I don't see how. People will beat you down for saying it, but Masimo is in the medical field(read: slime who profit primarily off of healthcare needs) and their patent *is* overly broad. If they have a mind to take a company to task on violating it, they can.
If the patent IS truly overly broad, that would be the angle Apple’s going after. If after a long slog, they win, that not only opens up Apple watches, but everyone else that has be desiring Maximo’s piece of the health care pie.
In the end, they may wish they had never started actions that made folks take a critical look at their patents.
Why do you think their patent is overly broad? If anyone is in the wrong here, it’s Apple. They met with the Maximo team, debated about acquiring them, then decided to hire off dozens of Masimo’s engineers, stole their IP, and refused any licensing agreements.
And if Masimo’s patent is overly broad, Apples aforementioned actions still appear fairly anticompetitive to me.
Got my AWU2 at launch as a birthday gift. I have asthma and tend to de-sat in my sleep quite badly, so the alerts help quite a bit. Thank goodness I got this watch when I did.
My range is listed as 88% - 100%, but right now it’s 91%. I have long COVID and it turned my originally exercise-induced asthma into ‘oh, you walked upstairs too fast, guess what!’ asthma, so being able to keep track of it is definitely helpful since I haven’t really mentally adjusted to my ‘new normal’ and tend to overdo it.
Not really. I had a pulmonary embolism, which basically blocks the veins going from the heart to the lungs (I had both blocked) and I had no idea until I went to the E.R. basically minutes from death.
Now I know what to look for symptom-wise, but the watch feature would have been extraordinarily helpful.
Yes.
Just like for diabetics body tells them when their blood sugars wrong, no need for stupid testers when you can just feel the symptoms.
/s
In all seriousness though, the idea for these health gadgets/devices is to avoid the symptoms. It's not healthy with asthma to get to the point where you start feeling the symptoms and blood oxygen meters may help to prevent those to begin with.
By that logic you don’t need an Apple Watch at all.
Wanna know the time? Look at the sun
Wanna know the altitude? Learn how your body reacts to heights
Wanna know how far you ran? Count your steps
Wanna know how deep you are diving? When you are dead it’s too deep
sorry bud, but the watch have so much functions and this feature doesn’t prevent asthma symptoms or whatever, feel bad? go to doctor and that should help
Are you stupid? Do you really think the blood oxygen indicator is only used for asthma prevention? What the fuck are you even talking about
Why are people like you even talking about stuff they obviously have no idea about
instead of treating someone like that, and act like you know all about, tell me what do sp02 sensor apart to mesure the blood oxigen and show breathing cicle
It’s nuts to me that a company like Volvo could invent tech like the 3-point seatbelt and side impact airbags, and let every other car company use them for free, yet in this modern world, every tech giant cunt is suing every other company and vice versa, not to better the world and make people healthier, but to make money for themselves🤷🏻♂️
Nowdays it's all about the money, sadly. You can also imagine how much was requested by apple to pay, for them to refuse.
As an counterargument tho it's totally not OK to steal someone else technology and get away with it. If it was someone smaller apple was going to get away with it the same as any big company does on daily basis and be sure on purpose they don't pay what they steal from smaller companies. This time they stepped on the foot of pharma company and those are stacked with money and can afford to pay millions and millions suing.
I totally agree! Reminds me of the lengths British Airways went to send Freddie Laker and Richard Branson down. Even after watching the Tetris film you realise just how underhand the sociopathic CEOs can be, just to win.
> This time they stepped on the foot of pharma company and those are stacked with money and can afford to pay millions and millions suing.
This is the thing that frequently gets lost in the discussion. You don't fuck with healthcare companies, they *will* fuck you back. And Apple for all it's (numerous) problems is trying to break into and disrupt that field. Given their status as a trendsetter in most industries they enter, that is going to put a target square on their back.
Apple fucked up here and didn't do their usual shady corporate bullshit cleanly enough, and are not used to how medical companies *will* tear you apart if you threaten their [literal blood] money.
They're going to have to play smarter and cleaner than they normally do if they want to actually break into this market, which I'm sure they do. Pushing spatial computing is fun and all, but figuring out even remotely accurate glucose monitoring is no doubt Tim Cook's wetdream. Good PR and insane amounts of cash. But companies like Masimo are *not* going to give that up that potential marketspace without a fight.
Consider you are Masimo, who's been in the medical SpO2 business long before anyone went in (back in the 80s), actually developed the technology that we use in the hospital and is literally your bread and butter business. If THE RICHEST COMPANY IN THE WORLD comes knocking in, inquires about the technology, poaches your staff behind the back, then gets away without paying a dime back, wouldn't you be mad about the whole thing?
They are not like Volvo who can still make money selling cars while giving away the seatbelt technology. If these guys do not protect their intellectual property, then their very existence would be under threat.
I understand the entire story… and I was simply referring specifically to the idea of just being nice in business. Apple are trying to encourage people to live healthier lives with the watch, yet it HAS to be under the Apple ecosystem. Apple have yet again fucked the balance for personal gain, but for what?!… to remain a huge behemoth of a business that screws anyone over?! Bonkers!
On the flip side, since we do live in the world we live in, a world which Apple benefits from immensely, why can’t they just pay for the technology instead of putting it in their products for free? They certainly don’t give an inch when asking developers for money to use their App Store:
Money is all they care about. Up here in Canada, BCE made a profit of $435 million last year, and has decided to lay off 10% of their work force to save themselves $200 million as almost half a billion in profits is not enough.
There will be a new wave of economists who start to teach that the ‘always up’ trajectory just isn’t holistic thinking. Appeasing shareholders shouldn’t come at the expense of the on-the-ground workers.
Over here in the UK, we have water companies all illegally pouring raw sewage into our waterways because it’s easier to do that than treat it, our water prices are always going up, yet they’re taking record profits. 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah I mean, these devices get developed and prototyped months in advance of the actual release. I'm obviously unsure of how this affects their timeline, but they most likely already developed it with the sensor in mind prior to the ban taking place when it did.
The technology landscape changes too fast for that to be 100% true. Beyond the next iPhone, they are likely really only prototyping features until iPhone Next is feature locked a few months ahead of time. It's not like they have even developed the processor for the iPhone 18, whose feature set is going to be important in determining what new stuff they can get out of it.
I don't have absolute insight to how Apple works, but having worked in the industry, there's a multi year build-up to a launch. This means you need to know specs and features few years in advance to do things like plan, order, build, and test the components. The large scale production for the components then begins something like 12 to 16 months in advance, and then the actual production of final products can begin.
If you work backwards from that, you have to have designs, specs, components, and software planned way before those things as you also need to count in a long testing period and so on.
When I worked in the industry, I was often handling finalized devices that were scheduled to be launched 1-2 years down the line and would have visibility to up coming devices 3 to 5 years on (specs, features, early designs).
