Yes, it tracks heart rate all day, non-stop. One of the watch faces you can get shows your heart rate on a graph for the last few hours. It also will show you during activity your heart rate zones and how often you were in each of the 5 zones. Yes, the second menu of the watch allows you to select which activity, such as a run indoors, outdoors, bike or Other. I do not believe it has a way to set up transitions like the Garmin 305 had, but I have never tested that function. I have only used it for running.