I just hope Apple doesn't see this work around as an "upsell" to have future AW's somehow calculate blood oxygen locally on the watch itself.
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Blood Oxygen Feature Finally Returning to Apple Watch in the US
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It always has been. Btw, it is not health, it’s health monitoring and Apple is not the only game in town for that.
I would guess they do, and that it's enough of an edge case that they didn't bother mentioning that in the press release. I guess we'll find out soon.
Only USA Apple Watch S9, S10 and Ultra 2s that had LW/A on its part number. All other countries don’t have it banned since it’s a patent conflict that is us only
I may be wrong but, I don't believe a working sensor would be disabled after a battery replacement.
I'd love to know whether my S8 will lose SpO2 on the watch itself when I have Apple replace the battery soon... Seems unclear at this point.
Older models that were sold with Blood Oxygen sensing, like the Series 8, had to have it disabled when replaced by AppleCare. Is this update going to also be available for those models, or is this purely S9 and above? I don’t care that much, but kind of annoying if my S8 replaced by AC doesn’t get blood oxygen sensing re-enabled too.
Oh, I heard that too! Unless, of course, the Apple Watch Series 6 or later had that feature before the January 2024 ban and had AppleCare coverage beforehand (and replaced in a different country than the USA)
But if this update lets the sensor work again, sending data from the sensor to the iPhone, then those watches that were replaced and used to have SPO2 before the US ban would act like the update would on the Apple Watches that didn’t have them since they were set up.
That’s just a guess, though, because the update won’t be here until later today, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens!
I’m no patent expert but seems ridiculous that “processing it on device” can be trademarked— it must be the way it’s being processed on the device bypassed. If injunctions are that easy, we should have had them against all Samsung and Android devices back in the 2010s
I’ve found it to be somewhat consistent with a fingertip pulse oximeter within about 2% or so.
How do you get it to 100? I’ve never gotten it that high on my Apple Watch, and my fingertip pulse ox literally says it only reads to 99%.
It never left… The injunction started with series 9.
And how will it display in the Vitals app? If it's processed on the phone, is that enough and it would make it visible afterwards on the Vitals?
From the article: "The new solution involves measuring sensor data from the Blood Oxygen app on the Apple Watch and sending it for calculation to a paired iPhone, with the results to be viewable in the Respiratory section of the Health app."
Whaaaaaaaaaat?!?! This is MASSIVE. GO Apple!
This is great for everyone who has been missing out. Now I wonder if it’s the same accuracy or maybe better, maybe worse?…
This is great for everyone who has been missing out. Now I wonder if it’s the same accuracy or maybe better, maybe worse?…
Ok, this is great and all, but kind of silly that with this change you have to view the results within the health app on your phone instead of right on the watch
In their press release, they mentioned the S9 and above...they didn't mention the S6 specifically...
