Support

Everything here is answered by a person. Email support@hessamzahedi.com and you’ll normally hear back within two working days.

Getting started

How long until I see anything useful?

A score appears as soon as your watch has recent heart-rate and HRV samples — usually within the first hour of wearing it. The interesting parts need more: personal baselines settle after about a week, the forecast and “what moves your stress” need two weeks or so, and the first written chapter of your Chronicle arrives after a full calendar month.

Can I look around before committing?

Yes. Settings → Data source → Demo data fills the app with a realistic month so you can explore every screen instantly. Turn it off to return to your own data — nothing from demo mode is mixed into your real history.

Do I need an Apple Watch?

For continuous monitoring, yes — the scores are built from heart-rate variability, which your watch measures throughout the day. Without a watch you can still use the camera pulse check, breathing sessions, and manual logging.

Scores and accuracy

What does the number actually mean?

It’s a 0–100 estimate of physiological load. Suppressed HRV against your own 7-day baseline carries about two-thirds of it; heart rate above your resting rate carries the rest. Under 35 is calm, over 60 is strained. It is a wellness estimate, not a medical measurement.

The score doesn’t match how I feel.

Sometimes that’s the app and sometimes it’s genuinely informative — physiological arousal and felt emotion aren’t the same thing. Either way, tell it: answer “was this real?” on alerts, and use Trust Center (Settings → Trust Center) to report an episode it missed. Both nudge your personal threshold, and the Trust Center shows the accuracy record you’ve built.

Why do I get alerts during workouts?

You shouldn’t — alerts pause during exercise and for an hour afterwards. If they’re still firing, check that your workouts are being recorded to Apple Health, since that’s how the app knows you’re training.

My score says “No recent heart data”.

The app needs recent HRV samples. Wear your watch for a while, make sure Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability are enabled for HealthState in the Health app under Sources, and check that Apple Watch background measurements aren’t restricted by Low Power Mode.

Alerts and notifications

I’m not getting stress alerts.

Check, in order: notifications are allowed for HealthState in iOS Settings; alerts are on in the app’s Settings; you’re not inside your quiet hours; the minimum interval hasn’t just elapsed; and you aren’t in the post-workout pause. Alerts also require sustained strain — two elevated readings in a row — so single spikes are ignored by design.

Too many alerts. Too few alerts.

Answer the “was this real?” buttons on a few of them and the threshold adapts to you. You can also change how often the app checks in Settings → Monitoring intensity.

Watch and sleep

The night session stops during the night.

Keep the watch on your wrist and make sure it has enough charge — overnight tracking typically uses 15–25% of the battery. If it still stops, confirm HealthState is allowed to run workouts in the Watch app’s settings, and that Low Power Mode isn’t restricting background activity.

The smart alarm didn’t wake me in light sleep.

It looks for light sleep only inside your wake window — 15, 25 or 40 minutes before your chosen time. If you were deeply asleep for the whole window, it wakes you at your set time anyway, which is the correct behaviour. Haptics are silent by design; wear the watch snugly.

Are the sleep stages accurate?

They’re estimated on device from heart rate and movement. That’s a well-established approach and good enough to spot patterns, but it is not a clinical sleep study, and it will sometimes disagree with how you remember your night.

Privacy and data

Where is my data stored?

On your device by default — there are no HealthState accounts and no servers of ours. If you switch on iCloud sync it is also kept in your own private iCloud. See the privacy policy for the full picture.

How do I sync between my iPhone and iPad?

Settings → iCloud sync → Sync across my devices, then quit and reopen the app. There is nothing to log into: it uses the Apple Account your device already uses, and your history goes into your private iCloud database, which only you can read. Sign into the same Apple Account on the other device and turn the same switch on.

I turned sync on and nothing happened.

Sync is set up when the app launches, so quit and reopen it once. Then check that the Settings screen says “Signed in to iCloud” — if it says no account, sign in via the Settings app first. Large histories take a few minutes to appear on the second device.

How do I back up or move to a new phone?

Settings → Backup → Prepare backup writes a JSON file you can keep in Files or AirDrop to the new phone, then restore from Settings on the other side. Re-importing the same file twice is safe — duplicates are skipped.

How do I delete everything?

Delete the app. Everything it stored goes with it. To also revoke its access to Apple Health, open the Health app → Sharing → Apps → HealthState.

Does Stay Close share my numbers?

No. It shares only your stress band — a word like “calm” or “strained” — and a display name, through your own iCloud. Never scores, never vitals.

