Support — Ease Down

How the reading works

The torch on the back of your iPhone lights the fingertip resting on the rear camera. With each beat, slightly less light passes through, and the camera sees that as a small change in colour. The app follows those changes and estimates your pulse from them — a technique called photoplethysmography.

The important part, and the thing most people get backwards: your finger needs to cover the camera lens, not the flash. The flash only has to shine on your finger.

Readings are approximate. Ease Down is a wellness app, not a medical device, and it does not diagnose, treat or monitor any condition. If you have chest pain, feel faint, or struggle to breathe, call your local emergency number or speak to a doctor.

Getting a good reading

Rest the pad of your finger over the rear cameras, next to the flash — the app finds the lens by itself. On phones with two or three cameras it tries each one until it sees a covered lens, then stays there and remembers which it was.

Rest, don't press. Firm pressure squeezes the blood out of your fingertip and there is nothing left to read. The weight of the finger is enough.
Cover the lens completely. If any light gets past the edge of your finger, the signal washes out. A slight roll of the finger usually fixes it.
Hold still and let it settle. A reading usually takes ten to twenty seconds from the moment your finger lands. Resting your hand on a table or your knee helps more than trying to hold it steady in the air.
Warm hands read better. Cold fingers have less blood flow near the surface. If it will not find a rhythm, rub your hands together for a few seconds and try again.
Any finger works. Index and middle fingers are the usual choice, but use whichever reaches the lens comfortably.

If the app keeps saying it is finding the rhythm, it is not blaming you — it simply does not have a clean signal yet. Lift the finger, rest it again, and give it a few more seconds. If it never settles on your device, write to us; the app can record a raw trace that tells us why.

Using a Bluetooth sensor

Ease Down reads any sensor that broadcasts on the standard Bluetooth Heart Rate Profile. Pair it in Settings › Pulse source. The camera stays available at any time, and it is the path we would start with.

Chest straps

Polar H9 and H10, Garmin HRM, Wahoo TICKR, Coospo and most other straps broadcast automatically as soon as you put them on and they detect skin contact. Nothing to switch on. Wet the electrodes if the strap is not picked up.

Garmin watches

Broadcast has to be turned on by hand, and it is not the "Add Sensor" menu — that makes the watch look for sensors of its own.

On the watch, open Settings.
Go to Health & Wellness.
Choose Wrist Heart Rate.
Turn on Broadcast Heart Rate, then start the check-in on your iPhone.

Some models put it under Controls, as "Broadcast Heart Rate". Broadcasting uses extra battery and stops when you leave the screen, so switch it on right before a session.

Polar watches

On Polar watches, broadcast lives in the sensor or connection settings — on most models: Settings › General settings › Broadcast heart rate. On older models it starts when you begin a training session with "Broadcast HR" enabled.

COROS watches

On COROS, use the side dial to open System › More settings and turn on Broadcast Heart Rate. On some models it is under Settings › Heart Rate › Broadcast.

If the sensor does not appear

Check that broadcast is actually on — most watches show a small heart icon while it is.
Close any other app that may have grabbed the sensor. Most straps talk to one device at a time.
Make sure Bluetooth is on for the iPhone and that Ease Down is allowed to use it in iOS Settings › Ease Down.
Move the sensor closer, and away from other Bluetooth devices.
Nothing yet? Use the camera instead — the check-in offers that as a one-tap alternative, and it works exactly the same way.

Apple Health permissions

Apple Health is optional. With permission, Ease Down writes your mindful minutes and the two heart rate samples from a check-in, and reads your resting heart rate for context. Nothing else is read or written, and none of it reaches us.

iOS shows the Health permission sheet only once. If it was dismissed or declined, the toggle in the app will not bring it back — the permission has to be granted in the Health app instead:

Open the Health app.
Tap your picture in the top right, then Apps & Services (on some versions, Sharing › Apps).
Choose Ease Down.
Turn on the categories you want to allow, then return to the app.

You can turn any of it off again in the same place, at any time. The app works fine with Health switched off entirely.

Restore your purchase

The unlock is a one-time purchase tied to your Apple Account, so it follows you to a new iPhone. On a new device, or after reinstalling:

Make sure you are signed in to the same Apple Account that made the purchase.
Open Ease Down › Settings.
Tap Restore purchases.

If it does not come back, check that the Apple Account under iOS Settings › your name › Media & Purchases is the one you bought with — a family member's account is the usual culprit. Refunds are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com; we cannot issue them ourselves. Still stuck? Write to us and we will sort it out.

Apple Watch

There is no Apple Watch app yet. It is planned. Apple Watch does not broadcast heart rate over Bluetooth the way other brands do, so it needs a companion app rather than a pairing, and that work is still ahead.

In the meantime the camera works on every supported iPhone, and watches that do broadcast — Garmin, Polar, COROS and others — already work today.

Still stuck?

Write to [email protected]. A real person reads it. It helps if you mention your iPhone model, your iOS version, and what the screen said when things went wrong — but write anyway even if you have none of that.