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'High-Accuracy' Apple Watch Temperature Sensor Revealed by Patent Filing Just Weeks Before Series 8 Unveiling
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I just don’t see how this sensor benefits me. Heart rate helpful. But ECG (used 5x), blood oxygen (never used). I want damn good battery life on cellular is what I want. And better leather brown watch bands. Is this too much to ask?
Personally I'm holding out for the Apple Watch Studio. It will be twice as thick, have double the sensors, and double the performance of the Apple Watch Pro. But it will also cost twice as much.
Think of all the studio things we'll be able to do with it. If I can't edit feature-length 8K movies in Final Cut Pro on it then imma be real pissed. I wonder if it will support Apple Pencil 3?
Agreed, I'll let others beta test this feature for a few years before I upgrade from my 7 that is only not even a year old yet. I usually upgrade my watch every 3 years so hopefully they have it ready by Apple Watch X.
Another sensor that is predicting something that it is not capable of measuring. Seems like a bad trend as the predictions seem to take on a life of their own.
I've been upgrading watches every time a new sensor was added. AW7 didn't add one, so I'm still on AW6. If the AW8 has a temperature sensor that shows an actual temperature (vs. some suggestions that it'll only tell you if your temperature is 'elevated'), count me in. Otherwise, I'll wait for one more iteration of the watch.
Making a relatively good temperature sensor is easy and cheap. Unfortunately, the sensor measures its temperature, which is very often something completely different than what is intended to be measured. Measuring the core temperature with a wrist-worn device is very difficult.
Let's take cross-country skiing or running in the winter. The environment is at –15 °C / 5 °F, and I need to make sure the watch is covered by gloves and sleeves to prevent it dying from hypothermia (and even with those precautions two hours is a long time). In the beginning my fingers are extremely cold, after maybe twenty minutes they start to feel warm indicating much improved blood flow in superficial vessels. If I get it right with the clothing, my core temperature should not rise too much.
I cannot imagine any way to measure the core temperature from the wrist in these conditions.
The same applies to nocturnal body temperature (which would probably be quite useful). During these hot summer nights, my skin temperature is high, as my body tries to get rid of extra heat. During the winter, the temperature depends very much on whether my hand is under the duvet or not. The skin temperature is a great indication of whether I feel cold or hot, but it does not tell much about the core temperature.
On the other hand, the absolute core temperature might be interesting, but it is a very personal thing as a health indicator. My base temperature is quite low, as is my heart rate (I cannot use the low HR alarm of AW, as my night time HR is usually below 40 bpm). So, for me 36.5 °C (98 °F) is already an indication of something strange going on in my body, whereas the same temperature would be low for someone else.
I am not saying the skin temperature measurement would not be useful. With clever algorithms it could be useful in specific applications — such as ovulation detection — but it is not generally a good health indicator. Last time I had fever, it was some variant of the season's special. My rest rate went up by 20 BPM, which is much easier to detect by a watch (and I did not feel well at all), so the thermometer wouldn't have added anything.
Knowing the real core temperature would be very interesting even from the scientific point of view, and having continuous real time measurements of the core temperature would probably open up a lot of new possibilities. For example, I would be interested in knowing my body is not overheating when I run in hot and sunny weather. That would make longer distance running safer and more efficient. Unfortunately, the most reliable way of making such measurements requires a jar of lube and a bead-shaped sensor.
Let's take cross-country skiing or running in the winter. The environment is at –15 °C / 5 °F, and I need to make sure the watch is covered by gloves and sleeves to prevent it dying from hypothermia (and even with those precautions two hours is a long time). In the beginning my fingers are extremely cold, after maybe twenty minutes they start to feel warm indicating much improved blood flow in superficial vessels. If I get it right with the clothing, my core temperature should not rise too much.
I cannot imagine any way to measure the core temperature from the wrist in these conditions.
The same applies to nocturnal body temperature (which would probably be quite useful). During these hot summer nights, my skin temperature is high, as my body tries to get rid of extra heat. During the winter, the temperature depends very much on whether my hand is under the duvet or not. The skin temperature is a great indication of whether I feel cold or hot, but it does not tell much about the core temperature.
On the other hand, the absolute core temperature might be interesting, but it is a very personal thing as a health indicator. My base temperature is quite low, as is my heart rate (I cannot use the low HR alarm of AW, as my night time HR is usually below 40 bpm). So, for me 36.5 °C (98 °F) is already an indication of something strange going on in my body, whereas the same temperature would be low for someone else.
I am not saying the skin temperature measurement would not be useful. With clever algorithms it could be useful in specific applications — such as ovulation detection — but it is not generally a good health indicator. Last time I had fever, it was some variant of the season's special. My rest rate went up by 20 BPM, which is much easier to detect by a watch (and I did not feel well at all), so the thermometer wouldn't have added anything.
Knowing the real core temperature would be very interesting even from the scientific point of view, and having continuous real time measurements of the core temperature would probably open up a lot of new possibilities. For example, I would be interested in knowing my body is not overheating when I run in hot and sunny weather. That would make longer distance running safer and more efficient. Unfortunately, the most reliable way of making such measurements requires a jar of lube and a bead-shaped sensor.
That might be the problem, it should always be under your tongue while walking around 😂
And maybe we’ll get a redesign and a faster chip, not a rebranded S6/S7 chip.
Yeah this makes sense and they’ll take into account elevated heart rate as well which happens when you’re starting to get a fever.
Still seems to make more sense on AirPods since they’re in a great spot for detecting core body temperature. Also this patent seems to be a bit late for the Series 8.
But, it sounds like it will be less a digital thermometer than more another input to Health to monitor baselines and deviations from them. It seems like the back of the wrist is not a good place to measure temperature. Even back in the day when I had a Casio digital watch with a thermometer meant to measure air temperature, it said to take it off to get an accurate measurement, so this isn’t good as an environmental sensor either really.
Will be interesting to see what if anything they do with this.
But, it sounds like it will be less a digital thermometer than more another input to Health to monitor baselines and deviations from them. It seems like the back of the wrist is not a good place to measure temperature. Even back in the day when I had a Casio digital watch with a thermometer meant to measure air temperature, it said to take it off to get an accurate measurement, so this isn’t good as an environmental sensor either really.
Will be interesting to see what if anything they do with this.
As your first Apple Watch be prepared to spend 3 or 4 days researching and setting up all the settings on the Watch App on your iPhone, customizing it to your needs. It’s transformative if you are willing to put the effort in… if you’re not up for that, a regular watch may be better for you. (You only have to do this with your first Apple Watch, after that all your customizations will copy over to new Apple Watches).
Thank god people don’t post on here through their watch, or the forum would be a ghost town.
Yeah I agree. Though I’m at a loss for what other sensors Apple can add since blood pressure and glucose levels are still years away. Maybe a sensor to track UV exposure? The Health app has a category for it.