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But is this really specific to covid? I'd imagine that many infections cause change in HRV.

by the way there seems to be a misunderstanding among all previous commentators about what HRV is. HRV is expressed in miliseconds and roughly speaking it's the time between successive heart beats (as measured by the Apple Watch ECG). this is not the same as the heart rate in beats per minute where you take averages across several heart beats.
And apparently higher HRV means healthier. The more your heart can adjust on a dime, the healthier you are. So Covid probably indicates a drop in HRV where your heart is working hard all the time to keep up, indicating constant stress.
 
I am inclined to upgrade my Apple Watch more often than my iPhone. I rarely use or have use for my iPad and doubt I’d ever get another unless I had a specific requirement.
Hard agree.

I’m rocking a 6S and Air2. Upgraded from Watch 0 to 6 last October. TBH the most time I spend on the iPad is to update the s/w.

Mom and sister also had watch 0’s and phone 6. Never had iPads. Upgraded to watch 3 to get compelling feature of cellular. Upgraded to phone 11. Now upgraded to watch 6 to get compelling feature of blood Ox (and skipped feature of watch 4 ecg as a bonus.)
 
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I agree there are issues with the PCR, but my experience has been a bit different.

I tested negative (my employer offers weekly tests to all employees conducted by an outside contractor) up until I had what was later a confirmed exposure to a positive individual. Exposure meaning in a confined space for an extended period of time (a vehicle) with a gap in PPE use (I took my mask off, I was stuck in this van for an hour and it was getting old, and it was really stupid to do). Five days later, I had it. So did my spouse.

I get tested weekly. I work in a high exposure environment. I haven't tested positive since.

So, either I DID have the virus and have some natural immunity now and the tests are fairly accurate, or the tests aren't so sensitive that my car would test positive because half my office has had it, and I never really got it. By some sort of conspiracy theory magic, they all tested positive and I haven't tested positive since I was positive 4 months ago. I mean, I should have had a second positive, I'm around people who I later find out had 'Rona all. The. Time. I have WEEKLY tests for it. Statistically, I should have tested positive again by now.

You can't have it smother, covered, diced, and chunked. It either is or it isn't.

The room for the conspiracy theorists is down the hall. Some nutbag is in there yelling about how he's going to string up his neighbor and eat them or something on his entertaino-battles webs pages or some crap.
Were you sick?

The hyperbole of a car testing positive is just fir fun. But testing positive on a ramped up PCR that tests you “in holes” really means you were exposed long enough for some of those particles to get lodged in your nose or mouth.

Viral load is important. And breathing through your mouth is safer than breathing through your nose. Both of these truths are ignored with Covid but have been studied with flu and other viral respiratory infections. But ramping to PCR test up to call people who were exposed “positive” is counter productive.
 
Ok, I like apple a lot but you should look around for other perspectives. Oura Ring for instance, is way less intrusive, very easy to wear while sleeping and keeps a lot more useful data, like temperature. Research was done and publish about its capability to predict Covid. That is actually making NBA buying it to all of their athletes.
Bang on, 100%. But an immediate question - what prevents the Apple watch from getting the same data collection/monitoring/processing as the Oura ring? Nothing, as far as I can see.

I will not get the Apple Watch until I find it useful to me. First, I want the features that are supposedly already present to be actually improved in accuracy. Now, that is not all on Apple, some of it is on the user properly fitting the watch, but down the line, I think this is critical - I’ve read too many reports of inaccurate HR readings to put any trust in this device.

The other thing is that for the Apple Watch to become truly useful - at least to me - it will have to integrate other hardware. For example, it will have to deeply integrate the watchband into becoming a data collection device.

And the Apple Watch will have to integrate perhaps non-Apple hardware - here I‘m thinking of the Holy Grail of Apple Health App - continous glucose monitoring. There are already devices on the market that use the smartphone and implanted underskin sensors - but it’s all super expensive. If Apple Watch could interface with those underskin sensors (existing ones, I’m not proposing Apple make those sensors!), that could be a game changer.

