Can I wear an Apple Watch in a football match?
Usually, but it is the referee's call, not ours. The Laws of the Game (IFAB Law 4, "The Players' Equipment") contain no blanket ban on smartwatches. The test the laws actually apply is whether a piece of equipment is dangerous, and the referee decides that during the pre-match equipment check. Recent law changes have moved further in this direction, permitting accessories that are not dangerous and are safely and securely covered.
In practice: wear it on your non-dominant wrist, under a sweatband or the cuff of a long-sleeve top so no hard edge is exposed. Most referees at amateur level are fine with that. Some will still say no, and if yours does, that is the end of the discussion — take it off.
Worth knowing: this is not unique to Heatiz. It applies to any watch, fitness tracker or wearable, and it is the reason some competitors sell a vest to carry the watch on your torso instead. If your league is strict, Heatiz still works perfectly for training sessions, five-a-side and kickabouts, which is where a lot of people use it anyway.
How accurate is the heatmap?
Accurate enough to show where you played, not accurate enough to referee an offside. Consumer GNSS on a wrist device is typically accurate to a few metres, and a full-size pitch is only 105 by 68 metres, so that error is a real fraction of the thing being drawn.
What this means in practice is that Heatiz is a map of tendencies rather than a frame-by-frame tracking system. It will reliably show that you spent the game down the right channel, that you drifted centrally in the second half, or that you barely entered the final third. It will not tell you which blade of grass you were standing on. Selecting your pitch accurately makes a noticeable difference, because everything is drawn relative to the boundary you set.
Do I need a vest, a chest strap, or a GPS pod?
No. Heatiz uses the iPhone and Apple Watch you already own, and nothing else. There is no hardware to buy, no sensor to charge, and nothing to strap to your back.
Dedicated GPS tracking systems generally cost upwards of £200 for the pod, and the subscription-based watch apps run around £50 a year. If you already have an Apple Watch, Heatiz costs nothing.
Is Heatiz really free? What's the catch?
It is free, there is no subscription, and there are no ads.
The honest reason is that Heatiz was built by one person who plays amateur football and wanted this for himself. The people it is built for are already paying subs, pitch fees and referee money every week, and charging them £50 a year on top of that to look at their own data felt wrong.
Your data is not the product either. Heatiz does not operate servers — your matches live on your device and in your own iCloud account, and nothing personal is sent to or stored by us. The privacy policy sets out exactly what is used and where it goes.
How is this different from Strava or the built-in Workout app?
Those are built for activities that move in a line. Football moves in a box.
Start an Outdoor Workout and your watch will faithfully record a GPS trace and hand you back a squiggle on a road map, along with distance and heart rate. All accurate, and none of it answers the only question that matters after a match: where were you? Heatiz takes the same sensor data and maps it onto the actual pitch you played on, in the right orientation, with a half-time side switch so your second half isn't drawn back to front. It then adds the things a general fitness app has no reason to track — sprint counts, speed zones, high-speed running distance, goals and assists, and a season view of the lot.
Is there an Android or Wear OS version?
No. Heatiz is iPhone and Apple Watch only, and a large part of what it does — the readiness score in particular — is built directly on Apple Health and HealthKit.
How much battery does recording a match use?
Less than most people expect. A full charge is enough to record more than two complete 90-minute matches, so a single game costs well under half your battery — you do not need to arrive at the pitch fully charged, and a double-header on the same day is fine.
Recording does use GPS and continuous heart rate for the whole match, which is among the more demanding things an Apple Watch does, so the exact figure moves with your watch model and its battery health. But there is no scenario where a normal 90 minutes leaves you stranded.
Where does my health and location data go?
It stays with you. Heatiz reads your matches from Apple Health and writes them back there, and match annotations sync through your own iCloud account so your season stays in step across iPhone and Watch. There are no Heatiz servers in that path, and no personal data is sent to or stored by us. Full detail is in the privacy policy.