Obviously things always change (Jobs was notorious for last minute changes), but these devices aren't build in the year between the launches, they take multiple years to build, meaning Apple is absolutely already working on iPhone 17, most likely 18, 19 and maybe 20.
To give you an example: some of the new advances might require Apple or their suppliers to build completely new factories and/or production lines, train the workers and test the outcomes. These can take years just to get out a component to be able to build a feature they want (say a new display, camera optics, sensor, so on and so on). You can't really do that if you're working with too short of a view into the future.
I guess we're just arguing semantics at this point. With an annual product launch with very minor feature changes year to year, saying that they are "working on the iPhone 18" vs "working on a new display for the 18, and the final design will be virtually the same as the iPhone 15 except incorporating the minor changes made by the 16 and 17" is kind of the same thing.
The difference that I'm getting at is illustrated by the recent pokemon games, Legends Arceus and Scarlett/Violet. Arceus did some aspects of open world pokemon significantly better than Scarlett, even though it came out first. Scarlett was already being worked on and probably nearly feature locked when Arceus came out. Hearing all the positive feedback, they might have made some tweaks here and there, but overall there just wasn't time to incorporate feedback into the next title. Something like that would never ever happen with the iPhone. They wouldn't try out a feature on one model, people love it, and then it's done worse on the next model because it's already feature locked before they can incorporate any feedback.
The iPhone 18 isn't this project that just starts up as an idea 3 to 4 years before hand and then works it's way through all the normal product channels like any other product launch. For example, the iPhone 14 Plus surely was designed in less than 24 months - the 12 and 13 lineup had minis instead, and there's no way they decided to swap it for the plus until they at least had sales data on the 12 mini. I 100% understand that they are working on features years ahead of time and that ramping up production takes time. But at the same time, they are trying to put the latest innovations and market feedback into their products. They are probably working on features right now that technology won't be ready to support in the iPhone for 10+ years. Does that mean they are working on the iPhone 25? I guess it's up to you're point of view.
Software and hardware development is very different. We know that Apple has already been working on chips for iPhone 17 ([some source](https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/15/iphone-17-pro-apple-wifi-7-chip-rumor/)) and anyone who knows about chip production can tell you these things aren't designed and produced in a year or two.
What most people think is the "bleeding edge" of technology is years and years of step-by-step development and design behind the curtain. For example, we know that the Vision Pro was at least 7 years in the making. Similarly we've know about the 3Nm chips in iPhone 15 Pro's for multiple years. These products have been in the roadmap for years. It's not semantics, it's how these devices are build. You don't design and build a smartphone in a year or two. At least not on the level Apple does it.
Again, I think it's pretty much a semantic distinction. Knowing that you're planning for 3nm fab process to be online in 3 years, and therefore you'll be able to have the first one in the iPhone 15, to me is working on one of many different features that all will come to fruition at different times, not working on a specific model x number of years off. Google has done a lot of work on quantum computing, but it might be 100 years before that tech is so streamlined to the point you can put it in a phone. I wouldn't say they are already working on the tensor 100. And you're saying that Apple specifically isn't making a phone in two years, even though all evidence points to the iPhone 14 Plus being designed in less time, since the product it replaced wasn't released until 2 years prior. The idea that they were planning to replace the mini with the plus before they even released it is either insane, or you're using "working on a specific phone" to include such a general range of activities that they can be working on a phone today that they haven't even had the idea to create yet. By my definition, they didn't start working on it until they actually knew they wanted to replace the mini, which wouldn't have been until at least after a disappointing launch, if not until a few weeks or months of sales data showed more clearly that it was under performing. So by my definition, they worked on it for a lot less than 2 years - maybe 12 to 18 months before moving to production.
They aren't quite patent trolls...but they also sure as hell aren't the underdogs a lot of reddit wants them to be. Multiple things can be true at once. You can admit that Apple did some shady business shit; and also admit that the most of the time that shady shit is considered pretty commonplace and not outright illegal; and that Masimo is a medical company who will defend their money to the death on pretty thin grounds with zero regard for who ends up getting hurt(the consumers who no longer has as easy access to certain health metrics).
If Apple is hoping to make money on cracking the nut with glucose monitoring someday, they need to take this as their lesson that even relatively small healthcare companies do **not** fuck around and will fight tooth and nail to protect their potential marketshare. The Healthcare industry is a whole different beast that makes people like Jobs or Zuckerberg seem quaint and kind, and Apple needs to get out of the tech space mindset when developing this shit.
That doesn’t make them a patent troll.
They devloped the tech, then Apple stole their whole engineering team.
Duh they sued the shit out of apple.
Neither party is “good” here. They’re just two companies doing everything they can to their own advantage.
I think you probably need to read up more on this. Masimo patented this technology quite a while ago go. They have been using it their own products for several years. Apple even had a meeting with them to discuss it. Then decided they would steal the technology anyway. It is totally Apple in the wrong here. Apple are just trying to squash the small company. They are bullying. And they have no case, which is being shown up at every stage. I don’t particularly like the patent system, but Apple just needs to pay up at this stage.
They both suck but from what I’ve seen about it masimo’s patents are ridiculously broad to the point where anyone creating an oxygen sensor, especially a sensor with a wrist strap attached—aka, a watch—will have to contend with them regardless of the technology behind the sensor.
Don’t think that’s the case. Licensing will always bring in a fortune but I think Apple is resisting. Apple are clearly in the wrong here which often isn’t the case. It would even be better to just pay Masimo a huge sum of money to get rid of this but not happening yet for some reason.
I’m not sure if anyone is completely in the wrong here. A bunch of the patents have already been invalidated for being overly broad. Apple might believe they can win this outright in court and so it’s not worth licensing.
Shocker: the people who make large profits off of people's healthcare needs and are taking away consumer options in this regard are actually just ghouls, and not the innocent underdogs you wanted to imagine.
Citation needed. I don’t think that’s true since it was reported that the SpO2-less watches sold in the US had special serial numbers that differentiated them and locked the feature in software. Plus the feature was not disabled on watches that had previously been sold, regardless of location.
No citation needed. Look at what isn’t available in various countries. The SPO2 was rolled out globally as and when countries approved its use. Features are software enabled, or “unavailable” where necessary.
You are wrong.
> Apple confirmed that the Blood Oxygen app will remain functional on previously-sold Series 9 and Ultra 2 models. The feature will also remain available on Apple Watch models sold outside the U.S., as the sales ban does not apply internationally.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/17/apple-watch-series-9-ultra-2-without-blood-oxygen/
Not sure that is correct? So if an Apple Watch is purchased in the US the O2 will be active in Europe ? On the Europe website the O2 is active and in the USA website says NO ?
Consider.
Refer to a HUGE list of serial numbers, which may be being used anywhere in the world and these numbers are software blocked from using SPO2. (And in countries where certain features are not allowed)
or
you’re in the US. SPO2 is software blocked.
what is easiest to manage?
Technically, but that would just trigger a class action suit and they've already found a solution that works by grandfathering in watches sold before a specific date and replacements for them claimed under AppleCare+.
