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Apple Watch Users Report Vitals App Detecting Illness Before Symptoms Appear

elrojo69 said:
After my covid and flu jabs.... lol
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Well yea, vaccines dont turn your blood to bleach, they simply teach your body how to fight an infection. The infection still gets in, the body just knows how to fight back. Most of the time people feel nothing during this time or just slightly ill for a brief time.
 
I would like to upgrade to the latest Apple Watch from my Series 7, but I use the Blood Oxygen Sensor all the time. Apple seemed to work so hard on getting that to work. Too bad they can't work some magic and clear up that lawsuit. I will hold off purchasing a new Apple Watch until they get that feature working again.
 
Radeon85 said:
The wrist temperature feature is very handy for the flu, when I had a regular cold in Dec 2022 the watch detected that my wrist temperature was increasing daily and I could see it going up for about two days before the symptoms even started show which was pretty cool. As I got better after a few days you could see the wrist temperature going down daily until it was normal again.
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Had a flu recently and I can second this, it did measure higher temperature one night when I had a slight fever. Useful, yes, but would be more useful if they actually showed what the temperature was, ie 37C or whatever it was that night. It shows the increase/decrease values, but I think the actual temperature would be good to know. Again, probably some patents are involved or some other medical stuff Apple doesn’t want to have to deal with.
 
Square-Eyes said:
Also the failure to distinguish between trying to get to sleep (awake and still), and actually sleeping. I would like to know when I actually fall asleep.
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That’s the issue, it’s too generic and seems like it doesn’t use its capabilities to the full range. I think it’s all software related, so Apple really need to improve this.
 
jaster2 said:
This is an interesting option but when are you supposed to charge your watch? I need it charged and ready to go for the day first thing in the morning.
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this is a valid concern in alot of circumstances.

regular Series (8,9,10) vs. Ultra battery power duration is different.
age of Watch and its battery health (90%? 87%?) makes a difference.
how you use your Watch (do you make cellular calls on it?) affects it.
use of available battery power savings settings (always on display?) makes a difference.

real life case in point:
my Watch is Series 8 (non-USA so i get blood Oyxgen readings).
always on display; all sensors on throughout the day.
make 1 or 2 cellular calls on it.
frequently do not have my iPhone within Bluetooth range of it.
workout (running) outside for about 50 minutes every day using Workout app.
at around 8pm my Watch can be only about 10% or 15% battery left.
in my case i can charge it just before going to sleep so its 100% charged when i go to bed.
only takes about 1 hour to charge to full.

but if people dont have that hour in a day to charge it, depending on how you use it, the model you have, and/or the battery health of your Watch, you will not have enough battery to wear it during sleep.

if and when my Series 8 gets so old that i cant use it 23 hours a day with full on all sensors working throughout the day and night, i would buy a new Watch immediately.
 
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Square-Eyes said:
Also the failure to distinguish between trying to get to sleep (awake and still), and actually sleeping. I would like to know when I actually fall asleep.
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i dont know about your case.

but in my case, the Watch is really accurate in pointing out exactly when i fall asleep. as it is in indicating when i am awake during the night. and when i wake up but am still in bed. it detects all that extremely accurately.

with the latest Watch OS apple has added automatic detection of naps (outside the preset sleep schedule).
during naps, it does not differentiate sleep stages (rem, core, deep), however.
 
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chrono1081 said:
Well yea, vaccines dont turn your blood to bleach, they simply teach your body how to fight an infection. The infection still gets in, the body just knows how to fight back. Most of the time people feel nothing during this time or just slightly ill for a brief time.
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Alright buddy chill. I just thought it was funny they threw that in there.
 
calliex said:
I was going to try vitals app but I do not go to bed at the same time every night. I am afraid it will hound me with alerts I can not turn off. I have a low pulse that is normal for me per my cardiologist. Every so often it goes below 40 and the watch alerts me. When I talked to my Dr. about it he said to take the watch off.
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You should be able to turn off the low heart rate notification under Settings / Heart / Low Heart Rate. Looks like the same is true for Vitals notifications under Settings / Vitals / Notifications
 
arc of the universe said:
i dont know about your case.

