Which meetings raise your pulse?
Stress Radar lines up heart rate and heart rate variability from your Apple Watch with your calendar and the Bluetooth devices around you. It tells you which events, and which company, coincide with stress. Nothing leaves your phone.
iPhone with iOS 17 or later and an Apple Watch (or any device that writes heart rate and HRV to Health).
Fifty is you on an ordinary afternoon
The app learns your usual heart rate and HRV for each hour of the day, then measures every window of time against it. Higher heart rate and lower HRV both push the index up. The bands are set so that normal variation stays "typical" and only real departures are called elevated or high.
- 0–40 Calm Lower heart rate or higher HRV than usual.
- 40–62 Typical Within your ordinary day-to-day variation.
- 62–78 Elevated About one robust standard deviation above usual.
- 78–100 High About two, the kind of hour you remember.
What it does
Built for people who suspect their calendar is doing something to them and want evidence rather than a mood ring.
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Every meeting gets a number
Each calendar event is scored by how far your heart rate and HRV drifted from your usual values at that hour. Recurring titles and individual attendees are ranked across the whole look-back window, so a weekly review that always runs hot shows up.
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The people in the room, too
While the app is open it notes which Bluetooth devices are nearby, minute by minute. Label a device with the person who carries it and every encounter with them is scored the same way as a meeting.
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Events and company cross-referenced
An event shows which devices were present. A device shows which events its encounters overlapped. That is how you tell the room from the agenda.
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A baseline that knows the time of day
Your usual heart rate and HRV are learned per hour from 7 to 90 days of data, using medians so one bad night does not skew the week. Workouts, sleep and mindfulness sessions are left out, and each exclusion is your choice.
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A widget that keeps watch
Home screen and lock screen. The current index, today’s most stressful event, a seven-day strip, and a line when someone whose encounters run high is in range.
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One honest summary a week
On the day and time you choose, a notification names the week’s most stressful event and compares the average with the week before. It never names a person.
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Your data, in a spreadsheet
Share three CSV files: every reading with its z-score, every scored event, every encounter. For people who want to do their own analysis.
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Fresh when you open it
Health wakes the app about once an hour when your watch syncs, so the rankings are already current. A cold launch shows the last report instantly while the new one loads.
It never phones home
The app contains no networking code. Health, calendar and Bluetooth data are read on the phone, analysed on the phone, and stay on the phone.
- Servers
- None. There is no account to create and nothing to sign in to.
- Analytics
- None. The privacy manifest declares no tracking and no collected data.
- Other people
- Attendee and device rankings stay inside the app. The weekly notification and the lock-screen widget never name anyone.
- Leaving
- Delete the app and everything goes with it. Export first if you want to keep the numbers.
What it cannot do
Three things worth knowing before you draw conclusions from a number.
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HRV is sparse
Apple Watch records HRV only a few times a day, mostly at rest. Most event scores rest on heart rate; HRV is used whenever a reading falls inside the window.
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Background Bluetooth is narrow
Once the app leaves the foreground, iOS only reports devices that advertise a Bluetooth service. AirPods and most Apple gear do not, so they are only seen while the app is open.
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Correlation, not diagnosis
Caffeine, stairs, heat, illness and a late night all raise heart rate. Treat the index as a prompt for reflection about your week, not as a medical measurement.
Try it on your own week
Install the beta, grant Health and Calendar access, keep the app open around people for a day or two, and label the devices you recognise. The first rankings appear once there is about a week of data.