of useful information that way. But I don’t love the various summaries and suggestions that Welltory issues on the basis of my data. Or at the very least, I find them confusing and extremely difficult to interpret. I’m not sure if that’s because my own case is unusual (because of the POTS) or if this is a more general issue, but this morning, for example, I woke up to find two alerts issued while I was in bed overnight. One was a very low variability measurement and a warning: “Your body is screaming at you!” The other one, issued just a few hours later, urged 90 minutes of exercise: “Today is a great day for a killer workout!” I generally try to ignore all of this stuff anyway (I live a lot of my life, even my “resting” life, at 120+ BPM already, so I have to let my heart call the shots when it comes to “killer workouts”), but it would be really nice to be able to bypass some of these suggestions entirely. They’re just added clutter and stress that I don’t need.

I am an occasional user of Welltory. I was previously a subscriber who used it everyday - sometimes multiple times per day. That will not be happening again with the newest update. It is no longer user friendly. I have no idea where to find anything and there are no explanations as to what each button means. Welltory keeps bragging that I should be able to use my Apple Watch to take measurements - that’s not working. I read the “help” section on how to connect my watch to Welltory and all it advises is to connect Apple Health. That’s done. But still no luck. I turned on the “Breathe” feature and did that a couple times yesterday, and none of that information has been loaded into Welltory. The raw data is really the only thing I looked at on Welltory previously, and now all of that is gone...or impossible to find. The reason I am even bothering to write a review is because I received 15 notifications from Welltory between 2AM and 7AM last night. That is totally ridiculous! The notifications were the same three messages repeated five times. Truly annoying! I went into Welltory to change my notification settings and, of course, that couldn’t be found. I think I am ready to delete Welltory completely even though I have data for almost 400 measurements saved.

Welltory may is my new favorite thing in my life. I live with a rare chronic autoimmune condition and stress/inflammation are serious concerns for me. Recently learned about HRV and have tried various things to start to manage & track it, including the expensive Whoop strap and Oura ring. Neither of them is as good as this app. The comprehensive data they give you is unparalleled, the sync access to other apps is flawless and comprehensive, and I love the clear, cheeky summaries and lessons they built in—it’s clear the team working here is thoughtful, dialed in and fun. It’s weird but I feel like I love them—I’m that grateful. Ok, one small request now for whenever you have time, I would love to be able to click on an individual metric from the measurement data page (like moda, rmsdd, etc) and see the history of that measure alone, maybe scrolling to see them alongside the other individual measures’ history. I am just so fascinated by this level of insight into my body’s systems, and learning even more about what lifestyle changes are helping me improve. Thank you so much!

I am really enjoying learning more and more about the detailed information available, simply from readings of my heart rate. There is so much yet to discover. After just a couple of months, I am seeing an improvement in my energy and resilience, based on changes I have made as a result of regular readings. There are tons of pertinent articles to read to help with understanding and improving results. My only problem with Welltory thus far, is the very tiny and poor contrast print on so many of the charts. It can be a real struggle to read the detailed information. Otherwise a five star app.

The above paragraph was written about a year ago. Seems I never actually sent it. What I am about to say is not a review per se. But since I downloaded the newest update a few days ago, Welltory keeps killing on me such that I do not even have time to contact support to let them know. I just tried restarting my phone and that did not help. Because this is a new update, I will wait a few days for bug fix. Otherwise, I just re-upped my subscription so may come looking for a refund. Hoping this will be fixed soon, as I have been finding Welltory helpful as I try to live a healthier life.

