How accurate is apple watch blood oxygen

Let's examine why.

Thank you for visiting nature. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer. In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. It is unclear how frequently the Apple Watch produces spO 2 measurements outside of the normal range in healthy individuals at rest. We conducted a head-to-head comparison in 38 healthy individuals between two watches and two medical-grade pulse oximeters.

How accurate is apple watch blood oxygen

It's not particularly good anyway. Masimo's David has taken on Apple's Goliath, and right now, it appears to be winning. The tech behemoth has just removed the blood oxygen monitor from the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2. Currently, the Apple product pages for these two models show a banner at the top that reads, "Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 no longer include the blood oxygen feature. Masimo claims that Apple is using its patented tech, and Apple has been forced to halt sales and now disable the feature entirely to comply while the legalities are worked out. But, given that the Apple Watch's readings aren't even that accurate, does it even matter? The details of Masimo's patent dispute with Apple is beyond the scope of this article, but the gist is that the latest Apple Watches may be using Masimo's blood-oxygen measuring tech without permission or payment. A pulse oximeter shines two LEDs one red, one infrared into the body, and measures the absorption of light. It uses this information to calculate the levels of hemoglobin molecules that are bound to oxygen in the blood and, from there, gives a readout of your blood oxygen levels. There are variations on this method, using more colors of light, for example, but this is the general way the technology works. And apparently, Apple is using Masimo's proprietary tech to do it.

Supp Data. Not necessarily — since individual blood oxygen readings can be widely variable, it is best to look at the overall trend.

Very, Very Accurate. One of the key anxieties that surrounds smart tech health tracking is fairly straightforward—how do you know the thing is actually working? The researchers had 24 healthy participants wear an Apple Watch Series 6—which is outfitted with the same blood oxygen reader as the newer Apple Watches—on their left wrist while placing the medical-grade reader on their left middle finger. The participants wore breathers that slightly reduced the oxygen they took in over a few different phases, and the researchers recorded the blood oxygen levels recorded by each device at second intervals. The Apple Watch is very close to achieving accuracy levels of a pulse oximeter.

Home Knowledge Base Apple Watch. The Apple Watch offers an innovative feature allowing users to monitor their blood oxygen levels, blending technology with health management. Oxygen saturation refers to the percentage of oxygen-carrying hemoglobin in the blood. Low blood oxygen may signal underlying health issues, which is why monitoring it can be an important part of personal health tracking. The Apple Watch utilizes reflectance pulse oximetry to measure blood oxygen levels. Through red and infrared light emitted by LEDs on the back of the watch, the blood oxygen sensor gauges the color of your blood, which changes with the amount of oxygen present. Sophisticated algorithms then calculate the blood oxygen saturation.

How accurate is apple watch blood oxygen

Apple with the Apple Watch Series 6 introduced a new feature for monitoring blood oxygen level, using the LEDs at the back of the Apple Watch to determine the amount of oxygen in the blood. A low blood oxygen level can be indicative of a serious health issue that needs immediate attention. Taking a blood oxygen reading is rather straightforward, but there are automatic measurement settings to be aware of as well as necessary tips for getting an accurate measurement, all of which can be found in the guide below. The Apple Watch Series 6 is equipped with green, red, and infrared LEDs that shine light onto the blood vessels in the wrist, with photodiodes measuring the amount of light reflected back.

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As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. In parallel to the changing clinical needs for home monitoring, pulse oximetry has been integrated into multiple common consumer smartwatches. Reviewer 2: Thank you for allowing me to review your study. Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Was this page helpful? Patterns of use and key predictors for the use of wearable health care devices by US adults: insights from a national survey. Another limitation of our study involves potential medical conditions that could affect the accuracy of the pulse oximeters. How accurate is the blood oxygen on your watch. This shot from the Apple website suggests to me the information will be rudimentary. While the ITA and Fitzpatrick measurements demonstrated a strong correlation, the continuous ITA values are difficult to employ as compared with the ordinal Fitzpatrick measurements for the statistical analyses presented herein. No skin irregularities on the wrist were noted. How to use the blood oxygen app on Apple Watch. Additionally, we specifically recruited individuals with a wide range of skin tones.

Very, Very Accurate.

Two official wristbands were used and switched between the watches after a batch of ten participants had been measured. However, unlike medical-grade pulse oximeters, the Apple Watch can't use the common transmissive pulse oximetry where light is passed through a thin part of the body, and instead has to rely on reflectance pulse oximetry where light is passed into the wrist and only the reflected light is measured at the photodiode. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? After the exclusion of duplicates, the titles, as well as abstracts, were screened, and only relevant publications proceeded to full-text screening. Share this post. The authors should also offer any possible explanations for the variation in oxygen saturations reported. The dispute is ongoing, and the pace is pretty hectic for the usually slow-moving legal system, but right now, it seems that the US Customs agency which can halt the import of infringing products is satisfied with the compromise , so Series 9 and Ultra 2 can remain on sale with the oximeter feature removed. Racial bias and reproducibility in pulse oximetry among medical and surgical inpatients in general care in the Veterans Health Administration multicenter, retrospective cohort study. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. But, given that the Apple Watch's readings aren't even that accurate, does it even matter? Dec 17, AM in response to Richard. Abstract Blood oxygen saturation SpO2 is an important measurement for monitoring patients with acute and chronic conditions that are associated with low blood oxygen levels. Overestimated measurements are potentially dangerous if a person decides not to seek care as a result of considering the inaccurate measurement. The MDE for each skin tone group was 2.