The short answer

Apple Watch has no built-in way to keep sharing your heartbeat with a partner. Asked on Apple's own Community forum in 2025 whether a heartbeat could be shared with family, the answer was simply: "No. That is not a feature." 2Hearts adds it: your watch or iPhone measures your pulse, and your partner feels it, live or as a recording.

What Apple Watch can do on its own

Digital Touch

When the first Apple Watch arrived in 2015, it introduced Digital Touch: a way to send sketches, taps and your heartbeat to a friend inside a message. It's a lovely gesture, but it's a single moment in a conversation. There's no way to feel each other's heartbeat live, and nothing to come back to and replay when you miss them. Apple has also moved Digital Touch around across watchOS versions, so what your watch offers depends on its software.

Health Sharing

The Health app on iPhone can share some of your health data with someone you choose, including heart rate. They see it as numbers and charts in their own Health app. That's useful for keeping an eye on family, but it's data, not a heartbeat they can feel.

How to send your heartbeat with 2Hearts

2Hearts is a relationship app for couples, built around exactly this. Here's how it works.

  1. Get 2Hearts and tether with your partner. One of you creates an invite code in the app and the other enters it.
  2. Choose where your pulse is taken from. Pick your Apple Watch, or your iPhone's camera if you don't have a watch with you.
  3. Take a reading. On Apple Watch, 2Hearts reads your heart rate while a short workout session runs. On iPhone, rest a fingertip over the camera and flash, and the app reads the tiny changes in light as your blood flows.
  4. Send it, or go live. Send your heartbeat as a recording your partner can feel and replay whenever they like, or start a live session so your heartbeat reaches them in real time.

Live heartbeat or a recording?

Both have their moment.

  • A recording is something to keep. Send one before a flight, at the end of a long day, or when you can't talk. Your partner can replay it later, as often as they want.
  • A live session is about being together right now. Start one during a video call, while you watch a movie at the same time, or as you both fall asleep. Live beats travel over a private, encrypted connection only the two of you can join, and they aren't stored.

Looking for more ways to spend time together from afar? Try these long distance date ideas.

Your heartbeat stays between you

Heart readings are health data, and 2Hearts treats them that way.

  • The camera never keeps a picture of your finger. The video is processed on your phone and thrown away; only your pulse, as a series of numbers, is sent when you choose to share it.
  • The workout session on your watch isn't saved to your Activity or Health, and 2Hearts doesn't write any data to Apple Health.
  • Heart readings are never used for advertising and never sold. They go to your partner, and to no one else.

Read the full privacy policy.

Questions

Can Apple Watch send your heartbeat on its own?

Not as an ongoing way to share it with a partner. Digital Touch has let Apple Watch users send a heartbeat inside a message since 2015, and the Health app can share heart rate data as charts, but neither lets your partner feel your heartbeat live or keep it to replay. 2Hearts adds that.

Does my partner need an Apple Watch?

No. Either of you can take a reading with your iPhone's camera instead, so Apple Watch is optional.

Does 2Hearts save anything to Apple Health?

No. 2Hearts reads your heart rate while a short workout session runs on your watch. That session isn't saved to your Activity or Health, and 2Hearts doesn't write any data to Apple Health.

Is my heartbeat private?

Yes. Heart readings are used only to let your partner feel your heartbeat and to show your own readings back to you. They are never used for advertising and never sold.