Notes

Does the app read or change my notes?

No. Notes is the one section with nothing generated and nothing observing it. The coach, your companion and the Chronicle are built without any access to it, and an automated test fails the build if that ever changes. What you write stays exactly as you wrote it.

How do I get a note onto my Lock Screen?

Pin it — swipe right on a note, or use the pin button while editing. Then add the Pinned note widget: touch and hold your Lock Screen or Home Screen, tap Customise, and pick HealthState. Only pinned notes are ever shown.

Can I be reminded of a note?

Yes. Pin the note, open it, and switch on “Remind me daily”, then choose a time. The reminder arrives silently with your own sentence as the text — nothing is rewritten.

Can I add a note without opening the app?

Ask Siri to “add a note to HealthState”, or use the Add a Note action in Shortcuts. Notes captured that way appear the next time you open the app. If the app was closed when you dictated it, nothing is lost — it is held safely until then.

Can I lock my notes?

Settings → Notes → Require Face ID to open Notes. It falls back to your passcode if Face ID fails, so you can’t be shut out of your own writing.

Will my notes reach my doctor?

Anything under “For my doctor” prints on the clinician report (History → the document button), labelled as written by you and reproduced word for word, so it can’t be mistaken for something the app generated.

Trials and recovery

Why does the app pick the technique for me?

Because you can’t. Left to choose, everyone reaches for different techniques depending on how bad they feel, and that bias makes the averages meaningless. Randomising the choice is the only way to find out what actually works on you.

Why is there a round where I do nothing?

Stress falls on its own most of the time. Without measuring that, every technique looks effective. The control round is what makes the rest of the numbers mean something.

Why won’t it name a winner?

It names one only when a technique clearly beats the others by more than the margin of error. “Too close to call” is a real result, and saying it is more useful than a confident answer that would flip after one more round.

Why don’t I see the recovery forecast?

It appears while your stress is actually elevated, and only once you have enough past episodes of similar severity for the estimate to be honest. Below that it stays quiet.

Your body clock

How does it know if I’m a lark or an owl?

From the midpoint of your nights — a steadier marker than bedtime, which mostly records when you stopped scrolling. It needs a couple of weeks of sleep, including some free days.

I work shifts, and it says I’m misaligned when I’m not.

A fair complaint. Nothing in Apple Health records whether an alarm was set, so free days are taken to be weekends. If your days off fall midweek, the reading won’t fit you — the card says which nights it used so you can judge it yourself.

Accessibility

Can I use HealthState without seeing the screen?

Yes. Every state has its own pattern of taps on your wrist and in your hand — one soft tap for calm, four sharp ones for overload — switched on in Settings → Accessibility. The companion is fully described to VoiceOver, and “Speak my state” reads it aloud on request.

The animation bothers me.

Turn on Reduce Motion in iOS Settings. The companion holds a still expression, and every state still looks different.

Is the app available in other languages?

English and Persian, fully translated including right-to-left layout. To use Persian without changing your whole phone: iOS Settings → HealthState → Language.

Camera pulse check

There’s no Pulse button on my iPad.

The measurement needs the camera flash to light your fingertip from behind, and no iPad has one. Rather than ship a button that always fails, it’s hidden there. Use an iPhone.

Purchases

What’s free and what’s paid?

The free app gives you your live score and face, today’s timeline, breathing sessions, stress alerts and the Trust Center, a week of history, tag insights and two companions — on your real data, permanently. HealthState Pro is a single $24.99 purchase that unlocks everything else, forever. There is no subscription.

I bought Pro and it’s not unlocked.

Settings → HealthState Pro → Restore purchase, making sure you’re signed into the same Apple Account that bought it. If it still doesn’t appear, write in and include your App Store receipt.

Refunds

Purchases go through Apple, so refunds are handled at reportaproblem.apple.com. Tell us what went wrong too — if something’s broken, we’d like to fix it.

Troubleshooting

• Widgets are stale: open the app once; widgets refresh on the system’s schedule, not instantly.
• Watch complication is blank: open HealthState on the watch, then re-add the complication.
• Camera pulse check fails: cover both the lens and the flash with your fingertip, stay still, and keep your hand warm.
• Places never appear: the feature is off by default, needs “Always” location, and takes several days of ordinary routine before patterns emerge.

Still stuck?

Email support@hessamzahedi.com. Feature requests are genuinely welcome — much of this app exists because people asked.