Still Point turns a Polar H10 chest strap into a calm morning check-in. A short reading each day tracks your heart rate variability (HRV) against your own usual range, an optional standing test adds how your heart rate responds to getting up, and a breathing guide helps you slow down. It is free, needs no account, and nothing leaves your device.
For general wellness only. Still Point is not a medical device.
If you feel unwell, with chest pain or pressure, fainting, severe shortness of breath, or a racing or very irregular heartbeat, call your local emergency number now.
Wellness use only
Still Point is for general wellness, training and relaxation. It has not been tested, cleared or approved by any medical regulator. Do not use it to diagnose, rule out or monitor any illness, or to make decisions about medicines or treatment. Words such as "usual range" describe how a reading compares with your own earlier readings. They are not medical findings.
Slow breathing can make some people light-headed. If that happens, stop and breathe normally. If you are pregnant or have a heart, lung or blood-pressure condition, check with your doctor before slow-breathing practice. Do the standing test only where you can sit down straight away.
What you need
- A Polar H10 chest strap (a Polar H9 also works).
- Google Chrome on Android. On a computer, Chrome or Edge. iPhone, iPad, Safari and Firefox cannot connect to the strap.
- The app opened from its https address: stillpoint.anonacondacodelab.com
No strap to hand? Try a simulated strap on the HRV tab produces made-up heart beats so you can explore the app. At the end of a reading, tap Discard so made-up readings stay out of your history.
Choosing what to do
The HRV tab (the first tab) asks what you'd like to do:
- Morning reading: the daily check-in that builds your baseline.
- Morning reading + standing test: the same reading, then you stand up for 2 minutes (see below).
- Spot check: a reading at any other time. It is saved and charted but never changes your baseline, because HRV naturally runs lower later in the day.
- Breathe: the breathing guide.
The morning reading
- Moisten the electrodes, put the strap on and close other apps connected to it.
- On the HRV tab, tap Connect H10 and choose your strap.
- Choose Morning reading, then your position and reading length. Two minutes is plenty; use the same choices every day. The app remembers them.
- Tap Begin. The first 15 seconds let you settle; if you're already still and ready, tap Skip settling. Then the reading runs. Stay still and breathe normally.
While it runs you see your heart rate, your HRV (RMSSD over the last minute), your breathing rate and the signal quality. HRV and breathing appear after about half a minute and update every couple of seconds. Don't try to steer them: just breathe normally.
- When it finishes, look over the result and tap Save reading, or Discard if something went wrong (you moved, talked, or it wasn't your usual routine).
Get the most from it: read at the same time each morning, soon after waking, after the bathroom and before coffee, food or exercise, in the same position. Consistency matters far more than the exact routine you choose.
Your result
- HRV score: lnRMSSD on a 0–100 scale (lnRMSSD × 100 / 6.5). Several apps use a similar scale, but the numbers are not interchangeable between apps.
- lnRMSSD and RMSSD: the standard short-reading HRV measure, from the strap's own beat-to-beat intervals.
- Heart rate: average over the reading.
- Breathing: about how many breaths a minute you took. It is estimated from your heart rhythm, which rises and falls slightly with each breath, so it is approximate and may be missing if your rhythm didn't show a clear pattern.
- Signal: beats that differ by more than 20 % from their neighbours (a missed or extra beat, or a strap glitch) are left out. If more than 10 % are left out, the reading is marked noisy and does not count towards your baseline.
What this means
Under every result, a short What this means section explains in everyday words what HRV is, what today's reading suggests and what, if anything, to do about it. Once your baseline is ready it also gives some context: where your usual value sits compared with published averages for healthy adults (roughly 20 to 75 ms RMSSD lying down, falling with age).
The app deliberately doesn't grade HRV as favourable, normal, borderline or outside normal range the way Lead One ECG grades ECG measurements. Healthy people of the same age can differ two- or threefold in HRV, mostly because of genetics, so a population grade would worry people with naturally low HRV for nothing and reassure people with high HRV even when their own trend is sliding. Comparing you with your own usual range is what the research supports.
Your baseline
HRV varies a lot between people, so a single number means little. After 7 earlier mornings in the same position, each reading is compared with your own usual range:
- Usual range is your 60-day average ± half a standard deviation of your daily values.
- Your 7-day average is compared with it, because day-to-day values bounce around.
- In your usual range: nothing stands out.
- Lower than usual: often follows hard training, short or poor sleep, alcohol, illness, travel or stress. An easier day and an early night are sensible.
- Higher than usual: usually good recovery; occasionally, with unusual tiredness after very heavy training, a sign of being run down.
Only the first good reading of each day counts, and each position has its own baseline.
The standing test
Choose Morning reading + standing test (from lying or sitting). It uses your morning position and length, so the reading part joins your baseline as usual. After the reading, a chime asks you to stand up calmly and stay standing, still, for 2 minutes. You'll see:
- Peak after standing: your highest heart rate in the first 30 seconds, and how far it rose.
- Standing, last minute: where your heart rate settled, compared with lying or sitting.
- 30:15 ratio: the longest beat interval around the 30th beat after standing divided by the shortest around the 15th. It reflects how quickly your heart rate comes back down after the initial jump.
Compare these with your own earlier tests; Trends charts them over time.
Breathe
Choose a pace from 3 to 7 breaths a minute in half steps, a rhythm (Longer out: 40 % in, 60 % out, the more relaxing choice; or Even), and a length. Follow the circle: it grows as you breathe in and shrinks as you breathe out, with a soft chime at each change if you like. Breathe gently through your nose into your belly. Don't force the breath; if you feel short of air, choose a faster pace.
With the strap connected you'll see your heart rate rise as you breathe in and fall as you breathe out, and the size of that swing per breath.
Find your resonance pace
At one particular pace, usually between 4.5 and 6.5 breaths a minute, the swing is largest. The test guides you through 6.5, 6, 5.5, 5 and 4.5 breaths a minute for two minutes each and picks the pace with the biggest swing. Tap Use … as my pace to make it your default; it is marked with a dot among the pace buttons. Retest every month or two.
Trends and history
Trends shows the last 60 days: HRV score with your 7-day average and usual range, resting heart rate, standing-test results, spot checks and your breathing minutes. Tap any item in the history to open it.
What your trend shows
Once your baseline is ready, the top of Trends comments on the last few weeks in plain language. A green dot is reassuring, an orange dot is worth noticing, and a grey dot is about how the readings are taken. It looks at:
- Direction: whether your 7-day average is below or above your usual range, and for how many days, or slowly drifting over two weeks.
- Day-to-day variation: readings that jump around more than usual are often an early sign of strain, before the average itself drops.
- Heart rate and HRV together: resting heart rate up while HRV is down is a clearer sign of strain than either alone.
- Standing test: whether your heart-rate jump on standing has been bigger lately than it usually is.
- Consistency: missed mornings, or readings at very different times of day, which make the comparison less reliable.
Comments only appear when there is enough data to support them. They are general wellness information, not medical advice.
Your data
Nothing is kept until you tap Save. Saved readings and sessions are stored in this browser on this device.
- Save to file (open any saved reading) saves that one reading, with all its beat-to-beat intervals, as a file.
- Save all to file (Settings, or the Save all button above the history list on Trends) saves every reading and breathing session, with all their beat intervals, in one backup file.
- Save as spreadsheet (Settings, or Spreadsheet on Trends) saves a CSV file with one row per reading and session: date, time, type, position, score, lnRMSSD, RMSSD, SDNN, heart rate, breathing rate, signal quality, standing-test results, and pace and swing for breathing. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice. It is a summary, so it can't be imported back; keep the backup file for that.
- Settings → Import history brings a history file or a single reading file back in, for example on a new phone. Clearing the browser's site data deletes them, so export
from time to time.
Troubleshooting
- Connect does nothing or the strap isn't listed: close Polar Beat, Polar Flow and other apps using the strap, make sure the strap is worn and moist (it sleeps when dry), and that Bluetooth and location are on.
- Noisy reading: moisten the electrodes, tighten the strap a little, keep still and don't talk.
- The screen turns off during a session: the app asks the phone to stay awake; keep the page in the foreground.