Apps Beyond Activity Rings: How I'm Using My Apple Watch Data for Personalized Optimization (Solo Dev Project)

[sebols]

Hey everyone,

Like many of you here, I'm a big Apple Watch user and love the amount of health data it collects. For a while though, I felt I wasn't getting the full story from the raw numbers in Apple Health. I wanted to go deeper, understand the connections, and get more personalized guidance on how to optimize my workouts and overall wellness.

As a uni student studying Machine Learning, I decided to tackle this by building my own iOS app, Thryve Wellness:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thryve-wellness/id6737707259

to try and unlock more of that potential. My goal was to create something that:

1. Offers Personalized Workout Optimization: Instead of just generic heart rate zones, Thryve analyzes your past Apple Watch workouts (intensity, duration, frequency, pace from HealthKit) to help identify your optimal parameters to maximize impact on specific goals (like improving a calculated Fitness Score, or minimizing Stress Impact). It gives tailored feedback after sessions.
2. Uncovers Deeper Correlations (with Time Lags): I was fascinated by how different metrics might influence each other over time. So, Thryve can look for correlations between, say, your sleep quality from the Watch and your HRV or stress levels not just on the same day, but 1, 2, or even 3 days later. It's been interesting to see those delayed effects pop up from the data.
3. Provides Transparent Wellness Scores: It calculates scores for Overall Wellness, Sleep, Fitness, etc., but also shows which HealthKit metrics are contributing most to those scores and their changes, so it's not just a "black box" number.
4. Keeps Data 100% Private: All this analysis happens directly on the iPhone using the HealthKit data. No accounts, no cloud servers for the health data.

It's been a challenging but rewarding solo project alongside my studies, built entirely with Swift and SwiftUI. The aim is to provide a more analytical companion for serious Apple Watch users who want to turn their rich data into truly actionable insights.

I'd be really interested to hear how other Apple Watch users here approach analyzing their health data beyond what the stock apps offer.

• What insights are you currently trying to extract?
• Are there specific correlations or optimization questions you wish were easier to answer using your Watch data?
• What are your go-to methods or third-party apps for deeper analysis?

Happy to discuss any of the approaches I've taken with Thryve if there's interest.

Cheers,
Seb

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[arc of the universe]

i downloaded it and am on the 3 day trial.
i like this app.
and the timing for it is no doubt good as well.
its really clearly done and intuitive.
the observations it makes seem accurate.
the what-if-simulator with sliding metric changers is impressive.

no doubt there is a lot of competition in the sports training area.
but i like your approach that brings into consideration sleep, and metrics like resting heart rate etc.
its a wellness and general fitness indicator app that also gives great observations about what kind of workouts have worked for me in the past. your recommendations parallel my own sense of what my body is telling me, but you have summarized it very neatly.

im surprised it doesn't ask for metrics such as age, weight, height, blood pressure, etc.
also, a lot of health programs and health centers are a offering "body age" metric.

apple is rumoured to be looking to make some kind of changes to the Health app.
but apple will probably offer less directional observations and advise, and im thinking apple will not go enough in the specifics as what you do in your app. Thryve is pretty much what i was hoping apple would do, but kind of know it won't. i am looking forward to apple's changes in the Health app, though.

im surprised at how reasonable the price of your app is.
ill probably hit the lifetime subscribe button and hope you continue your development.

ive tired Athlytic app and found it pushed me way too much. i kind of stayed away from these kinds of apps because of that experience. im not into "improving workout times" im into improving my general fitness. t was clear that Athlytic did not know my pain and didn't bring in all of the total peripheral data that you do.

your app is so vast and slightly complex so it will take time for me to understand all the insights and recommendations it makes.
i like it that you still stay within the apple subscription payment system, instead of directing me to an outside site.

 

[Psdn]

I bought it - looking into the data.

With all those data graphs, maybe a IPad version would be an idea.