Pulse
Pulse on Apple Watch
The couples app for Apple Watch.
Your Watch already notices the night you had. Pulse turns that into one gentle sentence for the person you love, and keeps every number on your own iPhone and your own Watch.
Free · iPhone and Apple Watch · Raw measurements never leave your own devices
01 · On the wrist
Small enough to answer between two things.
The whole point of the Watch app is that it is not the phone app. Four pages, Today, Us, Chat and More, and the small screens they open. Here are some of them.
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Today
Your reading, theirs, and anything still open between you.
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Us
What is next, days in a row, and how often you match.
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Chat
The tail of the conversation, and a reply by voice, Scribble or emoji.
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Mood check-in
Three taps, and only the level crosses over.
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Our Story
Today, in another year. Or the last moment you kept.
02 · The pager
Four pages, one flick.
The Watch app is a vertical pager: four pages, no tab bar. Everything else opens from Today or from More.
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01
Today
Your own reading, your partner's, and the sentence behind theirs. Anything open between you surfaces here: a request waiting for an answer, or one quiet line about where the two of you are. From here you check in, ask for something, send a reconnect signal, set your social battery and answer today's question.
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02
Us
The next thing on your shared calendar, how many days in a row you have been in contact, and how often your two readings landed close together. No charts: a sparkline on a 41mm screen is decoration.
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03
Chat
The tail of your conversation. Reply from the wrist by dictation, Scribble or emoji, or react to a message, without reaching for the phone.
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04
More
Our Story, the wishlist, the shopping list, what is coming up, your notifications and the Watch's settings, one tap each.
Those screenshots were captured from the app rather than drawn. The check-in and Our Story open from Today and from More; they are not pages of their own.
03 · From the wrist
And what you can send from it.
Everything here travels through your phone to reach theirs. With your phone in another room the Watch queues it and it arrives when the two are back in touch, rather than failing quietly.
- Send a tap
- One button on Today. They feel it on their own wrist as a small banner with your name and nothing to read. It arrives the same way in the other direction.
- Ask for what you need
- Six things, chosen rather than typed, with an optional note above the list for anyone who wants to add a few words. The phone offers eight; the two that need more thought are left to the phone.
- Affection · A hug · To talk · Time together · A hand · Some space
- Answer theirs
- If they asked for something and it is still open, it sits on your Today face with two buttons: on it, or later. Later is a real answer, and it frees them to ask for something else.
- Reconnect
- Five soft signals for after a rough evening, none of which is a complaint.
- A little distant · Feeling tender · Missing you · On my mind · Feeling close
- Check in
- Three levels, one tap, no explanation asked for and none sent.
- Social battery
- How much you have left today, set in a tap. Only the level crosses over, never the reason.
- Missing them
- A quiet “missing you” that arrives without a banner, felt the next time they look.
- Answer today's question
- Write your answer by voice or Scribble. Theirs opens once you have both answered.
- Answer an Unsaid note
- When a note from them is waiting, answer it from the wrist: I'm here, I need a moment, or let's talk in person.
- Shopping list
- Add an item or tick one off from More.
- Wishlist
- Save an idea for the two of you from More.
04 · How it works
From a signal on your Apple Watch to a sentence your partner can use.
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01
The Watch measures
Sleep, resting heart rate, heart rate variability and movement, the same readings it already collects for you. Pulse adds no sensors and asks for nothing extra.
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02
The iPhone interprets, on the device
Your phone compares today against your own recent weeks. Not against anyone else, not against a population, and not on a server. There is no model anywhere in this and no account to send the readings to. The Watch reads its own Health data and hands the numbers straight to your iPhone, so the reading keeps moving even while the phone is locked.
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03
One sentence crosses over
Your partner gets “a calm evening might mean a lot today”, on their own wrist. Never a chart, never a score, and never a number they could misread at a glance.
05 · What stays
The numbers stay on your own iPhone and your own Watch.
This is the part that separates Pulse from a shared fitness dashboard, so it is worth being exact about.
Your readings never reach us
Heart rate, HRV, sleep and steps are read from Apple Health on your own phone and interpreted there. They are not uploaded, not backed up by us, and not part of your account.
Your partner never sees a figure
There is no screen anywhere in Pulse that shows them your numbers, because we did not build one. What they receive is a sentence written for them.
One tap stops it
Pause sharing from the phone at any moment. Pulse never tells them you paused, and nothing new crosses until you start it again.
From the journal: Why your partner will never see your heart rate
06 · What you need
Requirements.
- Apple Watch
- Series 6 or later, on watchOS 10 or later
- iPhone
- iOS 17 or later, required
- Health access
- Sleep, heart rate, HRV and steps, read on your device
- Price
- Free, both partners, no ads
- Languages
- English, German, Persian, Arabic, Russian
- Android
- Not available, and not planned
An Apple Watch is what the cues are read from, so a couple where one partner has no Watch still gets the shared space, the chat and the daily question, with no cue from that side.
07 · Questions
Before you pair it.
- Do both partners need an Apple Watch?
- No. The partner wearing one sends cues; the partner without one still receives them, and everything else in Pulse works the same for both of you. Both of you do need an iPhone, because the on-device interpretation and the encryption are built on Apple Health and the iCloud Keychain.
- Which Apple Watch models work?
- Series 6 and later, running watchOS 10 or later. That is the line we build and test against, and we would rather name it than let you pair a watch we have never run this on.
- Will it drain my battery?
- Pulse does not run sensors of its own. It reads what your Watch has already written into Apple Health. The Watch app is mostly awake only while you are looking at it, and otherwise refreshes briefly in the background about every 30 minutes and when your iPhone has an update for it, so the cost is close to any other small watch app.
- Can my partner see my heart rate on their watch?
- No, and there is no setting that would let them. The only thing that reaches their Watch is one sentence. We wrote an essay about why, because it is the most common feature request we get and the answer is always the same.
It is already on your wrist.
Pulse is free on the App Store. Install it on your iPhone and the Watch app comes with it.