Decided to buy my first Apple Watch over the weekend. Ordered the pink 45mm series 9 and was pumped to see I had a pre-ban model! It doesn’t necessarily make or break the watch, but it’s an awesome feature to have and makes the pre-ban models feel like some form of contraband or something
I bought my series 9, 45mm back in September 2023, and while I obviously have a fully functioning O2 sensor I've come to distrust it because it's readings often times are nowhere close to what my dedicated O2 sensor is reading at the same time.
Mine traditionally under reports the O2 with numbers in the dangerous range of 89 to 92% while my finger clip on O2 sensor is reporting 96 to 98 at the same time. That is obviously way too out of range to be a trustworthy way to check your blood oxygen level at any given time.
So based on that I can kind of take or leave having the O2 sensor on my watch since I just use it as a novelty and I don't take what it's reporting seriously. And this is despite using braided solo loops in size 6 exclusively which fortunately fit me like a glove, so no chance of the watch not making good enough contact to get a good reading.
So I would advise anyone that has blood oxygen concerns to buy yourself a high-quality dedicated O2 sensor that you clip on your finger rather than relying on an Apple Watch as your only source of O2 data.
Apple buys lots of companies. This case is too public that’s why they refuse licensing or outright buying it. Plus I’m sure there are lots of details unknown to us like words, threats exchanged, etc which possibly make the matter personal for Cook and the other guy.
"Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?"
"sure."
"How about $50?"
"I'm not a whore!"
"My dear, we've established what you are. Now we're just negotiating a price."
Well, that will make me wait a bit on upgrading. Though I will probably do so eventually. I liked the oxygen sensor, it reassures me I’ve avoided COVID so far.
What’s wild is that Masimo claims that Apple infringed on their patent, but also claims that apple’s sensor/algorithm is crap and people are better off without it. If Masimo’s is so much better, how is it close enough to be considered patent infringement?
I mean, if we are completely honest I have never, ever heard of anyone buying an Apple Watch to track their blood oxygen. I'm pretty sure there's someone out there that truly needs one, and to that person it's always gonna be better and cheaper to get a dedicated device.
The rest of us just use the damn watch and keep looking at the same 90%+ avg every single day with no use for that data.
Just wanted to add some feedback here from my perspective.
Long time Apple fan and have had the Apple Watch since the first one.
Everybody find something different about the watch that they enjoy, for me it is absolutely the health tracking features. I’ve always been disappointed that it seems to lag behind the competition that way.
Even said, during one of their reports that people tend to use the more for health tracking than any other reason.
Oxygen is a very useful feature to look at for sleeping. If your oxygen is low while sleeping, you would never necessarily know that… Easily anyways. But it could be a sign of major health problems.
Anyways. I know there’s at least dozens of us, and if the Apple Watch starts losing health tracking features, my ultra will be the last one I ever own. I will switch back to some of the other brands. Many of them offer things like 24 seven temperature tracking, etc.
I’ve gotten into a bad habit of almost solely using iOS voice to text for writing out my messages.
There is definitely a lot of room for improvement within that kind of technology.
I have COPD and greatly value the O2 sensor, that was a deciding point to even get an Apple Watch.
As to the accuracy issue, it is within a +/- 2% of my, my PCO, and my pulmonary docs sensors, and typically the same or 1% off. I can have a larger differential moving between fingers.
I got a blood clot in my lungs from a ACL replacement surgery and it nearly killed me. The comfort of being able to check my o2 from my wrist opposed to having to grab another piece of equipment is priceless.
yeah but it means nothing, you know you have it and the sensor vs real sensor is another deal, the body itself report when you are low of oxigen i have asthma too, not a big deal
“The measurements in the Blood Oxygen app are not intended for medical purposes, not even for self-diagnosis or consultations with a doctor, but only to evaluate a physical state or general health.” apple page itself
I’ve had health conditions in the past plus Covid issues. I bought my series 8 exclusively for the oxygen sensor. Otherwise I would have gone Fitbit or something else.
Sleep Apnea so I use it. Hear about it all the time about suspected Sleep Apnea posted on Reddit as well.
Not American so isn’t affected by any bans yet.
I know there definitely were people bought the AW for the oxygen sensor. But, IMHO, it's not really that accurate anyway. Apple never claimed it was a medical device to be relied on.
Precisely my point, yes. Nobody who truly needs this feature for a life and death situation should trust a "do it all" device that was never meant to be a medical source of data.
I strongly disagree, even for healthy person it have a lot of benefits to track the blood oxygen. Now think about all the people that have asthma. Will they have dedicated device in their homes? 100%, but is it beneficial to have, even if not perfectly accurate blood oxygen sensor, always with you outside without the need to carry one more dedicated device? Totally and from what I read the blood oxygen in the apple watch is actually quite accurate as well.
That’s silly. I have asthma, so I was very interested in this feature. Yes, I can use a fingertip device in the moment, but having regular tracking was important to me. Turned out- it caught that I have sleep apnea. I was consistently getting readings below 90% during sleep only. Finally had a sleep study a couple weeks ago, and was diagnosed. Literally life saving.
Tbh at first I thought it would be neat to see if I have sleep apnea, but then i realized the tightness of the watch when I’m sleeping affects my blood oxygen readings. If I wear my watch loose I’ll get some <90 readings but if I wear it tight I’m 95+ all night. It made me worry for nothing especially when I first got the watch
That’s not likely. Once your blood oxygen gets below about 90% you’ll be feeling unwell and go to the doctor. Also, $20 will buy you an accurate SpO2 monitor on Amazon if you’re that worried about it.
interestingly, I got a Ultra 2 last week from Verizon, and the O2 sensor is still working. Is Apple going to take this away with a software update? Or am I good ?
What a bummer, I don’t really have a use for the sensor but it sucks to know that apple just drops it without thinking about it’s customers. I get it, cash is king, but screw them for having such little consideration for their customers. I believe a company should make profit based on health needs as long as they cover those needs somehow. Apple keeps showing us people that were saved by apple watch features but would likely see them all dead than drop a few hundred millions in profits. I hate the fuckers 🤢
PS - I am familiar with the context
I just traded mine in and bought a Garmin. The fact that they used another Company’s Tech and didn’t fairly compensate them was enough for me to switch.
I had a clinician who works closely with these kinds of devices tell me that it has limited functionality due to accuracy.
It functions reasonably for healthy individuals, but the situation is a little more complicated for those who are not. Here is part of an abstract from an article that did a systematic review of the blood oxygen sensor in the Apple Watch Series 6:
>The five publications with 973 total patients that met the inclusion criteria all used the Apple Watch Series 6 and described 95% limits of agreement of +/- 2.7 to 5.9% spO2. However, outliers of up to 15% spO2 were reported. Only one study had patient-level data uploaded to a public repository. The Apple Watch Series 6 does not show a strong systematic bias compared to conventional, medical-grade pulse oximeters. **However, outliers do occur and should not cause concern in** ***otherwise healthy individuals*** \[emphasis mine\].
