MyCareLink Heart™ Reviews

by ULMG

I have a Medtronics Pacemaker now for 3 weeks. The MCL Heart app has not worked. I have tried everything possible including deleting MyCareLinkHeart off my devices and the cloud and reinstalling. The error message says that it can’t access the internet. All my other apps work fine and all the required settings for getting MyCareLinkHeart to work on my device were correct. The Medtronics tech services have not been helpful at all. MyCareLinkHeart is designed to send readings to the clinic in case there is a malfunction or issue with my heart. So I am basically alone on an island without any means of support. I give it zero stars.

by Solarbuddy

I have a brand new MC1AVR1 and have met with repeated failure to connect with MyCareLinkHeart to an iPhone XS Max on iOS 14.4.1. I’ve restarted, kept my mfa hearing aids off, updated phone firmware, and struck out every time. MyCareLinkHeart retains no information about proposed login details, location, device serial, etc. so repeated attempts to get it set up and running are very frustrating.

by Dave Cummins (Oil Painter)

MyCareLinkHeart nags me when I have not been connected for a few days, but it doesn’t give me a reason to use it. If it would do one thing, just tell me my heart rate, I would use it all the time. It offers me nothing whatsoever except a chance to drain my phone battery. My doctor only checks my device twice a year and so I have no motivation for keeping it connected 24/7.

by JeffF59

We need to be able to trust a pacemaker’s technology, but the lack of data transparency, coupled by instances of the pacemaker not reporting arrhythmias because the settings were not set sensitive enough, have made me lack trust in the pacemaker itself.

Any smart watch of fitness appliance can provide more information to the wearer than MyCareLinkHeart does.

They deliberately hide the data they say at the request of doctors, the same doctors who may not see anomalies for days after their occurrence. There is no excuse for the lack of sharing of our own data with us!

Because of this I am looking for difference solutions. Can’t trust Medtronic.

by MormonMacMan

MyCareLinkHeart feels like it’s made for iOS 3 and it’s very insecure. Passwords can only contain numbers and alphabet characters, no special characters. MyCareLinkHeart does not recognize password manager input. If you leave MyCareLinkHeart in the middle of creating an account to enter/copy info to/from your password manager you have to start all the way over. Passwords are displayed in clear text in MyCareLinkHeart or on the website. Come on Medtronic. This seems like really insecure behavior.

There’s virtually no information visible about what is in the reports sent to my clinic. Why am I not able to see my own data?

The UI doesn’t feel like it’s been updated since the iPhone 4 and the entire interface is extremely oversized.

by Dr Mondeaux

I’ve never previously rated an app but I’m making an exception for what Medtronic has done. MyCareLinkHeart deserves a 0 rating but that wasn’t an option. As a recipient of a cobalt ICD I deserve to know if and when any therapy is delivered to my body. MyCareLinkHeart doesn’t trust patients to know this important information. MyCareLinkHeart provides a lot of worthless information from a printed brochure. I find that lazy and I expect more from a medical technology company. Whatever executive is taking credit for developing an app should be embarrassed.

by Father-of-far-flung-family

As many others have reported here, MyCareLinkHeart does not reliably connect to the internet, even though both WiFi and cellular data are functioning normally. I have tried every usual remedy, restarting the phone, reloading MyCareLinkHeart , as have others. This “bug” renders MyCareLinkHeart useless.

The software people at Medtronic should tackle the problem and notify us when it’s fixed.

