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iOS 18.6.1 and watchOS 11.6.1 Released: Blood Oxygen Monitoring Returns to U.S. Apple Watches

jz0309 said:
I've compared my watch's readings when the nurses at the Dr office took SpO2 readings and they all have been with 1%, I think that's quite accurate. And in fairness, when you get your SpO2 measured at the doctors, they typically do blood pressure as well and you are sitting still for a minute or tow or more, you should use the same behavior when taking measurements with the AW.
For me personally, nighttime measurements are more meaningful than during the day and I check my vitals on the phone every morning for that
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Old watch - yes, this is true.
Watch 10 - it's WAY off. 85%, 92%, 94%, 95% when doctor machine 97% today.
 
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eifelbube said:
If there is no infringement anymore, why not give your customers the feature back in full? So, there are first buyer AW 9 users who have the readout on their watch and AW 9 users who need the iPhone for that? What a joke and what a disservice by Apple.
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those ho bought a AW after the ban did so fully knowing that SpO2 was not available to them, Apple clearly stated that. Now those customers get a feature they didn't have before - how is that a disservice???
And the patent infringement was related to SW running oil the actual device (AW), so Apple found a way around that.
 
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Yeah it's a cool workaround. I don't know why it took them this long to figure it out or implement it. Maybe Tim just had enough and just said to push the code and do a new release ASAP when he was wanting to do a measurement with his Apple Watch and couldn't.
 
turbineseaplane said:
So if the normal person did this before 1/24 and viewed the results, along with plenty of other metrics, on their watch..

...and now they always have to get their phone and open the Health app to go find it ..

You think they won't find that pretty different and perhaps fairly unappealing?

I wonder how the normal person would feel if there were told and it was explained "why" Apple has done all this. Sort of like telling them ... we are going to watch this movie, but just so you know, it was stolen and/or people with the rights to it were not remunerated as they should have been.
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A normal person would complain that they paid for it, and therefore want it enabled. Just like when a normal person pays to watch a bootleg DVD off the street. They expect the bootleg DVD to work and not have DRM blocking them from viewing it by the rights holder.

So you are definitely NOT coming from a "normal" person standpoint.
 
For those confused, the watches destined for the US market from the date the original import ban was put into effect are effectively treated as different models by software. Even though they have the same hardware, Apple agreed to disable functionality so that they could be sold in the US.

Before this release, blood oxygen sensing was disabled on these devices.

With this release, blood oxygen data is exported for processing on the phone, effectively enabling capture of blood oxygen data. This is because a court ruling relaxed the restrictions Apple needs to put on these particular watches.

Watches sold outside the US or sold before the import ban have never had on-device processing disabled, and won't change functionality. That includes watches which were sold outside the US after the ban was put into place, and are now used inside the US. All of this nonsense was to deal with an import ban, so that watches could continue to be sold within the US.

Also, this doesn't change the overall restrictions on import - the watches sold in the US will continue to behave like different models by software going forward as long as the ITC ruling is in place. These models can just now have more functionality, albeit in a roundabout way.
 
BobVB said:
So now it's like Sleep data - you see it on your watch. Glad its back.
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Some people need to check it under certain conditions, see the results immediately. It is not like Sleep data for them, or do you need to get up in the middle of the night to look at your sleep metrics?
 
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eifelbube said:
Some people need to check it under certain conditions, see the results immediately. It is not like Sleep data for them, or do you need to get up in the middle of the night to look at your sleep metrics?
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The results can be read immediately on the phone.

If Apple could have offered the reading on the watch like before, they would have.
 
quietstormSD said:
Yeah it's a cool workaround. I don't know why it took them this long to figure it out or implement it. Maybe Tim just had enough and just said to push the code and do a new release ASAP when he was wanting to do a measurement with his Apple Watch and couldn't.
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They knew how, but the "recent court ruling" allowed them to do it.

And there is a workaround to getting a US version with fully working O2 sensors since the ITC covers trade between the US states and foreign countries. If the Ultra 3 is enough of an upgrade (for me) from the 2, I'm going to use it.
 
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eifelbube said:
I am so glad i did not upgrade from the AW 6 to the 9 ! I can check BO levels without having to reach for my iPhone. - “recent customs ruling”!! Mmhh, i wonder if …
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If I’m casually checking the values, yeah it’s kinda annoying. There also seems to be a slight delay in the phone registering the watch’s “hey, I got data for you!” so it definitely isn’t instant.

My main interest in the functionality is as someone with sleep apnea. I really missed having those blood oxy checks overnight, and since my phone was the main repository of those checks anyway, this workaround bothers me not at all.

For me and my specific use case, the functionality is exactly the same as it was!
 
Did some tests in the last few hours with my Watch 10 simultaneously with my pulse oximeter. The blood oxygen value from the watch was consistently 3-5% lower (93-95%). I tested the oximeter against one used by a doctor during the pandemic and it was consistently within 1%. So the watch doesn't seem very accurate. Should probably not be trusted for anything other than detecting severe hypoxia.
 
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Rigby said:
Did some tests in the last few hours with my Watch 10 simultaneously with my pulse oximeter. The blood oxygen value from the watch was consistently 3-5% lower (93-95%). I tested the oximeter against one used by a doctor during the pandemic and it was consistently within 1%. So the watch doesn't seem very accurate. Should probably not be trusted for anything other than detecting severe hypoxia.
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This is weird, and I can confirm/corroborate.
Something changed. Broke.

85% ≠ 96%.
 
eifelbube said:
If there is no infringement anymore, why not give your customers the feature back in full? So, there are first buyer AW 9 users who have the readout on their watch and AW 9 users who need the iPhone for that? What a joke and what a disservice by Apple.
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This is a workaround and the workaround is not an infringement.

There is still the import ban in place for watches that process/display o2 readings on the watch itself.

Again, not sure why that is so hard to understand.
 
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I have an Ultra 1 and Apple Watch 8, and Blood Oxygen has worked the whole time. I'm in the US.
 
So happy to have the blood oxygen function back!!

The ECG trick got it working again for me after the update.

I don’t mind having to look on my iPhone for the reading info. I say 99% of the time I got my iPhone right by me anyways. The reading pops up instantly on the iPhone as a notification. Just 1 tap and your viewing the data.
 
I have the unholy combination of AW9 just upgraded to 11.6.1 paired with an iPhone running iOS 26 beta 6. Maybe in a week, maybe wake me when September ends.
 
What's the point of releasing this for watches that already have blood oxygen sensors enabled? Do they not have the ability to restrict SU's based on part numbers that have it disabled when the watches were sold?
 
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