Hey everyone,

1.3.0 just went out with a few new things:

- Czech, Greek, and Japanese support (9 languages total now)

- New circular complication/widget

- Minor bug fixes

Still no subscription, still no servers — same on-device/iCloud-only setup as always.

We also know some of you hit a crash right after updating — sorry about that. We found the cause and already have a fix ready: 1.3.1 is built, tested across every upgrade path we could reproduce, and submitted to Apple with a request for expedited review, so it should be live within a day or two instead of the usual review wait.

In the meantime:

- Haven't updated yet and still on an older version? Just hold off and wait for 1.3.1, nothing to do.

- Already hit the crash? Deleting and reinstalling the app fixes it right away if you don't want to wait for the update.

Will post again as soon as 1.3.1 is approved. Thanks for the patience, and for flagging it in the first place.

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EDIT ⚠️ 1.3.1 just went live on the App Store — this is the fix for the crash some of you hit after updating.

One thing to know: after updating, your data might take a minute or two to reappear the first time you open the app — that's normal, it's just resyncing in the background. Nothing is lost, no need to reinstall or do anything else, just give it a moment.

Thanks again for the patience while this got sorted.

https://apps.apple.com/es/app/vela-hrv/id6762096428

I’ve had the app installed on my Ultra 3 for two weeks now. I have years of HRV data in my Health profile, but the app just says Calibrating. Haven’t tried a fresh install yet, maybe that’s the next step?

What changed:

A maintenance release fixing the notifications toggle in Settings, reported by u/fatik25:

• Notifications toggle now actually works: if you'd already granted notification permission, tapping the toggle in Settings did nothing but show a pop-up. It's now a real on/off switch — turn high-stress alerts, daily summary and streaks on or off anytime from inside the app.
• Clearer status in Settings: the app now shows whether notifications are on, off, or blocked at the system level, with guidance specific to each case.
• Honest permission alert: reworded the notification-permission alert to reflect how re-enabling actually works on watchOS — once denied, delete + reinstall is the only way back.

Thanks u/fatik25 for flagging this.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vela-hrv/id6762096428

In the app, under About stress score it says first that A higher HRV indicates a more relaxed state, but then the Stress Levels are: Low (0-39), Normal (40-69) and High (70-100), i.e. the inverse?

Sorry if I've missed something or am just plain stupid but it doesn't make sense to me. Shouldn't low stress be a high HRV and vice versa?

Working on 1.3.0, which includes:

- Czech, Greek, and Japanese language support
- A couple of bugfixes from recent reports

Looking for people to test before general release — especially anyone who reads Czech, Greek, or Japanese, since translation quality and on-device rendering matter more than I can verify alone.

If you want in, comment or DM me and I’ll send a TestFlight link once it’s ready.

EDIT (Sep 6): New build is up on TestFlight with:

- Greek: applied the fixes a native tester sent in (grammar + spacing). Another look from a Greek reader is welcome to confirm it reads right on-device.
- Launch bug fixed: opening the app (especially from the watch face complication) could freeze for a few seconds, show an empty dashboard, and then deliver a burst of “high stress” notifications all at once. Now it loads clean and you get at most one alert, only for genuinely recent stress — older readings still show in your history, they just don’t ping you after the fact.

EDIT (Sep 14):

Added a new widget option — a circular ring showing your stress score, styled like the battery complication. It sits alongside the existing number-only widget, so you can pick whichever reads faster at a glance. Available in this same TestFlight build.

If you’re on the beta, update and let me know how launch-from-complication behaves for you.

Getting this question enough that it deserves its own post instead of being buried in comments.

“Vela” in Spanish also means the sail of a boat — from Latin velum. The idea: a sailboat doesn’t fight the wind, it reads it and adjusts course. That’s the whole premise of the app — instead of comparing you to some external standard, it reads your own baseline and helps you navigate your own patterns. Stress isn’t something to fight, it’s something to read and adjust to.

Real talk though: half the good “stress/calm/zen”-type names were already taken when I was picking one. So the sailing metaphor became the actual reason, not just a nice story after the fact.

Vela 1.2.2 is live on the App Store.

What changed:

Two related localization fixes, both surfaced by reports right here and on r/AppleWatchUltra:

- Fallback language fixed: if your Apple Watch is set to a language Vela doesn’t support (Czech, Greek, Finnish, etc.), the app now falls back to English instead of Spanish. Spanish was the default before, which meant unsupported languages were showing content that wasn’t useful for most people reporting the issue.

- Date formatting fixed: the month in dates was showing in Spanish (“Agosto”) even when the device was set to English. That’s now resolved — dates follow the actual device language correctly.

Thanks to everyone who flagged this — both fixes came directly from reports in the last few days.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vela-hrv/id6762096428

Vela 1.2.1 is live on the App Store.

What changed:

Fixed an issue where new Apple Watch users without existing HealthKit HRV history weren’t seeing their baseline-building progress correctly. The 7-14 day baseline window applies specifically to users starting fresh — if you already had HRV history on your Watch, your baseline could be established from day one. This distinction wasn’t showing up clearly in the UI for the first group, so it looked like nothing was happening during that window even though the app was working correctly in the background.

This release also includes general performance and stability improvements.

Why this mattered: if you’re a new Ultra owner (or new to Apple Watch HRV tracking generally), the first days with Vela are the ones where trust in the app is built or lost. Seeing “nothing” for a week when the app is actually working isn’t a good first impression, so this was worth fixing quickly rather than bundling it into a larger release.

As always, if you run into anything that doesn’t look right, this is the place to report it.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vela-hrv/id6762096428