Apple Watch Series 8 Might Be Able to Tell If You Have a Fever

[Neodym]

You mean the chip shortage that pretty much every device had the upgrade every year since 2019 regardless of the pandemic?

The AppleWatch is probably a low-margin product by Apple’s standards. So if chip shortages and other effects have to be countered by a company, that company needs to focus and most-probably wouldn’t put a low-margin product at the top of the priority list.

 

[George Dawes]

Longer battery life please and a slimmer design too , not more pointless gimmicks you use once and that’s it

 

[TightLines]

Why don’t they focus more on being able to offer different design/shapes instead of measuring health/fitness stuff that may or may not be capturing/reporting accurately? I think they would get a lot more adaption of their product than just being able to tell you your body temp. Watches for the most part are fashion statements for people… an accessory to the wardrobe… not everyone is a health/fitness nut, but it doesn’t mean they are not interested in some of the things being measured and reported to the end user… but if they can get most of the stuff thats being captured by the Apple Watch in another that has a better (for them) design element (round, square, rectangle) and clock shape, then the person will go for what suits them best…

I just can for the life of me figure out why the brains at Apple can’t see why people spend so much money on trying to change the appearance of their watches with all the coverings like cases and bands? They need to cash in on that by offering different shapes for their watches… as it stands right now they are losing a huge segment of watch buyer/wearer to other brands due to being limited in their single shape designs…

Thats why i don’t own one… their square design doesn’t fit my taste… so in a fashion sense, i am not inclined to spend that kind of money for just the tech that a health/fitness buff might. I am in it for the fashion statement.

 

[ss2cire]

As a runner, weight trainer and person who frequents a steam room every so often…this “upgrade” sounds like it’s going to cause headaches for those of us who purposely elevate their body temperatures for fitness reasons.

so I think it goes without saying... either take the watch off during the times you "purposefully elevate your temperature" or ideally there's an option to "ignore my temperature for X amount of time"

 

[The Mercurian]

No new processor in 2 years, damn

Why would the 8 have the same processor as the 6 and the 7 watch? I currently have the 5 and been holding off for a while to upgrade.

Serious question - who cares what processor is has as long as it has enough power to operate properly? It's a watch... very few users are gonna be searching for new prime numbers on their watch.....

Sure thing, but this doesn’t appear to be measuring body temperature? By all accounts it will be using skin temperature and A.I. to determine if it thinks you may have have a fever. Not really something anyone really needs, as sick people usually feel sick. Prior to 2020 at least. Not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing but, if we’re honest, we all know where the impetus for this is coming from. Health paranoia is the new oil.

Physics!!!

 

[Wanted797]

You mean the chip shortage that pretty much every device had the upgrade every year since 2019 regardless of the pandemic?

Lock downs didn’t happen until 2020 so 2019 devices weren’t impacted.

And yes. Look at wait times on cars and everything after 2020. Supply chains are usually well ahead of device release meaning we won’t feel the repulsion until a few years later… aka right now.

 

[Neodym]

Serious question - who cares what processor is has as long as it has enough power to operate properly? It's a watch... very few users are gonna be searching for new prime numbers on their watch.....

Something so seemingly simple as processing all Siri inputs right on the device seems not to be possible with the current hardware.

 

[kc9hzn]

Cmon, Apple - blood sugar, blood pressure or go home...

Eh, I’m not sure how you’d measure these two from a watch. Blood pressure generally is measured with blood pressure cuffs that inflate, and blood sugar generally requires direct blood sampling. Maybe Apple could develop a way of inferring these values, but it might be less reliable than the blood oxygen detection (which is already significantly less reliable than transmissive blood oxygen detection). You might be able to glean general trends, but I doubt you could do blood sugar and blood pressure detection in a way that would help diabetics or people prone to hypertension (or hypotension).

Heart rate is very easy to do on a watch, and the EKG on my watch is honestly pretty similar to the full fledged diagnostic EKG I recently received. Those two sensors seem to be the gold standard of health sensors available for the watch. In order for blood pressure and blood sugar detection to be useful for the people who need it, Apple would have to develop a non-invasive technique that’s more reliable than the blood oxygen sensing, even if it doesn’t rise to the level of the heart rate sensor or EKG. So it’s likely that, at best, blood pressure and blood sugar might be able to give general trends but not with the sort of granularity that would allow people to use them to make health decisions.

 

[johnmarki]

Please Apple, please, give me more technology to increase the battery life. Bigger battery, the ability to charge the battery by movement, more OS battery monitoring/control, etc.

I love my Apple watch, and feel it is the most underrated Apple device in the modern day. I want ALL the health/activity/fitness data hardware they can put in it, but, the next upgrade to the hardware needs to address the battery. In a perfect scenario this could happen alongside more health/activity/fitness data hardware, but within the current supply chain, I understand its pretty much an either/or situation. With that being said, I'd rather have the battery addressed first.

 

[Tagbert]

Do you use theater mode in addition to or instead of DND - sleep mode?

Just theater mode at night to prevent the screen from flashing as I turn in bed and to conserve battery. I normally keep most notifications disabled on the watch and limit those on the phone so don’t need DND.

 

[Tagbert]

I prefer the old fashioned way of being sick...feeling sick.

Lots of people get sick but don’t realize that they have a fever without some additional verification. Also one of the insidious problems with heat stroke is that your body temperature rises but you are not aware of it. Having a sensor that could alert you to an unusually rise in temerature might be helpful.

I don’t expect it to be an actual thermometer. Being on the wrist the baseline will be different. The best use would be to indicate an X% rise in temperature.

 

[kc9hzn]

I prefer the old fashioned way of being sick...feeling sick.

I came down with COVID Wednesday evening and was feeling a little unwell but didn’t recognize it as COVID, and I woke up the next morning (after fitful sleep) with a fever. It would have been nice to know the night before that it wasn’t just a transient thing.