I’m not sure the recent update and redesign is intended to be taken seriously. Certainly a considerable effort was expended in making Welltory — which already had usability and reliability and accuracy problems —completely unusable and unreliable. Now taking a measurement involves the steps: click tiny icon, get taken to settings (why?), exit settings (I guess), enter endless loop looking for measurement device, exit process, confirm that you want to really exit the process, end up on "cancelled measurement" screen, retry (actually, at last actually try) taking measurement. But that’s not even the worst of it. Feedback and design are so poor throughout that it’s hard to know what’s happened and what hasn't (tags are now ruined). And if that weren’t enough the whole thing is now inhabited by embarrassingly bad and out of place cartoons of tiny people lounging on giant iPhones or wandering around what a appears to be a dystopia made of information screens; screens that appear to be meant to be in Welltory , but are impossible to discover. But the worst is that despite the effort that clearly went into making this disaster so complete, this app has not repaired its buggy and misleading algorithms (repeated promises to do so notwithstanding).

Fortunately there are much better and less expensive alternatives. Use one of those and dump this.

ETA: to developer - I never had the old version. This is not a comparison to how it used to be, it’s the opinion of a new user. You seem very patronizing and like you are not listening to a large portion of your community.

This would be a 5 star rating if not for one thing. The data and insights provided by Welltory are terrific. However the design isn’t just bad, it’s dumb. I can’t understand why they think this idea to show your insights as “a fluid” is so fantastic. Numbers are fine, thank you. Or if you love it so much, at least give the user the option to turn it off if they don’t like it. They also don’t give you options as to what types of info or advice you want in your feed, which makes it really cluttered. At least you should be able to delete the unwanted items after they appear. There’s also subtler lacks in customization such as the inability to setivh to a 12-hour clock, which depending on where you are from can be a constant annoyance. I’m a paid subscriber and have concretely benefitted from the data but these user experience negatives are starting to add up.

I have PoTS and EDS and Welltory has been a game changer in being able to understand and respond to my body!! I have a BP cuff that BT to my phone and between that, HRV, and rate from my Apple Watch the amount of accurate information Welltory is able to give me is quite mind blowing… honestly more than any doctor ever has and on a daily basis at that!! There is the occasional contradictory recommendations such as to drink caffeine to raise BP, when I’ve told Welltory I can’t have caffeine, but otherwise I LOVE Welltory!! It is super easy to understand (although I have been doing A LOT of medical research and reading) and really validates why I’m feeling how I am which is so priceless. I bought the premium for a year for 70$ you can’t beat that for anything compared to any of my other medical costs! Thank you so much this app for caring enough to create such intuitive software💕

I really like the concept of Welltory but I don't find it very useful at all. I hope they can fix a couple of things.
- The timing of the reports and suggestions is often way too delayed, even when Apple Health data is synchronized to this app in a timely manner. For example, I think activity target is meant to be sent to me in the morings but I often get it in late afternoons. Reminders to "relax in the evening" often arrive the next morning.
- The metrics of HRV score, productivity, energy and stress all come from the same data sources (you can measure it in app using camera, and it also imports from Apple Health). But those 4 metrics seem completely uncorrelated for me. They explained HRV score is calculated using InRMSSD, but didn't explain the algorithms and theories behind productivity, energy and stress. I find it hard to trust the metrics.

As of now, Welltory is not easy and intuitive enough for unsophisticated users who just want simple actionable recommendations. It’s also not comprehensive enough for power users. But I think both are fixable. So I’m looking forward to its future versions

Doesn’t identify the date correctly, consistently, or at all, depending. Does not show data it has collected. Makes you wait indefinitely while it is “syncing” but never completes. Sometimes says server too busy. Your data is never revealed for you to use. Does not identify where to look for your data, so you go fishing. You wind up at endless blank screens, sometimes black, which you cannot exit, or nothing but white with a back arrow. Unusable. Will demand refund. Oh, and you cannot export your data. Nice touch. I needed my health data. But, “we’re working to resolve a technical issue on the server” is all I see, for days. And despite tech support and the developer’s response that it can all still be done from the web, no, it cannot. Because of the aforementioned server issue. As though they didn’t know. And, it’s not an “inconvenience“ — I need hard data for personal health reasons that may make crucial differences in my life and longevity. I trusted this app to not rob me of my own data, so I have no other records of this vital time, and now I have no context. Developers: You stole from me the very thing you purport to provide, and in doing so, you have robbed me of my ability to make informed healthcare decisions.

