Apple Watch HR Readings: Watch-sourced vs Phone-sourced readings

I have an Apple Watch Series 10 Ultra that I use to track my HR. When going thru the readings my phone appears to be the source for a reading (as shown below). This phone-sourced reading appears to occur every 30 minutes, with all other readings sourced from the watch. Is this a case of the iPhone "pulling" a HR reading from the watch rather than the iWatch "pushing" it to the phone? These phone-sourced readings sometimes look strange as compared to the watch-sourced readings before and after - I sometimes have watch-sourced reading in 60's followed a minute later by phone-sourced reading in 30's, so I'm wondering about the accuracy of the phone-sourced readings. Any help greatly appreciated!

Apple Watch Ultra 2, watchOS 11

Posted on Dec 11, 2025 6:22 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 11, 2025 6:29 AM

Your iPhone cannot measure heart rate.

Those “iPhone-sourced” readings are still measured by your Apple Watch, but written into the Health database during sync cycles, so they sometimes show strange tags or timestamps. Low or odd readings usually result from poor skin contact or low-confidence samples, not from the iPhone itself.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 11, 2025 6:29 AM in response to AdC10

Your iPhone cannot measure heart rate.

Those “iPhone-sourced” readings are still measured by your Apple Watch, but written into the Health database during sync cycles, so they sometimes show strange tags or timestamps. Low or odd readings usually result from poor skin contact or low-confidence samples, not from the iPhone itself.

Apple Watch HR Readings: Watch-sourced vs Phone-sourced readings

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