I have created a heart rate monitor on the apple watch and that sends alerts to notifies you if your heart rate gets to low. After creating the app, I realized it does not run in the background. Is there a way to either force the app to run in the background on the watch or send the heart rate information to the phone?
I've investigated this, but don't have any practical experience (yet).
From what I understand, watch apps in watchOS3 can capture continuous heart rate updates with these conditions:
It's a full app (not just an extension).
The app starts a workout
Info.plist has the WKBackgroundModes key set
You'll need to either start the workout from the watch app, or if triggered from the companion iOS app you'll need to call startWatchAppWithWorkoutConfiguration:completion: to start a workout session on the paired watch.
p.s. welcome to stackoverflow!
Related
I'm making an Apple Watch app to record user acceleration. Currently, the user configures the session length to record for, and using a HKWorkoutSession, the app records acceleration for that time period.
My issue: I want the user to be able to remove their watch and charge it in the middle of a long session. In debugging the watch on Xcode, when I place the watch on the charger, I get the messages:
Message from debugger: Terminated due to signal 9
Program ended with exit code: 0
And the debugger is no longer connected. After a short while, the HKWorkoutSession ends as well, and the app is no longer recording.
Looking at https://medium.com/#gohnjanotis/apple-watch-battery-level-charging-notifications-eb7d0797a4d8, and the statement "While on the charger it seems these background refresh tasks are paused altogether.", I'm not sure I understand the Watch app life cycle fully. Is it even possible to have an app continue running in the background when the watch is set to charge?
Would appreciate any advice on this. Cheers.
It's unlikely that watchOS background tasks work similarly to iOS, where an iPhone can for example do expensive Photos operations when the device is charging. Why not pause and resume the workout session?
The "Recover from Crashes" at the bottom of Running Workout Sessions | Apple Developer Documentation might be helpful.
I need to make an app that records heart rate data in near real time and send this data to a server as soon as possible.
First I took this approach: Watch os 2.0 beta: access heart beat rate
In fact it is working fine. There is new heart rate data in the HealthKit every five seconds. But now I have the problem that I can't sync that with a server.
My first approach was the Watch app. The watch was sending data to a server. That doesn't work because as soon as the screen turns black on the watch, it stops sending.
My next approach was to query the HealthKit on the iPhone every five seconds for new data. This works, as long as the app is in foreground.
Then I saw that there's some kind of background functionality that watches the HealthKit itself and revokes the app from background and you can do something.(enableBackgroundDeliveryForType) This doesn't seem to work for heart rate (the Apple Documentation says for things like steps this doesn't work, I guess heart rate is one of those).
I'm stuck now. Do you know how to it? I would need some background task that is executed every 5-10 seconds on the iPhone. That seems to be impossible
UPDATE
As noticed by #BootMaker, Apple made background mode available for HKWorkout apps in WatchOS 3, so it's working now. You have to run a HKWorkoutSession and this will keep your heartrate delivery in real time even when the app is in the background (dark screen on watch)
The closest you are going to be is while the watch app is open.
Why I'm stating this?
There are two HealthKit's Database (one at the iPhone and another at the Apple Watch). When they sync is arbitrary and decided only by the O.S.
The closest you are going to be to real time is when you don't have any password locking your screen in iPhone or Apple Watch.
Either way, there's no guarantee that the sync will happen every time a new measure is added to Apple Watch's HealthKit
The only way to force the Heart rate sensor into working in real time is via workouts or observer while your Apple Watch app is in FOREGROUND.
Background delivery is NOT available for Apple Watch apps.
Watch OS 2 request the sensor to measure automatically (in background) every 10 minutes minimum.
There's no other workaround, if you need real time for longer periods, or while the user is not using your app, you will need to use an specialized wearable.
If anyone still need to get heart rate or other data in real time. Use this solution:
Develop an apple watch app/extention
In watch app, using HKHealthStore, HKWorkoutConfiguration, HKWorkoutSession, HKLiveWorkoutBuilder to create an Workout. After create workout, your watch app will get heart rate in real time.
Using watch kit connection with WCSession to send data to iPhone app.
Enable background mode both in apple watch and iPhone.
I tested, even app terminated, we can still get heart rate (I used Local notification for posting heart rate data for debugging)
Am developing application for calculate count of user moved steps and draw the user activities in the map. And we are using UIAccelerometer delegate for receive acceleration-related data from the onboard hardware. So I need to receive acceleration-related data when the application in background mode too. Last time one of my application got rejected because of using location service in background, Apple suggested me like "you can only use this background mode if your app truly needs this information to provide value for the user". Kindly suggest the best approach for this application.
You cannot run accelerometer in background.
You can track user's location in background... however, if you just keep tracking it and do nothing with that info.. apple is going to reject it and tell you to just get the lates location when app comes to foreground.
what you can try is.. update the user of total distance covered etc on a regular basis (like run keeper) and this will justify tracking location in background.
But first, you can try appealing to the review board explaining that you need to track location in background because you show entire route travelled by user when app comes to foregraound. and compare this to existing apps like run keeper and if you are lucky apple may approve your application without any changes...
This can easily be done.
What happens in that iOS put your application in halt state when your application is not in running in foreground state.
You just need to register your application for background execution.
Refer :
http://dcraziee.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/background_ios/
Also refer :
iOS background application network access
for apple policies about using location service.Which states that you can use location service in background.
Can an iPhone app be made to stop all calls and text messages for a specified number of minutes, that is, prevent the user from making or getting calls and messages? Can an app turn the device off temporarily? Context: help kids to concentrate while doing their homework/studying and not be interrupted with calls and text-messages from their schoolmates.
Not if you want to get into the App Store or run on non-jailbroken devices, no. One of the guiding principles of the SDK is that you can't "break" core functionality like inbound phone calls or SMSs. You will get notified that your app is about to enter a background state (or terminate), but you can't stop the user taking the call or terminating your app.
For information in events that you do get, have a look at UIApplication and UIApplicationDelegate.
I can't seem to find a clear answer to this-- I'm spec'ing out an iPhone app that I'd like to have live in the background and notify the user at certain periods throughout the day. So the user would launch the app in the morning and then continue to use their phone, then every few hours the app would pop open a notification dialog.
Will my app ever be shut down (automatically) by the OS? Or will it just live forever, notifying user when it needs to?
thanks,
Eric
Basically there are three kinds of running in the background on iOS 4:
Running in the background to "finish" stuff (e.g. upload a posting or a picture, finish processing something etc.). You ask the OS to grant you extra time after the user switches to another app, and it will tell you how much time you got. You can't run in the background for an indefinite time.
Running in the background to do specific stuff: VoIP, tracking location (e.g. for GPS navigation), or playing audio. You can only do the stuff that you told the OS you would do in the background.
Local notifications (UILocalNotification). From your description, this is what you're looking for. You're not actually running, you just schedule notifications, and when it's time to notify the user, they'll be notified and can go to your app. If you need to notify the user dynamically (i.e. you don't know ahead at what times they need to be notified and it's not location or VoIP triggered), you might want to look into push notifications.
Apple has a good overview here:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/app_and_environment/scenes/preparing_your_ui_to_run_in_the_background/about_the_background_execution_sequence