First off they don’t tell you that there is a free intro period so I ponied up the $80 for the full app service. Welltory immediately on set up wants you to download and purchase several other apps for full functionality. Buy this time I was already feeling burned due to the free trial period notice after the purchase screen so I have not opted for any of the partner apps. Welltory works solely off of manual hrv recordings and you telling it how you feel! It also gathers info from your health app and what ever other app you connect to it. The readings are very inaccurate, you can take 3 readings in a short amount of time and they are all very different. Then when you go to look at your metrics the layout is very convoluted and not informative. It is not streamlined for you to access current and past information at a glance to see where you’re at and your history against your training schedule to figure out how to adjust your training. What a waste of $80 I really hoped it would work since I have an Apple Watch and use it for all of my training. I was looking at the Whoop band but did not like the thought of wearing two bands. I wish there was a way to request a refund.

I absolutely love Welltory. I have the free version for now. My parents and my sister has Welltory I sent them and they love it too except the sleep time is hoursss off. So until that gets fixed we’re keeping the free version. Would love the full paid version if it would actually get the sleep correct or whatever else needs to be corrected. We all said we’d buy the full version if it worked right. I tho i everything else is pretty much on point tho. And like I said I found it and lived it sooo much I shared with my entire family and they downloaded it also. And we all use our Apple Watch with this. I gave only 4 star ⭐️ for now until they fix the sleep part that is it way off. Will change to 5 star ⭐️ when fixed!!! And again this is the free version we are using until then. My dad really loves it as me n him have tons of health and heart problems. Plz fix this so we can buy the full version ASAP !!!! Great job on Welltory. I highly recommend it !!!

I wanted to like Welltory SOOOOO BAD because it serves such an important function in a persons life IF the HRV data is ACTUALLY accurate. It’s NOT. It’s that simple. You can be a competitive athlete with an excellent HRV, a solid recovery protocol, and get 7 days in a row of good nights rest with no training and Welltory will still not match your subjective feelings. Not only will Welltory read low energy when you have high energy, high stress when you have NO stress. To add fuel to the fire they employ a support staff that is incompetent and unhelpful. I’ve taken over 250 measurements with their PRO version with a polar heart rate strap following all of their procedures to the T! They do very little to solve your ACTUAL problems INSTEAD they just send random knowledge base articles that have nothing to do with your concern and after you finally get to the bottom of the real issue which is an ALGORITHM issue. They say things like “we’re working really hard to improve our algorithms are theres a big update coming”. So wait... you admit Welltory is inaccurate and impractical but continue to charge ME and other people for a PRO version of it? Good deal! SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY FOLKS

The idea behind Welltory is great, but execution seems subpar. It is just weird/odd that they do not allow users to move / hide stuff from their feed. I got Welltory purely to track my HRV daily and obtain insights. I have followed the instructions to a T for both Apple Watch and camera HRV measurements. However, Welltory is pulling in the random HRV measurements that the Apple Watch takes, rather than utilizing the Breathe measurements I am taking first thing in the morning (per the instructions). I’ve only had one random HRV measurement pull in and show on my measurement history, and workouts are not being captured. Would be nice if Welltory would work very well and consistently on the basics, then introduce the fluff later (ie the prompts/notices/etc that are forced on you in the feed).

Response to developer: I have been taking measurements with Apple Watch using 3 min breathe cycles exactly as described in your instructions. I have not been receiving any messages about low quality readings. Over the last week I have been doing the breathe cycles lying down; this week I’ll try sitting up and report back.

