There are plenty hours in the day when you’re not sleeping, dinner, shower etc…
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How Sleep Apnea Detection Works for Apple Watch Series 10, Series 9, and Apple Watch Ultra
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If those every other year features are health and medical regulatory related - that would be totally fine with me…
Historically we’ve gotten a new health feature/sensor/HW every other year (S4 ECG, S6 SpO2, S8 body temp) and this is the breaking of that every other year cycle since sleep apnea is SW, not HW
The updates this year to iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods seems to be none existent. It’s all mainly software and just new colours. My Watch is S7 and I’d happily update if there was a reason to.
There's a new watch - the S10.
Apple Watch Series 10
Apple Watch Series 10. Our thinnest watch with our biggest display. Health insights including sleep apnea notifications. Our fastest-charging watch.
www.apple.com
They also announced new iPhones and new AirPods.
Guess you never had a sleep study done. You’ll be begging to only wear a watch. 😄
Yep.
I tried to do a sleep study for sleep apnea, and tore all the equipment off 10 minutes into being asleep every single night.
Meanwhile, I sleep in my Ultra 2 every night and never even thought about it.
Hopefully also for S9 and Ultra 2 people that have the SP02 detection in the USA grandfathered in
Only the S9 powered watches and later have an onboard neural engine, which is what it sounds like what sleep apnea detection is running on-- and they're all getting it. Seems like a reasonable hardware cause to me.
The S8, S7, S6, and S5 were all very similar chips-- S9 was the first real performance update in years, AND was the first to add a neural engine.
I guess I’ll wait for AW3 release, it sucks because 1 is perfectly fine, I sleep with it every night and I was looking forward to the sleep apnea feature.
Seeing as it's a Series 9 and above, I'm betting it's tied to the double-tap functionality on the 9 and newer?
That sucks. I hope you can get your sleep study to get your diagnosis.
My 1st at home test was inconclusive, so I had to take another one with a different piece of equipment and this one diagnosed me.
That’s not correct. There are hardware changes. According to a number of sites the S9 and S10 chips have a 4 core Neural Engine and based on a 4nm process (Series 9 & 10 & Ultra 2). The S6, 7 and 8 don’t have Neural Engines according to 9to5mac and are based on 7nm A13 Bionic chips so (Series 6, 7, 8 & Ultra 1). Though all the above run watchOS 11. I imagine unfortunately that not all features and algorithms are able to run on 4/5 year watches (as in chip technology). The gyroscope is just one part of the equation.
This is a bit like saying that to diagnose A-Fib appropriately you need a 12 leads ECG.
Yes, that might well be correct, but the 1 lead equivalent provided by the AW can give you a fairly accurate warning that something similar to A-Fib is happening, and you might want to do more test to get a full diagnosis.
Same thing here with the sleep apnea detection. It is only meant to provide a warning, not a diagnosis.
I already charge mine each night when I shower/floss/brush. At least for my Ultra 2, that's enough to get me through the next day.
... especially since I don't want to charge it over 80%, and it fast charges up to 80% before slowing down.
Yep.
2 weeks ago my wife's watch accurately diagnosed her with Afib, for the first time in her life. Kicked off a 2 day hospital trip. Watch was correct.
I look at it much the same as a lot of the other health metrics from the Apple Watch (Sp02, ECG, RHR, HRV, VO2max, etc.) - they may not be clinically accurate to two decimal places, but over time you accumulate a large sample size and can establish baselines of what is normal/usual for you. If those metrics start deviating significantly from your baseline, maybe it's time to pay attention to them and wonder what might be going on.
I don't expect my iPhone/AW to replace a doctor, but they can help me decide when I maybe should go see one.
I don't expect my iPhone/AW to replace a doctor, but they can help me decide when I maybe should go see one.
I disagree with that statement. Using bodily movements and an algorithm, can‘t possibly be accurate on its own to even give a rough estimate of sleep apnea people move when they dream people have restless leg syndrome data we already have oxygen saturation capability on the watch so let’s make nice with Masimo so we can have an adequate warning system not a diagnostic tool. Cannot see how wrist movement can be used with an algorithm detection mechanism due to all the confounding data from other bodily movements during normal sleep patterns
The sp02 measurement on my Apple Watch is fairly accurate and using it to trend with other measurements with the new sleep apena app would make it more accurate as a warning system. I really think Apple is being head strong and premature to introduce a sleep apnea app that is incomplete
Last edited:
You can't be serious
While showering, sitting at your desk, watching TV, eating dinner. Just find a few minutes to take the watch off and charge it. Or if you can't, then buy a second watch.
How does a second watch work? Does it work seamlessly at feeding the data into the fitness/health apps? As if you've only got one set of data? I actually have a spare one. These new updates have made me consider giving up my Oura ring just for its sleep/health metrics. I have an old 6 but using it all day is an issue and I often forget to charge it and end up not having enough charge before bed. Fortunately I don't really need the new watch for sleep apnea because I've already been diagnosed with it. Funnily enough, it was the same watch that alerted to me having sleep apnoea symptoms.
As I said in another post, normal sleep movement patterns are nothing like the waking jerks of someone gasping for air, and these are repeated throughout the night.
But in any case, I am neither a doctor nor an expert on sleep apnea, so I am the first to admit I don’t know much about how to best detect it with a smart wrist watch.
I assume that Apple must have made some tests and concluded that the margin of error is acceptable, keeping in mind that they advertise this as the ability to collect “Breathing Disturbances metrics” and alert to the possibility of Sleep Apnea in the cases where disturbances are higher than expected.
Apple introduces groundbreaking health features
Apple today unveiled breakthrough health features coming to Apple Watch and AirPods Pro 2 to help users better manage their sleep and hearing health.
www.apple.com
Last edited: