Recovery HRV is Apple's daily stress and recovery reading on Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4. Overall HRV is the broader health measure that Apple Health stores as SDNN. Body Insights reads your Apple Health HRV and shows it beside your personal baseline. Download Body Insights to see where your latest reading sits against your usual.
Apple says Recovery HRV measures how time varies between heartbeats and can indicate stress and recovery. Apple's announcement pairs it with overall HRV for broader health context.
Body Insights
Turn recovery signals into today's decision.
Body Insights reads Apple Health data from Apple Watch and translates it into energy, recovery, and pacing guidance.
See today's recovery readRecovery HRV vs HRV at a glance
| Detail | Recovery HRV | Overall HRV |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Daily signals of stress and recovery | Broader health context |
| Where to find it | Heart Rate app on Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 | Apple Health |
| Method | RMSSD | SDNN |
| Sampling | While you are still, as often as every five minutes | HRV samples stored in Apple Health |
Find Recovery HRV on Apple Watch
Open the Heart Rate app and turn the Digital Crown to view Recovery HRV. Tap the info button for details. Apple's Recovery HRV page lists Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 as supported models.
The Watch samples HRV while you are still, so the number of readings you see varies with your activity.
SDNN and RMSSD: how the two numbers differ
Apple's older HealthKit HRV type is SDNN. iOS and watchOS 27 add a separate RMSSD type, and reporting shows Recovery HRV as RMSSD.
SDNN describes how much the gaps between beats vary across a sample. RMSSD focuses on changes from one gap to the next. Both are measured in milliseconds.
Why apps show different HRV values
Apps choose their own HRV method and data window. Bevel's HRV settings let users pick the method and the window. One view may use a full sleep period while another uses a waking sample.
A recovery percentage is an app's interpretation of its inputs, rather than an HRV value in milliseconds.
What Body Insights adds to HRV
Body Insights reads Apple Health and puts HRV beside a personal baseline. The Watch Stress view shows HRV in milliseconds, its source, and how old the latest reading is. Stress Balance turns waking HRV into a daily label.
Body Insights calculates recovery with the same formulas on Apple Watch Series 8, 9, 10 and 11 as on newer models. You do not need Series 12 for a recovery view.
On iPhone, Waking Recovery uses RMSSD from measured heartbeat records. The Waking Recovery method and Stress Balance method explain what each view means. Download Body Insights to open your HRV beside your own baseline.
Related reading
- Understand HRV, stress, and sleep together
- Read HRV in the context of chronic illness
- Understand heart rate recovery after exercise
Body Insights
Turn recovery signals into today's decision.
Body Insights reads the Apple Watch data you already have and turns it into a plain daily read on energy, recovery, and pacing.
See today's recovery read