Apple was in a patent dispute over this feature with Massimo. Their workaround is to calculate blood oxygen on the iPhone, using the sensors from Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch hardware is otherwise the same. The back of the watch shines light of a specific wavelength into your skin and measures the reflected light. Heart rate sensing uses green (525 nm) and infrared (850–940 nm) light; blood oxygen sensing added a red light at 660 nm in 2020.
The iPhone will now calculate the ratio of absorbed red to infrared light, then apply calibration constants from experimental data to estimate blood oxygen saturation.
> The iPhone will now calculate the ratio of absorbed red to infrared light, then apply calibration constants from experimental data to estimate blood oxygen saturation.
Phenomenal that the patent is only violated by doing it with the watch cpu but not by funneling the data to a separate cpu. The surest sign that it's a bullshit patent.
Someone else linked the patent in question and it seems to be about a wearable device. The iphone is carried on your person and not worn as part of the same device, as I understand it.
I wonder if they could take it one step further. Do the measurements on the watch, do the calculation on the iPhone, send the results back to the watch for display. Technically all the work is done on the iPhone and the watch is just the IO device.
Massimo invented this technology (yay Massimo!) in the 90s yet their Japanese patents [1] weren't considered prior art (WTF?) because of technical legal reasons.
Just offloading the analysis to the phone is extremely funny. It also seems like a pretty obvious solution, so I wonder if it was delayed by legal analysis and they only just decided it was likely to hold up in court.
I live in a rural area. My old fashioned doctor said to test oxygen levels, all you need to do is pinch your index finger nail down until it goes white. Then when you let go, if it goes back to pink right away, you're good. If it takes more than a few seconds, you're not good.
I have it on my garmin and it seems pretty useless. My oxygen level while I sleep has more to do with how tightly I'm wearing it that night than anything else. It also drain the battery fast so I just disabled it.
I have a real finger-based one bought during COVID that I trust more.
In my experience, the Apple Watch blood oxygen monitoring was horribly inaccurate. It would report wildly variable results, often telling me that I had a blood oxygen level of 80% (which, if true, would indicate that I should be getting myself to an emergency room ASAP).
Regular pulse oxygen meters are cheap and reliable.
You can buy a fingertip pulse oximeter for like $10. I understand the benefits of having all of these biometric readers directly on your personal device, but the perceived stress over getting this back into the watch seems... I don't know, not wise? In poor taste? Something, but I can't articulate it well.
I mean, we don't have IR blasters on any of our personal devices anymore, and arguably it would be nice to be able to control my TV with my phone like I could with my Palm Pilot forever ago, but that's not in vogue anymore.
To be honest, I didn’t like these metrics. They’re very different from what I get on an oximeter. The first time I saw them, I thought I was short of breath, but it was just the metric being used.
I never really understood why protecting Massimo in this situation was more important than allowing customers to access a feature in their watch. I get patent law is important, but they seemed more interested in rent-seeking from Apple than actually providing a desirable product that people could benefit from.
Did the Watch Series 9+ incorporate a new sensor or different algorithm? I have an older model that has always had blood oxygen (and it was never disabled, as it was for the 9+).
I have the first Ultra and just looked back at the data and they were never interrupted. It isn't included in the release either. Wonder what is different about it. Did apple arrive at a separate agreement for that device?
Interesting they offload the processing to iphone. The Soc on apple watch is quite capable. Maybe they don't want to drain your AW battery and prefer draining your iphone's instead.
A family member has one of these watches. Instant hypochondriac. Probably already was but the watch really brought it out. They're constantly monitoring their vitals rather than getting on with life and have already made more than one ER visit on account of a reading that worried them.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 47.7 ms ] threadThe Apple Watch hardware is otherwise the same. The back of the watch shines light of a specific wavelength into your skin and measures the reflected light. Heart rate sensing uses green (525 nm) and infrared (850–940 nm) light; blood oxygen sensing added a red light at 660 nm in 2020.
The iPhone will now calculate the ratio of absorbed red to infrared light, then apply calibration constants from experimental data to estimate blood oxygen saturation.
More detailed writeup on how the technology works is here: https://www.empirical.health/metrics/oxygen/
Sorry, maybe I missed it - but source for this?
I still don't think it's a valid patent.
[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2002542493A5/en%EF%BF%BC
So I suppose if Massimo is going to use a technical legality to extend then Apple can use a technical legality to avoid.
I have a real finger-based one bought during COVID that I trust more.
Regular pulse oxygen meters are cheap and reliable.
I mean, we don't have IR blasters on any of our personal devices anymore, and arguably it would be nice to be able to control my TV with my phone like I could with my Palm Pilot forever ago, but that's not in vogue anymore.
Much like fusion that is continuously imminent though
I use a watch and wireless headphones. The iphone stays at home.