Pulse
Questions
Everything people ask before they install Pulse.
How the cues work, what your partner can and cannot see, where your health data goes, what it costs. If something is missing, write to us and it will be here tomorrow.
33 questions, answered plainly.
The basics
What Pulse is, who it is for and what happens in the first five minutes.
What is Pulse, in one sentence?
Pulse is a couples wellness app for iPhone and Apple Watch. It reads the quiet signals from your body, sleep, resting heart rate, heart rate variability and movement, against your own baseline, turns them into one short, human cue for your partner, and the next morning asks you whether how they showed up helped. Never a number, never a chart, never a diagnosis.
Who is Pulse for?
Two people who want to stay attuned to each other without having to explain every hard day out loud. It was built for couples who live apart as much as for couples who share a kitchen, and it works the same whether you have been together three months or thirty years.
What happens in the first five minutes?
You download Pulse, allow it to read the health data you choose, and connect your partner with an invite link or a short code. Pulse then spends a few days learning your own baseline before it says anything at all about a change.
What do I need to use it?
An iPhone on iOS 17 or later. An Apple Watch (Series 6 or later, watchOS 10) gives Pulse the signals it reads, and WHOOP support is on the way. The app itself works on the iPhone alone for everything that does not depend on a wearable.
Can I use Pulse without a partner?
Yes. On your own, Pulse is a quiet daily reflection on your own week: your trends, your patterns, your reading. You can connect a partner later and nothing you wrote before that is shared retroactively.
How do I connect with my partner?
You send them a link or an eight-character code from inside the app. They install Pulse, enter it, and the two devices exchange keys directly. Pulse is a space for exactly two people, so there is no group, no third seat and no audience.
Signals and cues
What the app reads from your wrist, the one sentence that comes out of it, and what comes back the next morning.
Which signals does Pulse actually read?
Resting heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep and movement, read from Apple Health on your own device with your explicit permission. You can switch any of them off, and the app keeps working with whatever is left.
How does Pulse know what is normal for me?
It compares today against your own recent weeks, not against a population average. A resting heart rate of 48 is unremarkable for one person and unusual for another, which is why there is no threshold shared between users anywhere in the app.
What does my partner actually see?
One sentence, such as "a calm evening might mean a lot today", and one concrete thing they can do about it: send a little warmth, suggest something tuned to the day, or simply leave you some space. They never see the signals behind it, the direction they moved, or how far. The cue leaves the shared space at midnight, but the sentences they receive stay in their chat history, and your daily mood label goes into a seven-day mood chart on their phone.
Does Pulse ever learn whether any of this actually helped?
Yes, and only from you. The morning after a cue about you crossed, Pulse asks whether how your partner showed up helped, with four answers to pick from. The one you pick is all that travels back, and your partner sees a line about it only when it was “helped” or “a little”. Either way their app can credit it to whatever it suggested that day and lean the other way next time. An idea the two of you keep saying no to retires itself. Nothing here is inferred from your body, from your messages, or from how quickly you replied.
How often does a cue appear?
At most one a day, and only when the day is different enough from your own baseline to be worth mentioning. On an ordinary day Pulse says nothing, which is the point: a notification every morning would mean nothing at all.
What is Rhythm Awareness?
Cycle-aware support (Rhythm Awareness) is an optional setting. With it off, your cycle does not shape your partner's cue at all. With it on, a cue may say this could be a lower-energy stretch, without ever naming the phase; the phase itself stays on your phone. Sharing your actual cycle calendar is a separate switch, off by default, and you can turn either off at any time.
What happens if Pulse notices something unusual?
It tells you, not your partner. If a short window of unusual heart signals shows up, you decide whether that single moment is shared at all, and you can soften the suggested wording or keep it entirely to yourself.
Privacy and data
Where your health data lives, what our servers can see, and how to stop everything at once.
Does my health data leave my phone?
Your raw measurements do not. Heart rate, HRV, sleep and movement are read and interpreted on your own phone, and our servers never receive one, so there is nothing there to leak or to sell. What does leave is the sentence they are turned into, because it was written for your partner. It is derived from health data, so we say so plainly rather than calling it on-device.
What is end-to-end encrypted?
Your chat, photos, GIFs and voice messages, Our Story, requests, shared calendar events, the shopping list, shared notes, your answers to the daily question, Know Us entries, Unsaid notes you choose to send and what is said back about them, and the comments, reactions and likes on a watchlist entry. Each is encrypted on one phone and decrypted on the other, so we can carry it without being able to read it. Some things deliberately travel inside your shared iCloud space without that extra layer, so Apple can technically read them: the daily cue and its mood label, your one-word answer to whether the care helped, the date wishlist (including the address of a real place you saved), the watchlist entries themselves (title, kind, link, small cover and status), the day you count from, and tiny signals such as “typing”. None of them is health data beyond the cue. And if you copy your plans into a calendar that syncs to iCloud, Google or Outlook, those copies are ordinary calendar entries there. The security page says why.
Where is the encryption key kept?
In your iCloud Keychain, on your own devices. It is never uploaded to Pulse and we have no copy of it. That is also why a new phone restores your history from your own backup rather than from us.
What do your servers actually store?
Less than you would expect, because the app has no account system. A pseudonymous iCloud identifier, the push tokens your notifications are delivered to (Live Activity tokens too, if you use Pulse Moments), the platform, your notification switches and a one-way fingerprint of your pair key, plus technical logs kept for 14 days, a crash report only if you choose to send one (90 days), and anything you send us yourself through a form. No health values, no readable message content (a chat push can carry the message sealed, which we cannot open and do not keep), no advertising identifiers and no third-party analytics.
Can I stop sharing without a conversation about it?
Yes. One button pauses sharing instantly, and Pulse never tells your partner that you paused. Nothing new crosses over until you turn it back on, and pausing also clears the shared cycle calendar and your sleep status. Invisible mode is a pause that puts everything back the way it was when you turn it off. The app keeps working for you in the meantime.
What happens if we disconnect, or break up?
Ending the connection removes the records the two of you shared, and you choose whether the chat and the story stay on your own phone or are erased everywhere you can reach. There is no archive kept on our side for a rainy day. As with any messenger, whatever already arrived on your partner's phone is on their phone, and no button of ours can take it back.
Can I get my data out, or delete it entirely?
Both, from inside the app and without writing to anyone. Export gives you a JSON file of what is yours. Deleting your account removes it rather than deactivating it.
Is Pulse GDPR compliant?
Yes. Pulse is made by Knightify FlexCo in Vienna, Austria, so it is built under EU and Austrian law from the start rather than adapted to it afterwards. Access, export, correction and deletion are all in the app, and the privacy policy names what is processed and why.
Devices and wearables
iPhone, Apple Watch, WHOOP, and the platforms that are deliberately not supported.
Do I need an Apple Watch?
Not for the shared parts: chat, Our Story, the shared calendar, the wishlist and the daily question all work with an iPhone alone. You need an Apple Watch for the health-signal cues, because that is where the signals come from. WHOOP support is coming, and a band will do the same job once it lands.
Does Pulse work with WHOOP?
Not yet. The integration is built and written out on our WHOOP page, but it is still switched off in the app until we can verify an import against a real band, so there is no row in Settings to connect from. When it ships, connecting your WHOOP account will import your own sleep, recovery and workouts into Apple Health on your iPhone, and Pulse will read them there exactly as it reads a Watch. WHOOP's own composite scores are deliberately not imported, because Apple Health has no type that means them.
What about Oura, Garmin or Fitbit?
If the device writes sleep, heart rate or HRV into Apple Health, Pulse can read what is there, because Pulse reads Apple Health rather than any single manufacturer. Apple Watch is the one we test and support end to end today, and WHOOP is on the way.
Is there an Android version?
No, and none is planned. The on-device health interpretation and the encryption keys depend on Apple Health and the iCloud Keychain, which is exactly what the privacy promise rests on. If one of you is on Android, a cross-platform app will serve you better and we would rather say so.
Will it drain my battery?
No more than any app that reads Apple Health once or twice a day. Pulse does not track you continuously, does not use background location, and outside an open chat does not keep a connection open to a server waiting for something to happen. While a chat is open it checks for new messages every few seconds and holds one live connection for typing and Hold to Feel, which closes when you leave the chat.
Health and safety
What Pulse is not, and what it will never claim to know about your body.
Is Pulse a medical device?
No. Pulse is a wellness tool. It does not diagnose, treat or monitor any condition, and it is not a substitute for a doctor. Every health concept it references is sourced from public medical bodies and linked in the app so you can read the original.
Can Pulse tell if I am ill, or pregnant, or depressed?
No, and it never claims to. Pulse notices that today looks different from your own recent pattern. Why it looks different is something only you know, which is why every cue is written as a "might" rather than a verdict.
What if I am in real trouble?
Pulse is not an emergency service and cannot call for help. If you are in crisis, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line in your country. The app will never stand between you and that.
Account and support
Languages, a new phone, deleting everything, and how to reach us.
Which languages does Pulse speak?
English, German, Persian, Arabic and Russian, with Arabic and Persian laid out right to left throughout the app rather than mirrored as an afterthought. Messages between partners can be translated with a long press.
How do I get help from a human?
Write to us from the contact page or to [email protected]. We are a small team in Vienna, we read everything, and we usually answer within two working days.
I got a new phone. What comes back?
Your chat, Our Story and your settings return from your own encrypted iCloud backup. Health history deliberately does not travel with them, because it never left the old device in the first place.
How do I delete my account?
In the app, under your own settings, in two taps and without asking us first. It deletes the account rather than hiding it, and your partner is not shown a reason.
Nothing here matches that. Try a shorter word, or write to us, a real person answers.
Still not answered?
Write to us. A person in Vienna reads every message and usually answers within two working days.