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Blood oxygen monitoring returning to Apple Watch in the US
- ck2 1y agoblood oxygen from the wrist is absolutely garbage-in
- bilsbie 1y agoCan you do anything interesting with knowing blood oxygen?
- brandonb 1y agoApple 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. More detailed writeup on how the technology works is here: https://www.empirical.health/metrics/oxygen/ https://www.empirical.health/metrics/oxygen/
- BallsInIt 1y agoSoftware patents are a scourge.
- sneak 1y agoThe whole concept of software patents is a hack; as I understand it algorithms as a rule cannot be patented, so the system running the algorithm is patented instead. This seems to illustrate the absurdity of that workaround.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoI would be a bit more sympathetic if this was not about a trillion dollar company who poached some employees rather than engage in a licensing deal.
- spogbiper 1y ago25 employees including the CTO, and then bought a building nearby to Masimo's office for them to work in. At least according to the CEO of Masimo in public statements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1o8EoW-Eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1o8EoW-Eg
- thebruce87m 1y agoSounds good for the employees, so go Apple?
- spogbiper 1y agoYes, very good for the employees. Apple even offered them 2x their salaries to leave Masimo.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoYes "very good", until Apple decides to mass-layoff them, because now, owning the valuable core IP and having killed their primary competitor in the field, Apple can do whatever they want and get away with it because those employees have nowhere else to go in the area. 200+ IQ move </slow_clap>. How people on HN can support monopolization of markets and killing of competition is beyond me, since in the end it always bites them in the ass (see recent mass layoffs in the industry), yet this lesson seems to be quickly forgotten.
- johnfn 1y agoIs there evidence of Apple doing this in the past?
- anonu 1y agoI dont think the patent in question is for software: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en
- Disposal8433 1y agoEvery workaround I've seen for the past 30 years feel like a "Shabbat elevator" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator) I'm not using the elevator because I'm not pushing the button because it's always moving. Edit: I've always hated patents too, don't get me wrong.
- johndhi 1y agoIsn't this hardware though? :-)
- cmiles74 1y agoIMHO, the problem is that if you are wealthy enough then you don't need to worry about patents. I also think these patents are, on the whole, not great. But here the one company legally got the patent and the another, richer company hired away their talent and paid them to find a workaround to avoid licensing. Smaller companies will continue to license the patent. Few tears will be shed for Massimo (or Qualcomm) but the next victim could be a much smaller company, maybe one that would be more of a competitor. I don't like the current patent regime but I do believe enforcement should apply to everyone, not just players who lack the money to rig the game.
- zik 1y agoIt's a patent on a physical process for measuring blood oxygen. It's not a software patent.
- Angostura 1y ago> 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. Sorry, maybe I missed it - but source for this?
- chedabob 1y agoIt's in the Apple PR https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/08/an-update-on-blood-oxygen-for-apple-watch-in-the-us/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/08/an-update-on-blood-ox... > sensor data from the Blood Oxygen app on Apple Watch will be measured and calculated on the paired iPhone
- clint 1y agoThe literal article that is the sole focus of this entire thread?
- unglaublich 1y agoCrazy that this is a 'patent'. We did this experiment in high school 30 years ago.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- spogbiper 1y agoalmost as crazy as a patent for a rectangle with rounded corners
- mbirth 1y agoYou mean a Squircle®
- robertoandred 1y agoThat's of course not what the patent was about.
- shagie 1y agoYou can also patent the shape of a bottle. https://patents.google.com/patent/USD48160S/en https://patents.google.com/patent/USD48160S/en (yes, its an old one). These fall into the classification of design patent which covers ornamental non-functional elements of a particular item. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent Design patents also cover typefaces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti... -- note that typefaces cannot be copyrighted in the United States Design patents differ from a utility patent which covers how something works.
- BugsJustFindMe 1y agoPhenomenal 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.
- kube-system 1y agoThey're all like that. Patents are pretty specific.
- abirch 1y agoIf they're not very specific there's frequently prior art.
- sieabahlpark 1y ago[dead]
- extraduder_ire 1y agoSomeone 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 still don't think it's a valid patent.
- alooPotato 1y agoI 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.
- ilyagr 1y agoAccording to the link, the patents in question expire in 2028.