Cool app. I’m an exercise scientist, so I like getting my hands on any actionable data that I can. this app definitely provides this, but here are a few things I would like to see improved:
1. The only way I can get a reading with 90%-99% accuracy is to lay my phone down and then rest my finger on the camera. Every time I tried doing it per the instructions I got 65-85% accuracy.
2. The measurement readings are considerably different between a 70% accuracy reading and an 85% accuracy reading. I’m talking one says I’m juiced up and ready to take on the world and the other says I’m dead on arrival. It would be nice to have a feature that allows you to delete the data from low-accuracy readings so they don’t appear on graphs and affect your averages.
3. I’m not sure if the free trial lasts x number days or for x number readings, but if it’s x number readings I don’t believe low accuracy readings that have to be redone should count towards that x number.

From gaudy half-highlight impossible to read text, to overly intrusive cards with links to articles, the dashboard of Welltory is so terrible that I refuse to use Welltory any longer. Who cares what data Welltory compiles when you present it in an a completely unreadable and annoying fashion.

Edit: They responded with a useless response about having them help me navigate Welltory to understand the data… except the data isn’t the problem… the way data is physically presented is awful—it’s like driving a car with a windshield covered I. Mud. Your UI is gawdy, the text is atrocious, and you literally half highlight words to make them extremely difficult to read—especially with advertisement cards all over the place. There is no help you can provide users except to remove the ad cards and change the font and remove the half highlighting. There are other apps that obtain the same data, and simply present the data in line item so you can actually read it and use it. Completely obtuse developer response.

I didn’t want to leave a review, I actually wanted to contact someone about what I see in my App. I went to the website and it was more advertisement, no support. They do offer a help section which I didn’t find very useful. I downloaded Welltory and I have the pro version. The videos that I viewed mention all these different things that you can do, like immune health and other categories, I don’t have in my pro version. I have basically exercise information and what my heart rate did throughout the day. The same information I get from my standard Apple health app. I read that there was a recent release of a redesign but I have the latest release and it’s the same. I also see a videos showing a completely different interface then I have. I also tried to dictate within the review app and it doesn’t allow dictation but every other program I have does. I hope someone can let me know why my information doesn’t look like anything what’s being advertised and where is the other information is for $75.

Part 2. I needed to say more. These folks have THE MOST AMAZING CUSTOMER SERVICE of any company I’ve ever dealt with. Bar none. Every question has been answered quickly by the team. If we can’t figure out the challenge, they work at it some more and get back to me promptly again. They have solved every issue I brought to them. I love this company and the amazing group of individuals managing it. WELL DONE!!!

Part 1. I’m an active ‘not a spring chicken’ who wanted to track more of my activities and my health. Welltory is perfect, albeit a tad expensive.
It does everything advertised. I had a problem getting a good reading during the first week, so I contacted customer service. Their response was very fast and with one setting adjustment Welltory now works perfectly. Two thumbs up.

Love Welltory and the information it provides, but I wish it was clearer as to what the results and scores me and how it pertains to my life. Ie: when it says “something could be wrong” does that mean I could have a heart attack? Or something going with my blood? Or I have a cold. And I get the highest stress readings sometimes while I’m sleeping, I have no idea how to intervene on that lol and I keep getting the result that my sleep did not give me a full recovery…ok, how do I make my sleep more recovering when I’m sleeping during it? lol and certain readings are cool like the HRV and whether my heart and respiratory are in sync or not, but what does that mean? How does that present in everyday life? Overall, it’s amazing what all Welltory can do and it’s cool that it offers suggestions and stuff but how those different readings are applicable and what could be causing them would be helpful.

Their servers are always “having issues” - as their help desk so succinctly told me. And they constantly tell you you are stressed beyond belief - basically ready to die at any minute - even when you feel fine and all systems are go. There are so many better products on the market. Don’t waste your money. And as to the developer’s response, they’re always having a tech issue. If you read the other negative reviews, the developer seems to use “tech” issues as a convenient excuse every time somebody says Welltory isn’t worthwhile. If you have that many tech issues, maybe you ought to go back to the drawing board and start again. NO COMPANY has that many tech issues unless they are working out of their basement and their server is a vintage 1980s home computer. Give it a rest. As for the measurements not matching, again multiple complaints. NOBODY’s body registers this many catastrophic readings for real unless they’re dying of a terminal illness. Welltory is pure nonsense.

