Apple Watch heart rate accuracy vs. rivals: devil is in the details
It also had “better accuracy for session-level average heart rate” in most of 12 categories that were tested. It wasn’t strictly speaking beaten in any of those tests, but Apple says its margin of victory over the Huawei Watch 5 was not statistically significant in a workout test.
Also in eight tests over activities such as cycling and strength testing, Apple Watch did show “better accuracy for the majority of devices in most activities.” But for those eight, the conclusions were indeterminate.
One place where Apple admits to being beaten is in what it called a daily living protocol. Again eight conclusions were statistically indeterminate, but in one case the Pixel Watch 4 showed higher accuracy.
That was for what Apple describes as a rest condition only. Apple then stresses that this greater accuracy was “less than a margin of 0.5” beats per minute.
Where else Apple Watch wins
Apple obviously includes health sensing hardware, but it also works to make that data accessible for the user. There’s the whole Health app, plus the ability to export the data to doctors if wanted.
That also made it easy to measure the results across all of the tests, and that wasn’t the case with every device. According to Apple’s research study, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 would only export minimal time stamps “and a single additional heart rate value whose derivation is not documented.”
Then the Oura Ring simply wasn’t tested during strength training. That’s reportedly because the manufacturer recommends not even wearing the ring during weightlifting.
Apple’s report gives more detail for the testing methodology, plus a finer breakdown of every result. Ultimately what it tells us is that all wearables provide significant health features, but again it is reportedly true that Apple Watch is overall the most accurate.
This report follows one from January 2026, where a study praised the Apple Watch’s usefulness in identifying atrial fibrillation in asymptomatic patients.