Recovery, Strain and Sleep coaching for the Apple Watch you already own.
Open source · no subscription · no extra hardware · your data never leaves your iPhone.
Pulsr turns the heart rate, HRV, sleep stages, respiratory rate and workouts your Apple Watch already records into daily scores you can act on — wrapped in an iOS 26 Liquid Glass interface.
The recovery orb is a Metal shader: ribbons of light inside a glowing volume that beats at a resting heart rhythm and changes colour with your recovery zone. The design prototype lives in docs/design/pulsr-iris.html.
| Recovery orb | A living, beating orb whose colour follows your recovery zone, in light and dark mode. |
| Recovery 0–100 % | Overnight HRV, resting heart rate, respiratory rate and sleep, compared with your own 30-day baseline. Green / yellow / red, with a strain target for the day. |
| Strain 0–21 | Cardiovascular load from minute-by-minute heart rate (Banister TRIMP), heart-rate zones, strength time, steps, per-workout strain. |
| Sleep | Sleep need for tonight (goal + yesterday's strain + sleep debt), performance, consistency, efficiency, restorative sleep, stage hypnogram, recommended bedtime. |
| Stress Monitor | 0–3 stress estimate through the day from heart rate relative to your resting baseline. |
| Health Monitor | HRV, RHR, respiratory rate, blood oxygen and wrist temperature vs. your personal normal range. |
| Healthspan / Body Age | An estimate from VO₂ max, RHR, HRV, sleep and activity, with what moves it up or down. |
| Journal & Recovery Impact | Log daily behaviors (alcohol, late caffeine, reading in bed, sauna…) and see how each one changes your next-day recovery. |
| Coach | Ask questions about your data. Runs on Apple's on-device model (Apple Intelligence) — no API key, nothing sent to a server. Offline fallback on other devices. |
| Apple Watch app | Recovery, Strain and Sleep at a glance on your wrist. |
| Trends | 7 / 30-day Strain & Recovery, HRV, RHR and sleep charts. |
| Demo mode | Realistic synthetic data so you can try everything in the Simulator or without a watch. |
There is nothing to pair. The watch writes its measurements to Apple Health; Pulsr asks for read-only access and calculates everything locally. Wear the watch to bed (with Sleep Focus / a sleep schedule) to get Recovery and Sleep scores. Scores improve over the first 7 nights while Pulsr learns your baseline.
Pulsr is not on the App Store — you build it yourself with Xcode. It takes about 10 minutes.
You need: a Mac with Xcode 26+ (free, Mac App Store) · iPhone on iOS 26+ · Apple Watch on watchOS 26+ · an Apple ID (a free one works).
- Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/0xCodez/pulsr.git && cd pulsr
- Set your signing identity
Edit
cp Config/Local.xcconfig.example Config/Local.xcconfig
Config/Local.xcconfig: setBUNDLE_ID_PREFIXto something unique (e.g.com.yourname) andDEVELOPMENT_TEAMto your Team ID (Xcode → Settings → Accounts → your Apple ID). - Open
Pulsr.xcodeproj, connect your iPhone, pick it as the run destination and press Run (⌘R). - On the iPhone: enable Settings → Privacy & Security → Developer Mode, and trust your developer certificate in Settings → General → VPN & Device Management. Do the same Developer Mode step on the watch (Settings → Privacy & Security on the watch).
- Open Pulsr → Connect Apple Health → allow all categories.
The watch app installs automatically alongside the iPhone app (or from the Watch app on your iPhone → Available Apps).
Free Apple ID: apps signed with a free account expire after 7 days — just press Run in Xcode again. A paid Apple Developer account ($99/yr) extends this to a year.
Shared/ Models, ScoreEngine (all formulas), HealthKit + demo data sources, theme, orb
iOS/ SwiftUI app — Today, details, Trends, Journal, Coach, Settings; Shaders/Orb.metal
Watch/ watchOS app
docs/ ALGORITHMS.md — every formula explained; design/ prototypes; screenshots/
project.yml XcodeGen spec (the .xcodeproj is generated from it and committed)
Run with the -demo launch argument to see demo data in the Simulator.
If you add or move files, regenerate the project with XcodeGen: brew install xcodegen && xcodegen.
- Read-only HealthKit access; Pulsr never writes to Apple Health.
- No accounts, analytics, trackers or network calls.
- The Coach uses Apple's on-device Foundation Models framework.
- Journal answers are stored in a local file on your iPhone.
- Watch complications and iPhone widgets
- Menstrual cycle phase insights (HealthKit cycle data)
- Guided breathing when stress is high
- CSV export
- Localization (Русский first)
- Recovery-guided training plans
Contributions welcome — open an issue or a pull request.
Pulsr is a wellness project, not a medical device, and does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition. Scores are estimates. Pulsr is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple or any wearable company.