US Serial S10, no Blood Oxygen

[Hooyah]

I recently ordered a S10 Apple Watch from a dodgy site ‘Deal Monday’ that ships to the UK. It was £276 versus £399 and I had a friend who had ordered an iPad last year so I knew the site was at least selling the real deal.

Seemed like a no brainer (although I realised Argos, a UK legit retailer was selling them for £299)

As long as on first setup I could add AppleCare, battery health was all good, box seals in tact, etc etc, I thought it would be fine.

Then as I set it all up… went into every app (am I the only one who does that?) I got around to Blood Oxygen “This app is no longer available on Apple Watch. See your Health app on iPhone for more information”.

It’s the patent troll lawsuit that affected US models. I had a S10 (bigger size) bought from a nearby Apple Store last year that I gave to my girlfriend as it was too big and her SE II battery was getting unusable. So I was used to using it and miss it.

I thought I could get Apple to re-activate it, text support arranged a support call. I stepped out of the office the other day for about 35 minutes only for them to tell me it goes by serial number and tough luck. Bit of a shame really.

Has anybody else had this experience or a solution? I thought there would be some sort of proving you’re not in the US like by looking at your Apple account, payment info or ID etc so they could I don’t know, whitelist the device serial number to be allowed to use the feature. Don’t people travel and buy something like this at another Apple Store and take it home to use?

 

[jz0309]

I recently ordered a S10 Apple Watch from a dodgy site ‘Deal Monday’ that ships to the UK. It was £276 versus £399 and I had a friend who had ordered an iPad last year so I knew the site was at least selling the real deal.

Seemed like a no brainer (although I realised Argos, a UK legit retailer was selling them for £299)

As long as on first setup I could add AppleCare, battery health was all good, box seals in tact, etc etc, I thought it would be fine.

Then as I set it all up… went into every app (am I the only one who does that?) I got around to Blood Oxygen “This app is no longer available on Apple Watch. See your Health app on iPhone for more information”.

It’s the patent troll lawsuit that affected US models. I had a S10 (bigger size) bought from a nearby Apple Store last year that I gave to my girlfriend as it was too big and her SE II battery was getting unusable. So I was used to using it and miss it.

I thought I could get Apple to re-activate it, text support arranged a support call. I stepped out of the office the other day for about 35 minutes only for them to tell me it goes by serial number and tough luck. Bit of a shame really.

Has anybody else had this experience or a solution? I thought there would be some sort of proving you’re not in the US like by looking at your Apple account, payment info or ID etc so they could I don’t know, whitelist the device serial number to be allowed to use the feature. Don’t people travel and buy something like this at another Apple Store and take it home to use?

It does go by model number ...

I recently ordered a S10 Apple Watch from a dodgy site ‘Deal Monday’ that ships to the UK.

That says it all, contact them and see if you can return it, I doubt that they will allow that.

Sorry, seems like you are SOL, avoid "dodgy" sites...

 

[Howard2k]

Yeah, it's the same way that taking a non-US Watch to the US won't deactivate Blood Oxygen either.

It's the model number.

 

[BugeyeSTI]

I recently ordered a S10 Apple Watch from a dodgy site ‘Deal Monday’ that ships to the UK. It was £276 versus £399 and I had a friend who had ordered an iPad last year so I knew the site was at least selling the real deal.

Seemed like a no brainer (although I realised Argos, a UK legit retailer was selling them for £299)

As long as on first setup I could add AppleCare, battery health was all good, box seals in tact, etc etc, I thought it would be fine.

Then as I set it all up… went into every app (am I the only one who does that?) I got around to Blood Oxygen “This app is no longer available on Apple Watch. See your Health app on iPhone for more information”.

It’s the patent troll lawsuit that affected US models. I had a S10 (bigger size) bought from a nearby Apple Store last year that I gave to my girlfriend as it was too big and her SE II battery was getting unusable. So I was used to using it and miss it.

I thought I could get Apple to re-activate it, text support arranged a support call. I stepped out of the office the other day for about 35 minutes only for them to tell me it goes by serial number and tough luck. Bit of a shame really.

Has anybody else had this experience or a solution? I thought there would be some sort of proving you’re not in the US like by looking at your Apple account, payment info or ID etc so they could I don’t know, whitelist the device serial number to be allowed to use the feature. Don’t people travel and buy something like this at another Apple Store and take it home to use?

Your model number needs to end with LL/A to have SPo2. If it ends with LW/A it will be disabled

 

[Hooyah]

It does end with LW/A yeah!

Lesson learnt. Maybe if others on here search the site name on the forum and see this they can avoid the same mistake!

The dodgy seller offered £10 back as compensation to keep it, and keep avoiding my question if a refund will be a full one (says on the site 30% restock fee but that’s possibly just for a change of mind return). I don’t know why they can’t just confirm it clearly.