Metric
Resting Heart Rate
What's normal for your age, what pushes it up or down, and when a change is worth a second look.
Resting heart rate is one of the oldest and most reliable signals a wearable tracks, but "normal" covers a wide range and shifts with age and fitness. A change in your resting heart rate can come from sleep, alcohol, stress, illness, or training. Here's how to read yours against people like you, and what the research connects to it moving.
What your device actually calls this
Scientific measurementHeart rate, in beats per minute, during a period of genuine rest.
| Device | What they call it | What it actually measures |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Watch | "Resting Heart Rate" | Random samples taken when the accelerometer detects stillness, averaged across the day (may exclude overnight data). |
| Garmin | "Resting Heart Rate" | Lowest 30-minute average heart rate in the last 24 hours. |
| Fitbit | "Resting Heart Rate" | Average heart rate during non-movement periods, including daytime. |
| Oura | "Resting Heart Rate" | Lowest heart rate recorded, generally overnight. |
| Whoop | RHR as a Recovery Score input | Night average, weighted more heavily toward deep sleep. |
| RingConn | "Resting Heart Rate" | Continuous PPG tracking through the day and night rather than a single daily figure. |
| Samsung Galaxy Watch | "Resting Heart Rate" | A validation study against ECG found the Galaxy Watch Active2 overestimated mean heart rate by 3.84 bpm overall, performing better during activity than at rest. |
| Ultrahuman Ring | "RHR" | Overnight PPG tracking, reported as a standalone number rather than folded into a composite. |
| Coros | "Resting Heart Rate" and "Heart Rate Recovery" | RHR is a daily figure; Heart Rate Recovery separately measures how fast heart rate drops in the two minutes after exercise, a feature not every brand reports. |
| Amazfit | "Resting Heart Rate" | Overnight tracking via the BioTracker sensor, feeding both PAI and the Readiness Score. |
| Polar Vantage | "Resting Heart Rate" | Measured via the Precision Prime dual-sensor system, the same hardware behind Polar's published HRV research. |
Every device here uses the same name, "Resting Heart Rate", but the underlying windows and averaging methods differ enough that the same person's RHR reading can genuinely differ by several bpm between devices worn on the same day. Not because one is wrong, but because they're not measuring the same time window in the same way.
Device measurement accuracy: Emerging · see the fileHow each device actually shows this
Apple Watch
"Resting Heart Rate"
Garmin
"Resting Heart Rate"
Fitbit
"Resting Heart Rate"
Oura
"Resting Heart Rate"
Whoop
RHR as a Recovery Score input
RingConn
"Resting Heart Rate"
Samsung Galaxy Watch
"Resting Heart Rate"
Ultrahuman Ring
"RHR"
Coros
"Resting Heart Rate" and "Heart Rate Recovery"
Amazfit
"Resting Heart Rate"
Polar Vantage
"Resting Heart Rate"
See every device →
Sources: Assembled from device-specific technical sources (Garmin, Apple, Fitbit support documentation) cross-referenced against independent wearable-methodology reviews, since no single manufacturer publishes a direct side-by-side comparison.
The benchmark
Resting Heart Rate
Resting Heart Rate by Age: Normal Ranges Explained
The typical ranges by age and sex, and how to read yours.
See how you compareExample result
Woman ยท 72 bpm
a little above the average
from 92,457 adults
More on Resting Heart Rate
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How to Lower Resting Heart Rate: What the Evidence Actually Established
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Does Resting Heart Rate Predict How Long You'll Live?
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How Wearables Measure Resting Heart Rate: What the Research Actually Found
Wearables estimate resting heart rate differently depending on when and how they sample. Here is what the measurement research actually established.
Does Resting Heart Rate Affect Brain Age?
A large brain-imaging study links higher resting heart rate to an older predicted brain age. Here's what that research actually measured, and what it stops short of.
Does a Low Resting Heart Rate Mean You Take More Risks?
A look at whether a naturally low resting heart rate is linked to risk-taking tendencies, based on research measuring heart rate against self-reported risk behavior.
What Resting Heart Rate Actually Says About Type 2 Diabetes Risk
A prospective cohort study and meta-analysis found resting heart rate independently predicts type 2 diabetes risk, even in people who look metabolically fine.
Can Your Wearable Catch Illness Before You Feel Sick?
Wearable resting heart rate rose before diagnosis in a large military study using Garmin and Oura devices. Here is what the data found, and its limits.
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Wearable users on GLP-1 medications often see resting heart rate climb. Here's what a 12-week tracking study actually found, and what it didn't test.
Can Resting Heart Rate Trends Track Recovery?
Resting heart rate is usually judged against fixed ranges. Research on day-to-day RHR patterns suggests the trend itself may carry separate information.
Does Alcohol Raise Resting Heart Rate While Sleeping?
A wearable-based study tracked nocturnal resting heart rate before, during, and after moderate alcohol intake. Here is what the data actually showed.
Is Average Resting Heart Rate Declining Over Time?
A look at the evidence behind population-level drops in resting heart rate over decades, what tracked the decline, and what still isn't explained.
Why RHR Predicts Death in Almost Every Disease, Not Just Heart Disease
Elevated resting heart rate isn't just a cardiovascular risk marker. Four studies found it predicts mortality in cancer, AIDS, and liver transplant patients too.
Does Lowering Resting Heart Rate With Drugs Actually Reduce Death Risk, or Just Look Better on a Chart?
Elevated resting heart rate predicts mortality risk. But does actively lowering it with heart-rate-slowing drugs actually reduce that risk? The trial data is more mixed than the correlation suggests.
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