Welltory is wonderful, it helps me keep track of how my daily habits affect my body and helps me track my stressors. It’s very user friendly and simple to use, I also love how I get advice and tips on ways to help me me improve my physical and mental health. I recommend Welltory to anyone who wants to keep track of how their body is doing, I won’t go into all the details but if you’re looking to improve your productivity, physical performance, and help reducing your stress as well as important insights to your overall health then use Welltory! Thank you this app for helping me on my journey of self improvement, the knowledge I’ve gained has helped me so much and I’ll continue with you as long as I can, you’re support is priceless! I can’t recommend Welltory enough😊

So I downloaded Welltory only hours ago and I’m completely immersed. It’s truly amazing, and I’m sure it will be incredibly beneficial to me after a few weeks of using it. I’ve been using Life Cycle for over a year now and I would LOVE if I could connect that to this app. The other two activity tracker apps, Human and Swarm, do not remotely cover what Life Cycle does, nor are they particularly desirable apps to begin with. If i could integrate Life Cycle, I would be a happy camper indeed.

I’ve been using Welltory for a little bit after buying a month past the trial period. I really don’t understand how it works at all. On days I sleep better and feel great, it says my energy is low and my stress is high. On days I feel tired and lethargic it says my energy is high and my stress is low (not at all aligning with how I feel). I’ve even connected my Apple Watch to try to make it more accurate but I am at the point where I don’t really trust what it is saying at all. None of the daily test results map to how I’m feeling at the time or they aren’t really telling you what that means to how you feel (sounds like a content UX issue....). It sounds smart with a lot of terms but I’m not someone working in healthcare so why am I having to Google to figure out why I feel different from my results when I am paying? Do actual user testing on your content with people outside of the medical field and look for comprehension issues.

After downloading multiple simple heart rate apps only to be disappointed, it took me one test run with Welltory and I was blowed away and subscribed shortly after!!! I’m not one to ever leave a review neither pay for subscriptions but this was so accurate I’m
Excited to have guidance and advance technology right in the palm of my hands! Seriously ive already recommended to many friends that I’m certain can benefit from just being observant and aware. Welltory hands down is is a life saver/game changer for me!!! 🤓ThankYOU developers!!!🙏🏼🙌🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Update:still Loving Welltory it keeps me aware of how my body works and handles stressors (it ask for a rate while I was in Welltory and the only way to submit appeared to be leaving a review again lol

Think I will delete Welltory soon and continue using other HRV apps. A lot of the information Welltory gives you is in vague terms. Having the info from pro (paid) version gives you more detail in terms that are more useful. Unfortunately the pro sample was only the first 5 days, which isn’t even enough to establish a baseline. this app needs to consider a 30-35 day sample of the pro version. Also, the 5 day sample of pro wasn’t even the full version, in which you can incorporate blood pressure. Sorry this app, but you folks are just too stingy, so I have no idea how useful the pro version could be. Seems you don’t have enough confidence in your pay for product to give people a reasonably significant chance to try it.

BTW have been using this and other HRV apps with a polar h10 heart rate monitor for the most accurate results possible.

Welltory seems to have high-quality readings, provides a huge set of data points out (for a subscription fee), and has helpful performance tips and recommendations. The real magic is the way they take the complex HRV numbers and distill them into easy to understand metrics.

I have two huge frustrations: first, there is no way to tell Welltory when your personal morning is. If you happen to be an early riser, it will annoy the heck out of you each morning by asking you “How much did you get today?” And similar night questions. Seems like a simple fix but support hasn’t been helpful.

My second frustration is that there is no way to edit tag names, delete tags, or edit the tags on a previous measurement. That creates real limits on the ability to use tagging.

