In the Ifixit teardown they mention Bosch Sensortec BMP280 Barometric Pressure Sensor. A barometer can be used to measure altitude base on atmospheric pressure. I've seen lots of conversation debating whether the watch can measure altitude. I guess this means it can.
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Bosch Sensortec BMP280 Barometric Pressure Sensor
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But it doesn't seem to record anything for some bizarre reason. My Health app never records flights of stairs climbed with the Watch, but it does with the iPhone. To this day, Apple has never mentioned the existence of a barometer in the Apple Watch while they have mentioned practically everything else.
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This may be in the same category of iFixit's discovery of the plethysmograph that is unused. The AW has a sensor capable of measuring blood oxygen, but it is not used.
Similarly, the AW has a barometric pressure sensor, but it is not using it. Maybe it will be turned on by a future wOS release. Or, maybe Apple could not get it to work and abandoned the feature in this release of the AW hardware.
Similarly, the AW has a barometric pressure sensor, but it is not using it. Maybe it will be turned on by a future wOS release. Or, maybe Apple could not get it to work and abandoned the feature in this release of the AW hardware.
Hard to understand why. Watches from Polar and Garmin have been using a barometric pressure sensor to measure altitude for many many years. It is hardly new science or anything like that.
The weird part is they had one on the first gen AW. If they could not get it to work, why did they put it on Series 2? Seems they would have just left it out if it did not work.
Yes that's really strange, I hope it does get some use in the future.
My guess is that they are waiting for the Nike watch version to release with some new watchOS version? Apple might not have the software ready yet. That's why we are hearing news that they are working on new watch health applications.
That is very likely, especially since the AW S2 is primed with the hole for the barometer. It does still seem very odd though that Apple would not mention it at all, even if they stated on their website that it would be coming into use later this year.