IOne other issue: it’s reported above that the doctors are resisting the addition of a feature that would allow patients to view their own data. Really? Their opposition is so typical of the patronizing attitude of the medical profession toward us patients. Knowledge is power. Don’t lord over us. Software engineers: Kindly pass on the message.

by Markzoc

So I was told to download and use MyCareLinkHeart after my pacemaker implant! The issue I have with it is my pacemaker gathers all this information about my heart and I don’t have any access to it, heart rate, blood pressure and irregular heart beat! All I am asking for is access to blood pressure and heart rate! My doctor wants me to keep track of my heart rate and blood pressure so I had to go out and purchase a blood pressure monitor, why should I have to purchase one when I have one implanted in me that monitors all of that 24/7? Medtronic you should allow us access to our own vital signs so we don’t have to purchase equipment to do that!

by Markbytes55

Have had the new Pacemaker and smartphone app for a month now. Only data I can see is the daily “physical Activity”. Not clear what this represents (walking, running, sitting upright, sex, etc?).

Cannot see physical pacemaker attributes as advertised (battery condition, unit health, etc).

Is there an improved software release coming out soon as MyCareLinkHeart does not really provide User value?

by Coolest Cool.

Why does MyCareLinkHeart constantly log you out? It is so annoying. Even if you don’t hard close it, it still closes on its own and then gives you a reminder to open it so it can transmit data. Then you reopen it and poof, password is gone and it’s not saved by MyCareLinkHeart , either.

by Rollerblabe

I don’t typically leave reviews, but in the case of a heart health monitoring app I think it’s relevant to know what you’re opting into. I have the latest implant– the Linc. MyCareLinkHeart UX leaves a lot to be desired, very little interactivity and no trouble shooting unless you can wait until Medtronic’s 8-5 hours M-F. I got my implant on a Friday and it didn’t work all weekend.

When I have tried to submit symptoms it says it times out and neither my device clinic nor Medtronic has an answer to why.

There are six user steps in the process of recording symptoms, some of which require writing a narrative description which is hard when you’re having them. But if you don’t do it right away the device only tracks up to 7 or 15 minutes (I was told two different things by device maker) before and after the symptom upload button has been hit. Since the upload takes about 10 minutes you can miss recording it, and I have had that happen several times due to the error of *timing out*

It’s also challenging to leave MyCareLinkHeart open, it chews up battery life incredibly fast and so I have to turn it off when traveling. Or when am away from a charger for a whole day.

by Fly2grkdz

3rd pacemaker came with this capability. 1st scheduled transmission occurred wit no action or awareness on my part. All good.
Disappointed that only patient info is journal style input by patient. No interaction between patient and pacemaker app other than battery life. Expected far more real time Device to Patient information sharing. It’s a one way street to clinic only. With today’s technology, there’s no reason patient should be excluded from available information available via MyCareLinkHeart. I’m 100% heart block m, totally dependent patient. My expectations were dashed when I realized the limits of MyCareLinkHeart.

by Always Move Forward

MyCareLinkHeart is just a notepad. MyCareLinkHeart allows you to record symptoms with a timestamp within MyCareLinkHeart but there’s no correlation to that entry and what your device is doing at that time. So if you feel dizzy, chest pains, short of breath, or some other symptom, there’s no way to correlate that to what your device/heart is doing at that time. At least currently, based on discussions with my cardiology department and the medtronic rep. Don’t know if MyCareLinkHeart is going to work on that or not.

It does not allow for users to describe other symptoms. Your choices are just clickable choices provided. It does not allow the user to enter their description of symptoms.

Don’t know if they will allow the data from the persons device to be released to the person or via MyCareLinkHeart. It would be great if that feature was also added to MyCareLinkHeart .

by Googykw

New phone so I logged in with my password and it was incorrect. I selected “forgot password” and received a temporary one. Closed and reopened MyCareLinkHeart before I entered the one Medtronic emailed to me. I was told that password is incorrect twice and was locked out of my device as if this is a banking app. Also, we don’t have to announce that we’re not old. Rude people.

by Xnay9

Nice to connect with my iPhone, but there is no access to the wealth of data it collects - WHICH IS DATA I OWN!