but in my case, the Watch is really accurate in pointing out exactly when i fall asleep. as it is in indicating when i am awake during the night. and when i wake up but am still in bed. it detects all that extremely accurately.

with the latest Watch OS apple has added automatic detection of naps (outside the preset sleep schedule).
during naps, it does not detect sleep stages (rem, core, deep), however.
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I’ve been wearing my Apple Watch series 10 on the latest version available and it has never detected my naps, nor has it detected my sleep continuation when I slept over my usual sleep schedule. It just detected I was in bed, not asleep. Nothing else.
 
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BarrettF77 said:
I’m sick of Apple not bringing back the O2 function. Pay up and settle it in court. Customers want the feature. And I held off on upgrades as a result.

But it’s great to see of true these features working as they do. My series 9 is fun to watch what it’s detecting.
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The theory now, since the CEO of Marino was ousted, is that he was holding back any deal with Apple and the board was telling him to just take the money. I bet we see a deal now.

Everyone assumes it was Apple not wanting to pay but it may not have been the case.
 
antonrg said:
I’ve been wearing my Apple Watch series 10 on the latest version available and it has never detected my naps, nor has it detected my sleep continuation when I slept over my usual sleep schedule. It just detected I was in bed, not asleep. Nothing else.
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That's strange, my S8 and AWU2 both detect naps and also when I sleep beyond my set sleep schedule. In fact, I just recently unpaired my S8 and paired it to my wife's phone so she can use it, and it detected both of those things on the first night/day she wore it.
 
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TechnoMonk said:
I don’t care about my vitamin D levels, I can get a blood test.
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Whoa! If you care about your VitD levels for fighting any and all infections, you would request that blood test. You should have already gotten that test and adjusted your VitD dosage accordingly. If you've never tested, odds are high your levels are anemic.
TechnoMonk said:
But I realized how important AW was recovering from an accident with neck and head injury.
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Whoa again! Recovery from an injury is completely different. And it's not an either-or proposition: you can protect from infections and monitor to heal from a traumatic injury. The smart person would do both. Are you doing both?
TechnoMonk said:
Pretty much most of the stuff my neurologist wanted, AW was tracking. This is not a blood test but kind of like early warning, or see the trend of a treatment or over all well being. It’s not a medical device to do invasive procedures.
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Consumer devices to measure blood oxygen non-invasively only happened in the 2000s. Non-invasive blood sugar level monitoring is only becoming viable now. Both of those definitely are medical-quality measurements.

We will be able to perform non-invasive VitD measurement some day. Just not today. You still need a blood test for that.

Get a blood test for your VitD levels. Get it yesterday. Insist that your health care team provide that test, and get up to 60ng/mL. There is no excuse in the 21st Century to do any less.

Use your AW for the measurements it can provide, but don't neglect doing the stuff that AW cannot provide. That's really pretty simple advice. Everyone should know their VitD levels.
 
I’ve been notified twice within the last week. The first, I woke up with a 101.8 temp and body aches. The second time was the beginning of the worst migraine I’ve ever had in my life.
 
zorinlynx said:
Has there been any news on the blood oxygen sensor support? It seems so odd Apple wouldn't try to appeal this case, or license the patents involved.

I wonder if not enough users have been clamoring for this and the ban hasn't affected sales, so Apple might just be letting it go. Pretty sad if so.
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A couple of weeks ago the CEO of Masimo was booted out by the board. It's possible (likely?) that the board wants some of that Apple cash that he was turning down. We'll see.
 
I haven't been ill for a couple of years at least. Last week one evening I was feeling a little off, like I was developing a fever or something. I checked my temperature using a forehead thermometer and it was still in the normal range. In the morning to my surprise I got a notification that my temperature had been higher than usual during the night.
 
Masimo has been ordered by its BoD to divest itself of the consumer division, which includes a whole bunch of businesses completely unrelated to their primary medical equipment line. The founder, Joe Kiani, resigned after this announcement. This may well change the whole tenor of their relationship with Apple over time.
 
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