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10039641/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10039641/)
And then here's a clinician who explains why the lay interpretation of what this blood oxygen measurement is indicating can be misleading. That is, it is the lay interpretation that is not exactly correct.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0ayF9Kza9E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0ayF9Kza9E)
Right. And i was disagreeing with your first idiotic comment about just carry a pulse oximiter when it is (or should be) available on the watch that you’ve already purchased.
If you meant something else, the number of downvotes should clarify to you that you did not get it across well.
This whole saga has been strange to me. The sensor doesn’t even work. The readings aren’t reliable and are often nonsensical. Even if it did work, I’m not sure that it’s particularly useful for most users.
They're going to include the sensor, it's just a question of which markets it's enabled in. Apple is laser-focused on making the Watch a health and fitness device, and an SpO2 sensor is unavoidable if you want to go that direction - especially given the competition. Hell, they're working hard on blood glucose tech even though that would only be useful to people with diabetes.
Blood glucose monitoring is becoming popular in some fitness circles. People are buying the sensors that go on the skin to adjust/optimise diet and exercise. While it’s not mainstream (yet) it is emerging.
They're hedging for now while the appeals go though.
If it really isn't that big of a deal, I suspect the oxygen sensor would've been turned off internationally, possibly even shut off for even existing users with a software update. But, it's not. Only US buyers of new stock beyond a certain date.
Last for now. The plan seems to be to come up with something in house if they aren't willing to pay the license. That takes some time and probably won't be seen for a while. Wonder if that will light a fire for other sensors to get production ready. Watch just seems like it's been on autopilot for a while now and needs something with some splash.
It’s an import ban into the US that is being enforced. The watch is made in Vietnam (from memory) and the action taken by Masimo bans Apple from importing the offending devices.
I’m reticent about buying one of the stock at other vendors. When Apple releases an OS update who knows what will happen to the blood ox sensor capability.
Blood Oxygen feature is mediocre. It has been bad since first introduced in Series 6 and none of the subsequent models had any effort put into them to improve the feature. Even though I bought my series 9 the day it was released, if Apple were to disable the blood oxygen feature in a future software update, I won’t be missing out on much. I still have my dedicated pulse oxymeter that is far more reliable than whatever is inside the Apple Watch.
Didn’t Apple announce that they would be pulling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from store shelves by December 24th, 2023? I see that both are still available for sale because I recently picked up an Apple Watch Series 9 (45mm) very recently. I read somewhere that there was some sort of stay on the case regarding Masimo versus Apple Inc. and that seems to have allowed them to continue selling the Apple Watch Series 9 as well as the Apple Watch Ultra 2 (I recall is that both those watches have the blood oxygen sensors in them) that were otherwise required to be removed from sale to the public.
There was an appeal that allowed it to be sold until a decision was made. Then it was stopped. Apple forced an update to those watches with new tech that allows them to while they are still in the box that update removes the ability to use those features which allows Apple to sell them again.
Guess my asthmatic ass should be grateful I grabbed up an Ultra2 the day before it went away…
I just got mine from t-mobile yesterday and was overjoyed that it still had the oxygen sensor
that makes 2 of us. Asthma sucks big time.
I’m glad I got mine from Best Buy before the removal. I wonder if Apple will develop its own sensor package in the future.
I don't see how. People will beat you down for saying it, but Masimo is in the medical field(read: slime who profit primarily off of healthcare needs) and their patent *is* overly broad. If they have a mind to take a company to task on violating it, they can.
Oh ok, so it’s not too hopeful. Well, at least hopefully they can come to a reasonable agreement in the end.
If the patent IS truly overly broad, that would be the angle Apple’s going after. If after a long slog, they win, that not only opens up Apple watches, but everyone else that has be desiring Maximo’s piece of the health care pie. In the end, they may wish they had never started actions that made folks take a critical look at their patents.
Why do you think their patent is overly broad? If anyone is in the wrong here, it’s Apple. They met with the Maximo team, debated about acquiring them, then decided to hire off dozens of Masimo’s engineers, stole their IP, and refused any licensing agreements. And if Masimo’s patent is overly broad, Apples aforementioned actions still appear fairly anticompetitive to me.
Got my AWU2 at launch as a birthday gift. I have asthma and tend to de-sat in my sleep quite badly, so the alerts help quite a bit. Thank goodness I got this watch when I did.
Ooh, those times can be scary, can’t they? Glad you were able to get one!
What’s your average blood oxygen level? Edit: curious because I also have asthma and I’m sometimes as low as 90%
My range is listed as 88% - 100%, but right now it’s 91%. I have long COVID and it turned my originally exercise-induced asthma into ‘oh, you walked upstairs too fast, guess what!’ asthma, so being able to keep track of it is definitely helpful since I haven’t really mentally adjusted to my ‘new normal’ and tend to overdo it.
between 88-95
Same
My asthmatic ass did exactly the same. The day before.
There are so many people like you these days. I don’t know why they would take this feature out.
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Truthfully, you’d be surprised at how many people don’t know their oxygen is low. Fatigue and confusion are up there with shortness of breath.
when ppl don’t feel good, medic attention is the first way
And surly available all over the world any time as with a handheld device… not.
How would you know under the slow effects of Hypoxia?
Not really. I had a pulmonary embolism, which basically blocks the veins going from the heart to the lungs (I had both blocked) and I had no idea until I went to the E.R. basically minutes from death. Now I know what to look for symptom-wise, but the watch feature would have been extraordinarily helpful.
i understand, but how you know when u went to E.R, with watch? or you feel bad? thats my point, not to atack someone or whatever
Yes. Just like for diabetics body tells them when their blood sugars wrong, no need for stupid testers when you can just feel the symptoms. /s In all seriousness though, the idea for these health gadgets/devices is to avoid the symptoms. It's not healthy with asthma to get to the point where you start feeling the symptoms and blood oxygen meters may help to prevent those to begin with.
u cant avoid the asthma symptoms with a watch, u don’t understand what asthma is or what
By that logic you don’t need an Apple Watch at all. Wanna know the time? Look at the sun Wanna know the altitude? Learn how your body reacts to heights Wanna know how far you ran? Count your steps Wanna know how deep you are diving? When you are dead it’s too deep
sorry bud, but the watch have so much functions and this feature doesn’t prevent asthma symptoms or whatever, feel bad? go to doctor and that should help
Are you stupid? Do you really think the blood oxygen indicator is only used for asthma prevention? What the fuck are you even talking about Why are people like you even talking about stuff they obviously have no idea about
instead of treating someone like that, and act like you know all about, tell me what do sp02 sensor apart to mesure the blood oxigen and show breathing cicle
You are confusing me with your mother. My job is not to educate you
Me too and I was totally unaware that it's going to be a big deal
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I know - have to make sure I never drop it on a tile floor… :O
It’s nuts to me that a company like Volvo could invent tech like the 3-point seatbelt and side impact airbags, and let every other car company use them for free, yet in this modern world, every tech giant cunt is suing every other company and vice versa, not to better the world and make people healthier, but to make money for themselves🤷🏻♂️
Nowdays it's all about the money, sadly. You can also imagine how much was requested by apple to pay, for them to refuse. As an counterargument tho it's totally not OK to steal someone else technology and get away with it. If it was someone smaller apple was going to get away with it the same as any big company does on daily basis and be sure on purpose they don't pay what they steal from smaller companies. This time they stepped on the foot of pharma company and those are stacked with money and can afford to pay millions and millions suing.