Come on Medtronic! You could make this a valuable app to access my personal health data - WHICH I OWN!

by Mygirl7Heaven

MyCareLinkHeart is a wonderful product. Used to have that machine where I lived. Since it could not read my pacer being far away from cell towers, couldn’t use it. Love it, now I don’t have to make monthly visits to Cardiologist. Question: How does one get the “Vitals Tracking” to work? Thank You for this product. Look forward to your answer to my question.
Kindly,
Linda

by WVPsyDoc

I love the connectivity with my ICD. The activity data is particularly helpful for self-care. Suggestions for future development: 1. Provide connectivity to electronic blood pressure cuff (E.g, Withings?) and digital scale (e.g., Renfro) so that data input of vitals is automatic rather than manual. 2. Allow app to display real time EKG data that can now only be transmitted.

by Eli_2021

MyCareLinkHeart works very well with my Azure pacemaker and sends transmissions as scheduled. I can see information about how long battery will last and information about model. The developers should improve MyCareLinkHeart in the way that if accidentally close it will keep working. As of myself when I close all recently opened applications I also close this one and either realize I close it or MyCareLinkHeart itself starts sending reminders to keep it open all the time. It should work as other apps in the background. Other than that, it’s a very informative application.

by Zmmnm3

I am very happy with MyCareLinkHeart rather than the bedside device. I travel for business and having to think about lugging a large device around was another nuisance. MyCareLinkHeart on my iPhone is simple and allows me to send an update on demand and schedules my regular transmissions. However, I believe there is room for improvement to allow the pacemaker user to review some of the data. I spoke to my my Medtronic rep at my last appointment and he said this is under consideration but there is pushback from the Drs. I understand some of the concern, but I as the patient should be able to see some of the data. I want to know if I have afib in my history. I am very concerned about afib and it would great to know if it is or has happened.

by Pat From Red Bud

The pacemaker is fine but after seven weeks the doctor has never gotten back with me to check it. I know it is usually done within three weeks. Medtronic , get on them! Five stars for the device

by Pettttme

Well I found a bug in it, to recording symptoms to such categories, it does not allow me to use the necessary space as there is a lot of available space but it will not receive any more typing for successive words, probably be more glitches as time passes away as I down loaded the upgrade, well I have the same glitch why do you give so much space to record symptoms and it only allows about 1/8 of the space to record , wish you would fix it, developer would be a welcome, only if I could hope

by Dr Mindeaux

I’ve never previously rated an app but I’m making an exception for what Medtronic has done. MyCareLinkHeart deserves a 0 rating but that wasn’t an option. As a recipient of a cobalt ICD I deserve to know if and when any therapy is delivered to my body. MyCareLinkHeart doesn’t trust patients to know this important information. MyCareLinkHeart provides a lot of worthless information from a printed brochure. I find that lazy and I expect more from a medical technology company. Whatever executive is taking credit for developing an app should be embarrassed.

by DaBird666

Had very high hopes for MyCareLinkHeart. Thought it would be great to be able to watch my pacemaker in real time.

Installed app, went through registration process and at the end I was told that MyCareLinkHeart could not connect to the internet. I have a strong cellular signal and am also on my home WiFi.

I called the Medtronic help desk and they were absolutely no help at all with this problem. I was able to download MyCareLinkHeart , so connecting wasn’t the issue.

I connected to my WiFi modem from my iPhone so that’s not an issue.

My IOS is supported by MyCareLinkHeart so that’s not an issue.

In the end the help desk didn’t have a clue as to why MyCareLinkHeart couldn’t connect back to their servers.

by Jamos20

Restarted my phone, reinstalled MyCareLinkHeart several times, went through and filled all the information out repeatedly only to be told that it cannot connect to my Advisa DR MRI, i’m pretty bummed about that being that it would be nice to know what my battery level is, how it’s pacing etc., my device was only installed a few years ago.

by Tmroper59

MyCareLinkHeart has been working fine but MyCareLinkHeart does not work with my google pixel 2 (android). Would like to see an update that work with an android OS.