Apple Watch 6 blood oxygen measurement said I had hypoxia when an oximeter showed that I was fine

[Knowlege Bomb]

Yes, maybe I should accept that their main feature introduced in Apple Watch 6 is not working for me, because as you say, I don't really need it. Excellent point. However, considering how Apple responded to my problem where they don't care and just leave it to be my problem, and the fact that they are marketing this aggressively, makes me considering returning it. Does that makes sense ?

Well to be fair, I wouldn't say they're "aggressively marketing" the new sensor. Sure, it's front and center on the Apple Watch page because there's not much else they added this year. They also make perfectly clear that it isn't medical grade.

Everybody's situation is different and I can only imagine the amount of complaints they receive about each and every little thing they include (ECG doesn't work perfectly for a lot of people and this is medical grade). What should they be doing to make you content with their level of "care" for this issue? New watch? In-person troubleshooting to figure out what you (or the watch) could be doing wrong?

As somebody who exercises regularly I would think the fitness tracking capabilities would be your main concern. For me, each time I get one of these watches I see my activity levels increase due to the coaching and goals the watch pushes. It's all very motivating. I can count on one hand how many times I've used the SPO2 sensor and that's mostly been to show people who know I got the new watch. It really is more of a gimmick at this point so I would focus elsewhere to determine the worth of the watch before returning it.

 

[tr20199]

The watch never said you had hypoxia, it gave inaccurate readings and you drew that conclusion. It's not a medical grade device, which you acknowledged, which means you should also take the readings it gives you with a grain of salt.

Yes, I knew that this was not a medical grade reader. However, it made me worried nevertheless. If you actually do have 87, that means that you are hypoxic. Anyway, I was thinking : "What if the readings are correct ? What if the watch is right ? 87 - 91 is not normal, and might indicate that something is wrong with me. What if I have COVID ? Thus, I need to find out if I have to see a doctor". So, then I spent 100 euros on an oximeter to be sure. Fortunately, everything was fine. False alarm.

 

[tr20199]

Well to be fair, I wouldn't say they're "aggressively marketing" the new sensor. Sure, it's front and center on the Apple Watch page because there's not much else they added this year. They also make perfectly clear that it isn't medical grade.

Everybody's situation is different and I can only imagine the amount of complaints they receive about each and every little thing they include (ECG doesn't work perfectly for a lot of people and this is medical grade). What should they be doing to make you content with their level of "care" for this issue? New watch? In-person troubleshooting to figure out what you (or the watch) could be doing wrong?

As somebody who exercises regularly I would think the fitness tracking capabilities would be your main concern. For me, each time I get one of these watches I see my activity levels increase due to the coaching and goals the watch pushes. It's all very motivating. I can count on one hand how many times I've used the SPO2 sensor and that's mostly been to show people who know I got the new watch. It really is more of a gimmick at this point so I would focus elsewhere to determine the worth of the watch before returning it.

Ah, it's just a gimmick ? I didn't know. That explains it then.

 

[Knowlege Bomb]

Ah, it's just a gimmick ? I didn't know. That explains it then.

At this point are key words here. This is also strictly my opinion. The accuracy may increase with future software updates and it may not. No way to know.

 

[JulianL]

Yes, it might be that I somehow make the readings sub-optimal. But how can I know ? I guess it is fine to be relaxed if readings are very low when using the watch ... but yes, what if they really are low ?

You can't know of course but maybe Apple could help (see suggestion in my final paragraph).

Regarding scary low readings that is exactly why I do manual checks as soon as I notice a low reading recorded on one of the automated readings. I agree it's not ideal because I only notice the automated readings when I'm actually looking at the Health app on my iPhone but sometimes I've just had lucky timing where I'm looking 5 minutes after a low automated reading was taken so when I then take a manual reading of 100%just minutes later it is why my confidence is quite high that I don't have low blood-ox issues and it is that the automated readings can be wildly inaccurate.

Following on from my first paragraph, if Apple can't tweak the automated reading procedure in any way to make it more accurate maybe at least a workaround would be to have an option in the Blood-ox app for it to send you a notification each time it takes a background reading. That way you wouldn't have to do what I do and maybe only notice that you had had a very low reading taken hours ago and only sometimes get lucky and see a reading that was taken far more recently. If Apple had an option to get a notification on every reading you could quickly glance at your watch and if it looked low could immediately tap the notification to go to the manual reading page where you could immediately take a more careful reading yourself to reassure yourself that all was OK and that the automated reading process had just screwed up again. That of course needs Apple to add that notification capability in a WatchOS update but at least there is no new technology involved so it would be an entirely implementable workaround that I personally would enable and would find useful.