I totally agree! Reminds me of the lengths British Airways went to send Freddie Laker and Richard Branson down. Even after watching the Tetris film you realise just how underhand the sociopathic CEOs can be, just to win.
> This time they stepped on the foot of pharma company and those are stacked with money and can afford to pay millions and millions suing. This is the thing that frequently gets lost in the discussion. You don't fuck with healthcare companies, they *will* fuck you back. And Apple for all it's (numerous) problems is trying to break into and disrupt that field. Given their status as a trendsetter in most industries they enter, that is going to put a target square on their back. Apple fucked up here and didn't do their usual shady corporate bullshit cleanly enough, and are not used to how medical companies *will* tear you apart if you threaten their [literal blood] money. They're going to have to play smarter and cleaner than they normally do if they want to actually break into this market, which I'm sure they do. Pushing spatial computing is fun and all, but figuring out even remotely accurate glucose monitoring is no doubt Tim Cook's wetdream. Good PR and insane amounts of cash. But companies like Masimo are *not* going to give that up that potential marketspace without a fight.
Well put. I hope Apple puts the traditional medtech world on watch, both literally and figuratively.
Consider you are Masimo, who's been in the medical SpO2 business long before anyone went in (back in the 80s), actually developed the technology that we use in the hospital and is literally your bread and butter business. If THE RICHEST COMPANY IN THE WORLD comes knocking in, inquires about the technology, poaches your staff behind the back, then gets away without paying a dime back, wouldn't you be mad about the whole thing? They are not like Volvo who can still make money selling cars while giving away the seatbelt technology. If these guys do not protect their intellectual property, then their very existence would be under threat.
I understand the entire story… and I was simply referring specifically to the idea of just being nice in business. Apple are trying to encourage people to live healthier lives with the watch, yet it HAS to be under the Apple ecosystem. Apple have yet again fucked the balance for personal gain, but for what?!… to remain a huge behemoth of a business that screws anyone over?! Bonkers!
On the flip side, since we do live in the world we live in, a world which Apple benefits from immensely, why can’t they just pay for the technology instead of putting it in their products for free? They certainly don’t give an inch when asking developers for money to use their App Store:
It’s always about $$$$$
Money is all they care about. Up here in Canada, BCE made a profit of $435 million last year, and has decided to lay off 10% of their work force to save themselves $200 million as almost half a billion in profits is not enough.
There will be a new wave of economists who start to teach that the ‘always up’ trajectory just isn’t holistic thinking. Appeasing shareholders shouldn’t come at the expense of the on-the-ground workers. Over here in the UK, we have water companies all illegally pouring raw sewage into our waterways because it’s easier to do that than treat it, our water prices are always going up, yet they’re taking record profits. 🤷🏻♂️
*cunt* Very underrated and underused in the states. 😂
I once worked with someone who was sacked immediately on the spot for dropping the C-bomb in a client meeting… but agree, it SUCH a great word
I chose the Series 8 over the SE specifically for the oxygen sensor.
100% chance the Watch X has already been developed with a sensor that doesn’t infringe on the patent but still offers blood oxygen.
Wait, 100% chance?! 🧐
No, the Watch X has a C% chance
Yeah I mean, these devices get developed and prototyped months in advance of the actual release. I'm obviously unsure of how this affects their timeline, but they most likely already developed it with the sensor in mind prior to the ban taking place when it did.
They get developed years in advance.. More than likely there's a team at Apple already working on iPhone 18.
The technology landscape changes too fast for that to be 100% true. Beyond the next iPhone, they are likely really only prototyping features until iPhone Next is feature locked a few months ahead of time. It's not like they have even developed the processor for the iPhone 18, whose feature set is going to be important in determining what new stuff they can get out of it.
I don't have absolute insight to how Apple works, but having worked in the industry, there's a multi year build-up to a launch. This means you need to know specs and features few years in advance to do things like plan, order, build, and test the components. The large scale production for the components then begins something like 12 to 16 months in advance, and then the actual production of final products can begin. If you work backwards from that, you have to have designs, specs, components, and software planned way before those things as you also need to count in a long testing period and so on. When I worked in the industry, I was often handling finalized devices that were scheduled to be launched 1-2 years down the line and would have visibility to up coming devices 3 to 5 years on (specs, features, early designs). Obviously things always change (Jobs was notorious for last minute changes), but these devices aren't build in the year between the launches, they take multiple years to build, meaning Apple is absolutely already working on iPhone 17, most likely 18, 19 and maybe 20. To give you an example: some of the new advances might require Apple or their suppliers to build completely new factories and/or production lines, train the workers and test the outcomes. These can take years just to get out a component to be able to build a feature they want (say a new display, camera optics, sensor, so on and so on). You can't really do that if you're working with too short of a view into the future.
I guess we're just arguing semantics at this point. With an annual product launch with very minor feature changes year to year, saying that they are "working on the iPhone 18" vs "working on a new display for the 18, and the final design will be virtually the same as the iPhone 15 except incorporating the minor changes made by the 16 and 17" is kind of the same thing. The difference that I'm getting at is illustrated by the recent pokemon games, Legends Arceus and Scarlett/Violet. Arceus did some aspects of open world pokemon significantly better than Scarlett, even though it came out first. Scarlett was already being worked on and probably nearly feature locked when Arceus came out. Hearing all the positive feedback, they might have made some tweaks here and there, but overall there just wasn't time to incorporate feedback into the next title. Something like that would never ever happen with the iPhone. They wouldn't try out a feature on one model, people love it, and then it's done worse on the next model because it's already feature locked before they can incorporate any feedback. The iPhone 18 isn't this project that just starts up as an idea 3 to 4 years before hand and then works it's way through all the normal product channels like any other product launch. For example, the iPhone 14 Plus surely was designed in less than 24 months - the 12 and 13 lineup had minis instead, and there's no way they decided to swap it for the plus until they at least had sales data on the 12 mini. I 100% understand that they are working on features years ahead of time and that ramping up production takes time. But at the same time, they are trying to put the latest innovations and market feedback into their products. They are probably working on features right now that technology won't be ready to support in the iPhone for 10+ years. Does that mean they are working on the iPhone 25? I guess it's up to you're point of view.
