Designing one of Hydrow’s most requested features required extra attention to detail. With Hydrow for Apple Watch, users can pair a watch to their rower to use as a heart rate monitor. Adding subtle motion not only enhances the visuals, but adds context for when the watch is connected properly and heart rate data is being actively read.

Many of our users want to pair an Apple Watch to Hydrow as a heart rate monitor.

A lightweight watch app that not only fulfills the core request, but does so in an elegant way tailored to giving people the most seamless experience before and during their workout.

Health and fitness apps require a wide set of permissions from users. From Bluetooth to heart rate and health data, presenting all these permission prompts at once would overwhelmthe user. To avoid this, a setup menu was designed to guide users through the permissions and explain why each one is necessary.

Working closely with the engineering team allowed us to create the most seamless connection process. Just open the watch app near your rower, and start a workout.

Subtle heartbeat animations provide context when the watch is actively reading your pulse. Pumping faster as your heart rate increases makes the interface reflect the intensity of your workout.

To avoid accidental button presses, tapping the disconnect button requires confirmation. One tap and it expands to a full width button. Pressing again will end the workout. Otherwise, it will shrink back to an icon after a few seconds of inactivity.