Glucose monitoring - that’s the brass ring. With rates of combined diabetes and prediabetes in the U.S. over 50%, and exploding worldwide, if Apple Watch can make a difference here, that would be epic.

Glucose monitoring, plus increased accuracy of its data, that’s what would get me to buy an Apple Watch... so, what, Apple Watch Series 15 before that happens? We’ll see.
 
Wow, this is pretty massive news if accurate. Hopefully the technology continues to be put to use in a relatively benign and progressive way that builds upon not only warning someone of the possibility of a potential coronavirus case but of other maladies as well—all while, most importantly, protecting user privacy with the utmost earnestness.
Additionally, it tells us that any watch or fitness device with a similar sensor should be able to do the same thing, this isn't just Apple Watches.
 
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I agree there are issues with the PCR, but my experience has been a bit different.

I tested negative (my employer offers weekly tests to all employees conducted by an outside contractor) up until I had what was later a confirmed exposure to a positive individual. Exposure meaning in a confined space for an extended period of time (a vehicle) with a gap in PPE use (I took my mask off, I was stuck in this van for an hour and it was getting old, and it was really stupid to do). Five days later, I had it. So did my spouse.

I get tested weekly. I work in a high exposure environment. I haven't tested positive since.

So, either I DID have the virus and have some natural immunity now and the tests are fairly accurate, or the tests aren't so sensitive that my car would test positive because half my office has had it, and I never really got it. By some sort of conspiracy theory magic, they all tested positive and I haven't tested positive since I was positive 4 months ago. I mean, I should have had a second positive, I'm around people who I later find out had 'Rona all. The. Time. I have WEEKLY tests for it. Statistically, I should have tested positive again by now.

You can't have it smother, covered, diced, and chunked. It either is or it isn't.

The room for the conspiracy theorists is down the hall. Some nutbag is in there yelling about how he's going to string up his neighbor and eat them or something on his entertaino-battles webs pages or some crap.
Maybe there's something going on with your employers testing/vendor?

BTW what do neighbors taste like?
 
Unfortunately I cannot confirm the results for my case. I do not see any increase in my resting HR in the week leading up to me falling ill from Covid-19, nor did my resting HR increase while I was ill. I do clearly see when I was ill, as I was lying in bed all day which is clearly visible in the lack of high peaks.
 
Maybe there's something going on with your employers testing/vendor?

BTW what do neighbors taste like?

I doubt that. It's the contractor the entire state is using.

I dunno how they taste. Ask Mr. Jones of inter-webs infamy. Plenty of you tube videos (and parodies) of him saying he would do so.

Like corn on the cob!
 
I will not get the Apple Watch until I find it useful to me. First, I want the features that are supposedly already present to be actually improved in accuracy. Now, that is not all on Apple, some of it is on the user properly fitting the watch, but down the line, I think this is critical - I’ve read too many reports of inaccurate HR readings to put any trust in this device.
I watched the YT video someone else posted here where the guy tested the AW6 for steps, HR and sleep. It was pretty accurate.

Maybe other generations of AW's haven't been as good, but the AW6 seems to be an improvement. DC Rainmaker said the same thing between the AW5 and AW6. I would love to see the AW6 compared to Garmin's newest watches/sensors by this same Youtuber
 
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Resting HR and the link to predicting health changes I get. For HRV, I feel like it's never fully explained. So higher HRV = good, correct? And according to this article, if you had Covid, that would show up as lower HRV (which implies higher stress or RHR)?
 
I watched the YT video someone else posted here where the guy tested the AW6 for steps, HR and sleep. It was pretty accurate.

Maybe other generations of AW's haven't been as good, but the AW6 seems to be an improvement. DC Rainmaker said the same thing between the AW5 and AW6. I would love to see the AW6 compared to Garmin's newest watches/sensors by this same Youtuber
I watched the YT video someone else posted here where the guy tested the AW6 for steps, HR and sleep. It was pretty accurate.

