How to unlock Apple Watch ECG functionality

This guide describes how to unlock the ECG app and functionality on an Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch’s built-in ECG (electrocardiogram) functionality is only enabled by Apple in a number of territories by default, and this guide is for users outside those territories.
Apple restrict ECG activation in a number of ways, preventing it from being enabled unless the following 3 requirements are satisfied:
-
Your iPhone paired with the Watch is set to a region in which ECG is currently available and does not have “Airplane mode” enabled
-
Your Watch is physically in a region in which ECG is currently available (the Watch’s paired iPhone will check against the nearest cell tower’s country code)
-
Your Watch was purchased in a country in which ECG is currently available (in practise, this means the Watch must have been manufactured under a region code that is valid for ECG)
The first two requirements are addressed in this guide, but the third requirement is not possible to bypass.
Switching region
When Apple first launched the S4 with ECG functionality, a simple workaround was available. This will work for users with older versions of watchOS.
- Launch
Settings
on the iPhone paired to your Watch. - Now, tap on
General
→Language & Region
. - Select
English
as your iPhone language, and then tapRegion
and then chooseUnited States
. - Tap
Done
and wait a few seconds.
Bypassing the region check
There are two approaches to satisfying the region check. The first is to visit an approved region: the US, UK, Greece, Poland, etc. A user can visit those places on holiday, activate ECG, and safely return to their country of origin without losing activation. The ECG app will remain available once it has been unlocked.
Alternately, it’s possible to set the activation flag for the ECG app directly on the device. This can be done by restoring the following content to com.apple.private.health.heart-rhythm.plist
on your iPhone:
<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC “-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN” “http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd”> <plist version=“1.0”> <dict> <key>HKAtrialFibrillationDetectionOnboardingCompleted</key> <integer>1</integer> <key>HKElectrocardiogramOnboardingCompleted</key> <integer>3</integer> </dict> </plist>
iPhone Backup Extractor can do this automatically. This process will involve unpairing and then setting your Watch up again as new, so it will take a little while to complete. Whilst your Watch will automatically take a backup, this technique won’t work if you choose to restore the Watch backup.
How to enable the ECG app automatically
Enabling the ECG app with iPhone Backup Extractor can be done with the following steps:
-
First, disable “Find my” on your iPhone. You can do this in
Settings
→[your name]
→Find My
and toggling it off. There’s no need to remove this device from your iCloud account. You will be able to re-enable “Find My” once this process has completed. -
Download and run iPhone Backup Extractor. Connect your iPhone to your computer, and select your phone, and click “Enable Apple Watch ECG”.
Click “Let’s start” in the dialog. This will unpair and erase your Watch, erasing it. Your phone will restart, and your Watch will unpair and erase itself.
The Apple Watch ECG unlocker -
Once your iPhone has restarted, choose
Do not transfer apps and data
, and bring up the Watch app to pair your Watch. -
Set your Watch up as a new, rather than restoring from a previous backup.
So long as your Watch was made for sale in a supported region, the ECG function will appear for setup in the Watch app.
by Mario Facias
Great stuff and really thanks guys for doing this! It’s really annoying that Australian product certification department was absolutely dragging their feet on this one for some reason. Good luck and thanks again for your hard work!!
by Máximo Brene
Hey just wanted to know how the unlocking on 14.2 and 7.2 is going as I'm really interested in your product for this feature.
reply by: Reincubate Support
Thank you. We are still working on this and are still aiming to bring support for 14.3 / 7.2.
We've been trying a number of different approaches with testers — 5 different ones so far. We've uncovered a few ways of doing the unlock, but still have quite a bit of work to do to generalise this into an approach we can put in iPhone Backup Extractor, and make easy-to-use for users.
We're continuing with this work and will update as it progresses. 🧑💻
by Sujan Mool
Hope the new update for 7.2 WatchOS will bring the Blood Oxygen too :-)
reply by: Reincubate Support
We're hard at work on it! 🙂
by Nariman Naghiyev
Awesome! Waiting for new ios versions 14.3 and watchOS7.2 :)
reply by: Reincubate Support
Thank you Nariman. Hopefully we're not too far off!
by milad
Great Job! so for the new ios versions 14.3 and watch os 7.2, we should wait for an update from your side?
thanks.
reply by: Reincubate Support
That's right — it shouldn't be long. We've got something in testing already. 🙂
by Noel Flores
Will this work on Iphone 12 pro max running IOS 14.2.1?
reply by: Reincubate Support
It will, yes, if your Watch meets the criteria in the article!
by Mike
Great article. You wrote in the update to the article:
iOS 13.5.1 is no longer available, do you happen to know whether this also worked for 13.7 (which is the earliest signed 13.x version still currently available) ?
reply by: Reincubate Support
It does, that's right.