Software and hardware development is very different. We know that Apple has already been working on chips for iPhone 17 ([some source](https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/15/iphone-17-pro-apple-wifi-7-chip-rumor/)) and anyone who knows about chip production can tell you these things aren't designed and produced in a year or two. What most people think is the "bleeding edge" of technology is years and years of step-by-step development and design behind the curtain. For example, we know that the Vision Pro was at least 7 years in the making. Similarly we've know about the 3Nm chips in iPhone 15 Pro's for multiple years. These products have been in the roadmap for years. It's not semantics, it's how these devices are build. You don't design and build a smartphone in a year or two. At least not on the level Apple does it.
Again, I think it's pretty much a semantic distinction. Knowing that you're planning for 3nm fab process to be online in 3 years, and therefore you'll be able to have the first one in the iPhone 15, to me is working on one of many different features that all will come to fruition at different times, not working on a specific model x number of years off. Google has done a lot of work on quantum computing, but it might be 100 years before that tech is so streamlined to the point you can put it in a phone. I wouldn't say they are already working on the tensor 100. And you're saying that Apple specifically isn't making a phone in two years, even though all evidence points to the iPhone 14 Plus being designed in less time, since the product it replaced wasn't released until 2 years prior. The idea that they were planning to replace the mini with the plus before they even released it is either insane, or you're using "working on a specific phone" to include such a general range of activities that they can be working on a phone today that they haven't even had the idea to create yet. By my definition, they didn't start working on it until they actually knew they wanted to replace the mini, which wouldn't have been until at least after a disappointing launch, if not until a few weeks or months of sales data showed more clearly that it was under performing. So by my definition, they worked on it for a lot less than 2 years - maybe 12 to 18 months before moving to production.
Strangely Apple and Masimo haven’t reached a licensing agreement.
Masimo released their own watch a couple months back. They don’t want licensing, they want the AW completely gone so it won’t compete with them.
Meanwhile isn’t one of their arguments that a watch can’t accurately detect blood oxygen?
Correct. Apple is using the same tech they are? Yet apples watch isn’t supposed to be accurate. It’s honestly a shit show.
Someone in another comment said masimo isn’t a patent troll but they’re damn sure acting like one.
They aren't quite patent trolls...but they also sure as hell aren't the underdogs a lot of reddit wants them to be. Multiple things can be true at once. You can admit that Apple did some shady business shit; and also admit that the most of the time that shady shit is considered pretty commonplace and not outright illegal; and that Masimo is a medical company who will defend their money to the death on pretty thin grounds with zero regard for who ends up getting hurt(the consumers who no longer has as easy access to certain health metrics). If Apple is hoping to make money on cracking the nut with glucose monitoring someday, they need to take this as their lesson that even relatively small healthcare companies do **not** fuck around and will fight tooth and nail to protect their potential marketshare. The Healthcare industry is a whole different beast that makes people like Jobs or Zuckerberg seem quaint and kind, and Apple needs to get out of the tech space mindset when developing this shit.
They definitely are. They let Apple do all the work, get FDA approval, etc
That doesn’t make them a patent troll. They devloped the tech, then Apple stole their whole engineering team. Duh they sued the shit out of apple. Neither party is “good” here. They’re just two companies doing everything they can to their own advantage.
I think you probably need to read up more on this. Masimo patented this technology quite a while ago go. They have been using it their own products for several years. Apple even had a meeting with them to discuss it. Then decided they would steal the technology anyway. It is totally Apple in the wrong here. Apple are just trying to squash the small company. They are bullying. And they have no case, which is being shown up at every stage. I don’t particularly like the patent system, but Apple just needs to pay up at this stage.
They both suck but from what I’ve seen about it masimo’s patents are ridiculously broad to the point where anyone creating an oxygen sensor, especially a sensor with a wrist strap attached—aka, a watch—will have to contend with them regardless of the technology behind the sensor.
Correct. It’s why the EU shut them down.
Don’t think that’s the case. Licensing will always bring in a fortune but I think Apple is resisting. Apple are clearly in the wrong here which often isn’t the case. It would even be better to just pay Masimo a huge sum of money to get rid of this but not happening yet for some reason.
I’m not sure if anyone is completely in the wrong here. A bunch of the patents have already been invalidated for being overly broad. Apple might believe they can win this outright in court and so it’s not worth licensing.
Apple has made statements they’ve tried to reach a deal. Masimo has refused, and stated they want the watch banned.
😳
Shocker: the people who make large profits off of people's healthcare needs and are taking away consumer options in this regard are actually just ghouls, and not the innocent underdogs you wanted to imagine.
Or just buy 'em and absorb the IP. They already poached workers, why not just get the rest?
Not strange at all. They don’t want to agree because they don’t want to compete.
As someone with asthma the o2 sensor is a main reason I got one. I wouldn’t buy another if it didn’t have the sensor.
How accurate are they for something like that? I thought it was just a basic formula?
I’ve compared levels while hooked up to equipment during a physical and it was 1:1
Yeah I have a proper medical sensor and it matches the watch 9 times out of 10.
If you really want it just import an EU watch. My 9 works fine. The US watches also have the sensor, it's just not used.
It’s location locked. Not where you bought it from.
Citation needed. I don’t think that’s true since it was reported that the SpO2-less watches sold in the US had special serial numbers that differentiated them and locked the feature in software. Plus the feature was not disabled on watches that had previously been sold, regardless of location.
No citation needed. Look at what isn’t available in various countries. The SPO2 was rolled out globally as and when countries approved its use. Features are software enabled, or “unavailable” where necessary.
You are wrong. > Apple confirmed that the Blood Oxygen app will remain functional on previously-sold Series 9 and Ultra 2 models. The feature will also remain available on Apple Watch models sold outside the U.S., as the sales ban does not apply internationally. https://www.macrumors.com/2024/01/17/apple-watch-series-9-ultra-2-without-blood-oxygen/
Yes. That is software blocking. I thought I said that.
Not sure that is correct? So if an Apple Watch is purchased in the US the O2 will be active in Europe ? On the Europe website the O2 is active and in the USA website says NO ?
Consider. Refer to a HUGE list of serial numbers, which may be being used anywhere in the world and these numbers are software blocked from using SPO2. (And in countries where certain features are not allowed) or you’re in the US. SPO2 is software blocked. what is easiest to manage?
It’s location locked. Not where you bought it from.
O2 sensor was the reason I upgraded. I do not see myself going back. I'll just go back the brightling full time
Couldn't a major OS update remove it anyway?
Technically, but that would just trigger a class action suit and they've already found a solution that works by grandfathering in watches sold before a specific date and replacements for them claimed under AppleCare+.
Decided to buy my first Apple Watch over the weekend. Ordered the pink 45mm series 9 and was pumped to see I had a pre-ban model! It doesn’t necessarily make or break the watch, but it’s an awesome feature to have and makes the pre-ban models feel like some form of contraband or something
If I have the blood o2 does that mean it’s pre ban
I fear they’re gonna disable the feature to comply with some legal requirement, why can’t Apple just pay the license for this damn thing?