When it comes to monitoring health, blood pressure and regularity/irregularity of heartbeat cannot be beat. But Welltory measures the interval between heartbeats and comes up with indicators of stress and energy and more. Now that is not something that the doctor will ask for, but it sure is useful - I can track whether I start the day rested, whether I have worn out during the day and need to slack off, and many other things as well. It has some neat information included to read while you wait for it to take its measurement. Great little app, and well worth having, so long as you use it.

This is a very good app, it has helped me to understand why I feel tired all the time, and gives me good suggestions as to how to deal with it.

There are some things that could be improved, and that I have already pointed out by using the apps help features. An Important one would be a table showing what wearables can be connected to Welltory with a table showing the different features and information flow into Welltory with comparing columns so app users can make good & informed decision as to what device to connect to feed data.

Further, today Welltory has been crashing continuously, and can not find a way to contact help/support for the issue online via the link displayed here...

Measuring is fun and stats are pretty informative. But, several measurements have really been weird, like my energy could be low on the last measurement, and it could be suddenly high on the next measurement. The body might be re ‘adjusting’ just like what’s said in Welltory , but when it says the energy level is like our internal ‘battery’, I just find it weird how I can have more (or lose a a lot of) ‘battery’ in a matter of minutes, even when “measurement accuracy” is high. Unfortunately, also because of these things, I can’t bring myself to subscribe to this app... so after they decided to not let me see the complete stats, I just deleted Welltory .

Update to review: developer responded and informed me there are graphs available. But after looking at them none that I can see are of the actual HRV recording. So again I'd really like Welltory if it showed me a graph of what was happening while my finger was being scanned. Show me the difference between every beat and breathe.

Easy to use. Welltory gives you all sorts of feedback and numbers with easy to follow guidance and suggestions. What would make Welltory even better was if it had a graph showing your HRV. For me that would make a lot of sense. Especially being able to compare from day to day. Because they don't currently have a graph I'm probably going to stop using it.

Don’t mistake Heart Rate for Heart Rate Variability. Both are very different! Speaking as a medical doctor specializing in neuroscience and psychiatry, I must state that this app 2.0 is a ground breaking and phenomenal implementation of health-wellness monitoring and surveillance. From my extensive research into this field, I’m glad to see Wellatory bringing once inconceivable ideas to fruition through medical and technological sciences. I’ve tried MANY other similar apps but none with the ease of use and accuracy as this app! I highly recommend Welltory!

After latest update I am very dissatisfied. Welltory works great tracking your heart rate and giving an good reading.

However when I started the free trial let you review your notes back to day one and recently they let you see your tags, which is something you fill out also, but now I cannot look at the notes or the tags I added to each individual reading which is very frustrating since I cannot tell what conditions changed to make my energy/stress lvl change along with heart rate.

I will happily add the stars back once this data that the customer puts in themselves is visible to them. I love Welltory, I am just disappointed.

I was looking for an HRV Monitor app and I downloaded Welltory around 3 AM. I was so excited by its comprehensiveness that I couldn’t sleep until 6 AM. During that period I ran the tests on myself several times and I couldn’t believe the incredible precision of the reports about my health in general, over stressing exhaustion, and my run down PSNS! Anyone who is serious about their Health and fitness must immediately get Welltory. I am immensely grateful to Welltory developers! 👍😁

But not volunteered... I have a year subscription and over a month of it is wasted because I cannot see my in depth readings. At least if I was prorated for no service I would understand work in progress.
September 1 update 2019still the same.
Nov 2019
They extended my pro for the time it was down. The SDNN measurements via camera on the SE match Apple Watch SDNN. They have the only app that measure via camera. That is a plus. Their camera measurements are the same as the Polar Strap H 10. So that’s wonderful. Their interpretations match my physical state. If I’m stressed ( sleep or fasting ) match the real world. Their circulation score matches my FDA approved oxometer.