WattBeat privacy policy

WattBeat is an Apple Watch and iPhone app made by Hale Interactive. It turns your heart rate into an estimated cycling power figure and broadcasts it over Bluetooth so that indoor cycling apps can use it. This policy describes what the app does with your data. The short version: your heart rate and power stay on your own devices, and the only thing that ever reaches us is anonymous usage counts, and only if you say yes.

What WattBeat reads

The watch app reads your heart rate from Apple Health (HealthKit) while a workout is running. That is the only health data it reads. It asks for your permission the first time it runs, and it cannot read anything until you allow it.

What WattBeat does with it

• The watch sends each heart rate reading to your paired iPhone.
• The iPhone converts the reading to an estimated power figure in watts, using the heart rate range and maximum watts you set. This is an estimate from heart rate, not a measurement.
• The iPhone broadcasts your heart rate and the estimated power over Bluetooth Low Energy as a standard heart rate monitor and cycling power meter. Any app or device you choose to pair with it, such as Zwift or ROUVY, receives those two numbers while it is connected. What that app then does with them is governed by its own privacy policy.
• The watch records an indoor cycling workout in Apple Health while the ride is on. Rides shorter than a minute are discarded rather than saved.

What WattBeat does not do

• It sends no health data to Hale Interactive or to anyone else. The app has no server, no account, no sign-in and no advertising. The only thing it can send is the optional anonymous usage statistics described below, and only after you agree.
• It does not store your health data anywhere except Apple Health on your own devices. Nothing is written to iCloud by the app.
• It does not use your health data for marketing, advertising or any purpose other than showing you your numbers and broadcasting them to the app you pair.
• It does not track you across apps or websites.

What is stored on your devices

The app keeps a few settings on the device itself: your heart rate range and maximum watts, whether the ride is on, your answer to the usage statistics question, and a four-digit number chosen at random when the app is installed, which is appended to the Bluetooth name (for example “WattBeat 4821”) so you can tell your phone apart from another WattBeat user’s in a pairing list. The number is not derived from you or your device and is not sent anywhere except in that Bluetooth name. Deleting the app deletes these settings.

Your controls

• Health access. Grant or withdraw it in the Health app on iPhone: tap your profile picture, then Apps under Privacy, then WattBeat. Without heart rate access the app shows no numbers and broadcasts nothing.
• Bluetooth. Withdraw it in iPhone Settings, Privacy & Security, Bluetooth. The Stop button in either app also ends the broadcast at any time.
• Workouts. Workouts saved by WattBeat appear in the Fitness and Health apps and can be deleted there like any other workout.
• Everything else. Deleting the app removes all its settings. Health data you have already saved stays in Apple Health under your control.

Optional anonymous usage statistics

After your first ride, the iPhone app asks once whether you will share anonymous usage and crash counts to help improve WattBeat. Nothing is sent unless you answer yes, and you can change your answer at any time with the “Share anonymous usage data” switch in the About section of the Controls tab; switching it off also discards anything waiting to be sent.

If you say yes, the iPhone app sends small events such as “app opened”, “cycling app connected” (which app), “ride ended” (its length in coarse bands, whether a cycling app was connected, and your heart rate range and maximum watts settings rounded to bands), and a once-a-day count of crashes and hangs. Each event carries the app version, iOS version, device model and language. Heart rate, power, zones and anything else from Apple Health are never sent. The watch app sends nothing itself; its few events go through the iPhone.

The events are tied to a random identifier that is hashed before it leaves your phone, cannot be linked to you or your Apple ID, and is replaced if you reinstall the app. They are received and stored for us by TelemetryDeck (TelemetryDeck GmbH, Berlin), which hosts the data in the European Union and processes it only on our behalf under its privacy policy. TelemetryDeck keeps the raw events for a limited period and the aggregated counts we look at for as long as the app is maintained; we can delete all of the app’s data there at any time.

Separately from this, Apple offers to share crash reports and store statistics with developers. That is Apple’s own setting (Settings, Privacy & Security, Analytics & Improvements) and is not changed by anything in WattBeat.

Purchases

WattBeat is sold through the App Store. Apple handles the purchase, receipts and refunds, and we receive no personal information about you from it.

Children

WattBeat is not directed at children and, as described above, collects no personal information from anyone.

Changes

If a future version changes what the app does with data, this page will be updated before that version is released, with a new effective date at the top. Whatever changes, the app will ask before sending anything new, you will be able to say no or change your mind at any time, and heart rate and power data will never be part of it.

Contact

Questions about this policy or about your data: support@haleinteractive.com.

Zwift and ROUVY are trademarks of their respective owners. WattBeat is not affiliated with or endorsed by either.