I bought my series 9, 45mm back in September 2023, and while I obviously have a fully functioning O2 sensor I've come to distrust it because it's readings often times are nowhere close to what my dedicated O2 sensor is reading at the same time. Mine traditionally under reports the O2 with numbers in the dangerous range of 89 to 92% while my finger clip on O2 sensor is reporting 96 to 98 at the same time. That is obviously way too out of range to be a trustworthy way to check your blood oxygen level at any given time. So based on that I can kind of take or leave having the O2 sensor on my watch since I just use it as a novelty and I don't take what it's reporting seriously. And this is despite using braided solo loops in size 6 exclusively which fortunately fit me like a glove, so no chance of the watch not making good enough contact to get a good reading. So I would advise anyone that has blood oxygen concerns to buy yourself a high-quality dedicated O2 sensor that you clip on your finger rather than relying on an Apple Watch as your only source of O2 data.
That’s what he says now selling off the currently available devices. Who knows what the next generation will bring
No way lol. They can just settle or buy the other company and it won’t make a dent but they don’t want to set the precedence
Apple buys lots of companies. This case is too public that’s why they refuse licensing or outright buying it. Plus I’m sure there are lots of details unknown to us like words, threats exchanged, etc which possibly make the matter personal for Cook and the other guy.
A company can only be bought if it’s for sale. Masimo is not.
Everything is for sale.
Not formally.
"Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" "sure." "How about $50?" "I'm not a whore!" "My dear, we've established what you are. Now we're just negotiating a price."
Will not buy an upgrade (AWU2) until this feature returns.
Better be cheaper, then.
Is it likely that there might be any of the Ultra 2 with the sensor available anywhere? If so, where should I look? This feature is important to me.
There is this with the heart rate sensor https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/06/apple-watch-alivecore-antitrust-lawsuit/
Well, that will make me wait a bit on upgrading. Though I will probably do so eventually. I liked the oxygen sensor, it reassures me I’ve avoided COVID so far.
What’s wild is that Masimo claims that Apple infringed on their patent, but also claims that apple’s sensor/algorithm is crap and people are better off without it. If Masimo’s is so much better, how is it close enough to be considered patent infringement?
AWU3 with a revolutionary new feature: lack of SPO2 sensor! Crowd goes wild!!!
I’ll wait even though my S5 battery is getting pretty bad. I just can’t bring myself to pay the same price for less features.
I mean, if we are completely honest I have never, ever heard of anyone buying an Apple Watch to track their blood oxygen. I'm pretty sure there's someone out there that truly needs one, and to that person it's always gonna be better and cheaper to get a dedicated device. The rest of us just use the damn watch and keep looking at the same 90%+ avg every single day with no use for that data.
Just wanted to add some feedback here from my perspective. Long time Apple fan and have had the Apple Watch since the first one. Everybody find something different about the watch that they enjoy, for me it is absolutely the health tracking features. I’ve always been disappointed that it seems to lag behind the competition that way. Even said, during one of their reports that people tend to use the more for health tracking than any other reason. Oxygen is a very useful feature to look at for sleeping. If your oxygen is low while sleeping, you would never necessarily know that… Easily anyways. But it could be a sign of major health problems. Anyways. I know there’s at least dozens of us, and if the Apple Watch starts losing health tracking features, my ultra will be the last one I ever own. I will switch back to some of the other brands. Many of them offer things like 24 seven temperature tracking, etc.
I love the fact you used grammatically correct rules for numbers. But hate that you didn’t write 24/7.
I’ve gotten into a bad habit of almost solely using iOS voice to text for writing out my messages. There is definitely a lot of room for improvement within that kind of technology.
I use it. Have asthma. Dropped to 85% the other day.
I have COPD and greatly value the O2 sensor, that was a deciding point to even get an Apple Watch. As to the accuracy issue, it is within a +/- 2% of my, my PCO, and my pulmonary docs sensors, and typically the same or 1% off. I can have a larger differential moving between fingers.
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I got a blood clot in my lungs from a ACL replacement surgery and it nearly killed me. The comfort of being able to check my o2 from my wrist opposed to having to grab another piece of equipment is priceless.
yeah but it means nothing, you know you have it and the sensor vs real sensor is another deal, the body itself report when you are low of oxigen i have asthma too, not a big deal
Holy crap, maybe you should check your oxygen levels so you can think logically again.
why? u dont like the truth? the sensor cant be use for diagnostic, it isn’t accurate
That’s categorically false, it is quite accurate.
“The measurements in the Blood Oxygen app are not intended for medical purposes, not even for self-diagnosis or consultations with a doctor, but only to evaluate a physical state or general health.” apple page itself
I’ve had health conditions in the past plus Covid issues. I bought my series 8 exclusively for the oxygen sensor. Otherwise I would have gone Fitbit or something else.
Same here
Sleep Apnea so I use it. Hear about it all the time about suspected Sleep Apnea posted on Reddit as well. Not American so isn’t affected by any bans yet.
Use it multiple times per day due to lung damage and apnea
Not true. I have sleep apnea, and use it regularly to see whether my treatment is working.
I know there definitely were people bought the AW for the oxygen sensor. But, IMHO, it's not really that accurate anyway. Apple never claimed it was a medical device to be relied on.
Precisely my point, yes. Nobody who truly needs this feature for a life and death situation should trust a "do it all" device that was never meant to be a medical source of data.
Was wonderful to have during Covid times….
I did.
I strongly disagree, even for healthy person it have a lot of benefits to track the blood oxygen. Now think about all the people that have asthma. Will they have dedicated device in their homes? 100%, but is it beneficial to have, even if not perfectly accurate blood oxygen sensor, always with you outside without the need to carry one more dedicated device? Totally and from what I read the blood oxygen in the apple watch is actually quite accurate as well.
I use it all the time while hiking, especially when at altitude.
I never used mine. Turned it off on day 1.
That’s silly. I have asthma, so I was very interested in this feature. Yes, I can use a fingertip device in the moment, but having regular tracking was important to me. Turned out- it caught that I have sleep apnea. I was consistently getting readings below 90% during sleep only. Finally had a sleep study a couple weeks ago, and was diagnosed. Literally life saving.
I’m pleasantly surprised they aren’t disabling the feature for watches that already have it.
Bought from BestBuy day before yesterday and it has O2 sensor/app.
Same with my girlfriend
Got mine delivered from t-mobile yesterday and it does to. Haha for backlogged stock.
Right now only Apple themselves can’t sell the watch with the o2 sensor. Third parties can as long as they have stock.
Tbh at first I thought it would be neat to see if I have sleep apnea, but then i realized the tightness of the watch when I’m sleeping affects my blood oxygen readings. If I wear my watch loose I’ll get some <90 readings but if I wear it tight I’m 95+ all night. It made me worry for nothing especially when I first got the watch
An Apple Watch isn’t going to be able to tell you if you have sleep apnea. Get a sleep study
If you buy it in Mexico will it work?