Maybe other generations of AW's haven't been as good, but the AW6 seems to be an improvement. DC Rainmaker said the same thing between the AW5 and AW6. I would love to see the AW6 compared to Garmin's newest watches/sensors by this same Youtuber
i am the “someone else” and this PhD tests a lot of devices, including the oura ring. Take a look at the other videos.
 
Unfortunately this functionality or app will never see the light of day. The ability to use a phone camera to predict wether a mole could be Melanoma has an accuracy of near 90%, but it remains understudy by the FDA etc.

I simply don't understand why things like this are not made available immediately, there is zero harm in getting a possibility indicator so you can get a further evaluation.
MONEY!
HEALTH & PHARMA LOBBYIST!
 
Most modern smartwatches or heart rate monitors will do the same. This is not unique to the Apple Watch.
 
Cool... but it's LITERALLY a year late to matter.
Why too late? COVID-19 won't be the last of its kind. And COVID-19, and the variants, are still afflicting humanity.

Hopefully we won't see smoothing like it again, but I am not betting on that.
 
Resting HR and the link to predicting health changes I get. For HRV, I feel like it's never fully explained. So higher HRV = good, correct? And according to this article, if you had Covid, that would show up as lower HRV (which implies higher stress or RHR)?
You've got it, unlike many posting here who seem to (mis)understand that resting heart rate was the focus of the study. It wasn't--the researchers were looking primarily at HRV. A good primer on how and why HRV reflects the amount of stress the body is under can be found here:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heart-rate-variability-new-way-track-well-2017112212789

In this study, they found that HRV as measured by the standard deviation of the inter-beat interval (SDNN) decreased in infected people (i.e., heartbeats were less variable), and that these changes showed up about a week before the first positive nasal PCR diagnosis. Very early results, and we are a long way from having an app to tell us when we're infected with COVID, but this work points to great potential.

Just FYI, HRV is used extensively on Garmin's training watches to assess one's overall physical state, using algorithms they acquired when they bought FirstBeat Analytics last year. For example, it is used to determine how long one should recover between training sessions. Chest straps are more accurate--Garmin insists that you wear a chest strap to accurately measure HRV, so I'm not sure whether Apple has an edge here with the wrist-based measurements.
 
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You've got it, unlike many posting here who seem to (mis)understand that resting heart rate was the focus of the study. It wasn't--the researchers were looking primarily at HRV.

Just FYI, HRV is used extensively on Garmin's training watches to assess one's overall physical state, using algorithms they acquired when they bought FirstBeat Analytics last year.

gotcha, yeah I primarily wear a Garmin 945 but have an AW6 as well so I am more familiar with it from their stress and body battery readings (RHR or stress goes up, HRV goes down, body battery goes down). It just seems that everyone talks HRV in the same sense as RHR when they are the inverse (or unrelated).
 
I have an Apple Watch and never use the heart rate thing, I do not know any health statistics at all, I have not had a physical examination since I was 18 and have no need to at all, I am single so it does not matter. one of the reasons I do not follow any recommended precautions for cv-19. have no reason to care. for the last year it has been impossible to date a guy who is 18 to 21 and up to 24 being 49 years old.
 
It's worth reading the paper if you want the full picture of what the researchers did. As they note, there is some published data showing that HRV may be predictive of infection, which is what prompted them to do this. They do note several limitations to their study, which is true of all research:

"First, there was a small number of participants who were diagnosed with COVID-19 in our cohort limiting our ability to determine how predictive HRV can be of infection. However, these preliminary findings support the further evaluation of HRV as a metric to identify and predict COVID-19 and warrant further study. An additional limitation is the sporadic collection of HRV by the Apple Watch. While our statistical modelling was able to account for this a denser dataset would allow for expanded evaluation of the relationship between this metric and infections/symptoms. The Apple Watch also only provides HRV in one time-domain (SDNN), limiting assessment of the relationship between other HRV parameters with COVID-19 outcomes. Lastly, an additional limitation is that we relied on self-reported data in this study, precluding independent verification of COVID-19 diagnosis."

But it's interesting and supports the need for further work on the value of wearables in detecting and monitoring disease.
DING! DING! Correct!!
 
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