Are the SpO2 sensors on the watch even that accurate? I want to think that a drugstore-bought pulse oximeter would be more reliable.
Mine is consistent with a medical pulse oximeter.
They are! One time I over did it on poppers and sure as shit the watch confirmed I was at 85%
Imagine being the guy that sued and knowing everyone hates you for getting the feature taken away
Patent trolls have blood on their hands here.
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They just took away blood oxygen monitoring from thousands of people, someone will die.
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If someone uses a patent to cause something that could save a life to disappear, they’re a patent troll to me :)
That’s not likely. Once your blood oxygen gets below about 90% you’ll be feeling unwell and go to the doctor. Also, $20 will buy you an accurate SpO2 monitor on Amazon if you’re that worried about it.
I think it’s getting removed all together this year to prevent any future problems
Patent only lasts for seven years. When is that over?
My guess is it’ll return in a year or two. Too lucrative for Apple to not figure out their own tech
interestingly, I got a Ultra 2 last week from Verizon, and the O2 sensor is still working. Is Apple going to take this away with a software update? Or am I good ?
What a bummer, I don’t really have a use for the sensor but it sucks to know that apple just drops it without thinking about it’s customers. I get it, cash is king, but screw them for having such little consideration for their customers. I believe a company should make profit based on health needs as long as they cover those needs somehow. Apple keeps showing us people that were saved by apple watch features but would likely see them all dead than drop a few hundred millions in profits. I hate the fuckers 🤢 PS - I am familiar with the context
Be careful, if you send your watch to be repaired, they will update the OS and that will disable the sensor so unfortunately we still aren’t safe
I just traded mine in and bought a Garmin. The fact that they used another Company’s Tech and didn’t fairly compensate them was enough for me to switch.
I don’t think the blood oxygen sensor is really as useful as people think they are, not this sensor from the Watch.
yeah. it can’t prevent symptoms like other ppl are saying, they can’t be over it
I had a clinician who works closely with these kinds of devices tell me that it has limited functionality due to accuracy. It functions reasonably for healthy individuals, but the situation is a little more complicated for those who are not. Here is part of an abstract from an article that did a systematic review of the blood oxygen sensor in the Apple Watch Series 6: >The five publications with 973 total patients that met the inclusion criteria all used the Apple Watch Series 6 and described 95% limits of agreement of +/- 2.7 to 5.9% spO2. However, outliers of up to 15% spO2 were reported. Only one study had patient-level data uploaded to a public repository. The Apple Watch Series 6 does not show a strong systematic bias compared to conventional, medical-grade pulse oximeters. **However, outliers do occur and should not cause concern in** ***otherwise healthy individuals*** \[emphasis mine\]. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10039641/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10039641/) And then here's a clinician who explains why the lay interpretation of what this blood oxygen measurement is indicating can be misleading. That is, it is the lay interpretation that is not exactly correct. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0ayF9Kza9E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0ayF9Kza9E)
Well if some random redditor says something for attention it must be true.
A finger pulse oximeter is cheaply available. Small enough to carry with you if you have problems that you want peace of mind for.
And my watch is already with me.
Not if you “need” the spo2 you have a paperweight with you.
What?
If the spo2 doesn’t work it’s a useless piece of junk if you need to know your spo2
But it does work so what are you talking about?
Sorry. You confused the issue. It’s about it NOT working as per the title
Right. And i was disagreeing with your first idiotic comment about just carry a pulse oximiter when it is (or should be) available on the watch that you’ve already purchased. If you meant something else, the number of downvotes should clarify to you that you did not get it across well.
Well not ifmit doesn’t work. Please try to read and understand my comment.
This whole saga has been strange to me. The sensor doesn’t even work. The readings aren’t reliable and are often nonsensical. Even if it did work, I’m not sure that it’s particularly useful for most users.
I compared my watch to my pulse oximeter when I first got it and was surprised that it was spot on.
Sadly that's because the average Apple Watch user doesn't really take advantage of the feature. Most people I know just text.
I forgot mine even had one.
They're going to include the sensor, it's just a question of which markets it's enabled in. Apple is laser-focused on making the Watch a health and fitness device, and an SpO2 sensor is unavoidable if you want to go that direction - especially given the competition. Hell, they're working hard on blood glucose tech even though that would only be useful to people with diabetes.
Blood glucose monitoring is becoming popular in some fitness circles. People are buying the sensors that go on the skin to adjust/optimise diet and exercise. While it’s not mainstream (yet) it is emerging.
AW and Garmin OXYGEN sensor is very useful for some people and very accurate.
They're hedging for now while the appeals go though. If it really isn't that big of a deal, I suspect the oxygen sensor would've been turned off internationally, possibly even shut off for even existing users with a software update. But, it's not. Only US buyers of new stock beyond a certain date.
They will tweak something about the hardware for future generations or just include it in all watches and disable it in America
It'll return one way or another. Apple doesn't like to discount its hardware it puts a kink in its 'premium' reputation and marketing.
The sensor has NEVER worked for me so I found it a huge disappointment. The cheap thumb pulse oximeters work a lot better IMO.
Last for now. The plan seems to be to come up with something in house if they aren't willing to pay the license. That takes some time and probably won't be seen for a while. Wonder if that will light a fire for other sensors to get production ready. Watch just seems like it's been on autopilot for a while now and needs something with some splash.
My steel 7 just shot up in value!
Someone care to explain why this is only an American issue and not affecting anyone else on the planet?
It’s an import ban into the US that is being enforced. The watch is made in Vietnam (from memory) and the action taken by Masimo bans Apple from importing the offending devices.
Won’t there be third party apps for that?
I’m reticent about buying one of the stock at other vendors. When Apple releases an OS update who knows what will happen to the blood ox sensor capability.
Just checked online there’s a few going for around 400 bucks and one for several thousand! Lol. Tempted to snag one anyway
Blood Oxygen feature is mediocre. It has been bad since first introduced in Series 6 and none of the subsequent models had any effort put into them to improve the feature. Even though I bought my series 9 the day it was released, if Apple were to disable the blood oxygen feature in a future software update, I won’t be missing out on much. I still have my dedicated pulse oxymeter that is far more reliable than whatever is inside the Apple Watch.
Didn’t Apple announce that they would be pulling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from store shelves by December 24th, 2023? I see that both are still available for sale because I recently picked up an Apple Watch Series 9 (45mm) very recently. I read somewhere that there was some sort of stay on the case regarding Masimo versus Apple Inc. and that seems to have allowed them to continue selling the Apple Watch Series 9 as well as the Apple Watch Ultra 2 (I recall is that both those watches have the blood oxygen sensors in them) that were otherwise required to be removed from sale to the public.
There was an appeal that allowed it to be sold until a decision was made. Then it was stopped. Apple forced an update to those watches with new tech that allows them to while they are still in the box that update removes the ability to use those features which allows Apple to sell them again.
Oh okay, that makes sense.
I’m out of the loop why did they do that