- CalChris 1y agoMassimo invented this technology (yay Massimo!) in the 90s yet their Japanese patents [1] weren't considered prior art (WTF?) because of technical legal reasons. [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2002542493A5/en%EF%BF%BC 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.
- 7thpower 1y agoThat is interesting, had not understood this previously.
- parsimo2010 1y agoMasimo only refined pulse oximetry in the 90s, as pulse oximetry was invented in the 1970s (prior oximeters did not resemble the devices seen today). Everything after that has been tweaks/improvements to the base method, but I wouldn't call them the inventors of the technology. The only IP that companies can own now are specific methods/improvements, not the base idea of measuring SpO2 with light. All Apple has to do is avoid the specific improvements that Masimo owns and they are fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_oximetry#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_oximetry#History
- bookofjoe 1y agoYes. I recall the brand new pulse oximeters (I don't recall the manufacturer) that appeared in the ORs at UCLA Medical Center right around when I started my anesthesiology residency in 1977. They were SUPER expensive when they first came out, so much so that our department bought 3 of them, which were used only for the most critical cases. I remember the chief resident sometimes had to decide who got one when 2 residents/attendings each said their patient was more unstable/critical and thus needed it more. These were NOT small devices like the inexpensive fingertip versions you can buy now over the counter; rather, they were big boxlike machines, perhaps 2 feet x 1.5 feet x 8 inches high. They were SO heavy (I'd estimate 25 pounds) they were attached to a stainless steel rolling cart.
- mandeepj 1y agoHopefully blood glucose monitoring will come soon as well
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- SJMG 1y agoI'm out of the loop, can this be done without drawing blood now?
- borski 1y agoYou can do it by using interstitial fluid, which is how CGMs work. But, in short, no, not yet: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safety-communications/do-not-use-smartwatches-or-smart-rings-measure-blood-glucose-levels-fda-safety-communication https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safety-communications/do...
- SJMG 1y agoGotcha, thanks for the clarification and answer.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y agoThey're all on a subscription model, you're spending who-knows-how-much per year on a new sensor every few days/weeks. Afraid it'd feel like a prickleburr stuck to me constantly.
- dmart 1y agoJust 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.
- rafram 1y agoApple says: > This update was enabled by a recent U.S. Customs ruling. I can't find the ruling in question, though, so I'm not sure what they mean.
- anonu 1y agohttps://rulings.cbp.gov/ruling/H335304 https://rulings.cbp.gov/ruling/H335304
- irons 1y agoThis is the January 2024 ruling allowing Apple to resume imports of Apple Watches to the US with the blood oxygen feature disabled. Hopefully the recent ruling will show up on this site at some point.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoPresumably they mean it was enabled by the bribe they publicly gave the US President last week, and he or his goons have told them to expect a favorable ruling soon.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 1y agoI 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.
- qgin 1y agoThat's the capillary refill test which tests circulation and perfusion. Doesn't really tell you anything about oxygen levels.
- monkeyelite 1y agoOf course. Billions of people have lived without this. You also don’t need a computer on your wrist. But many people are willing to pay get more health information, especially wealthier demographics who have interest in health and appearances of health.
- comrade1234 1y agoI 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.
- neild 1y agoIn 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.
- throwaway303293 1y agoIn contrast my Garmin and finger pulseox match exactly.
- exabrial 1y agoYep, my Garmin also has matched the doctors office instrument to the 1% every time.
- iamdanieljohns 1y agoWhich model do you have?
- exabrial 1y agoEpix Gen2 in 51mm I really use the hell out of it. Yeah I can't play solitaire like an iWatch, but the battery lasts 7 days in the backcountry, the flashlight is unbelievably handy while hiking/camping/boondocking, and it helps me be healthy with all of the data. Being able to trigger my inReach is also a nice touch. It's definitely a tool rather than a fashion piece.
- mauvehaus 1y agoI don't know what Garmin you have, but I'm about half convinced that my Instinct's heart rate measurement is implemented by a PRNG. It's frequently off by 50% from a count/time cross-check. It does not inspire me to move up their range when this watch eventually dies: if they can't get the basic feature working, I have a hard time seeing how they're going to manage anything trickier.
- sargun 1y agoWhat's the US Customs ruling in question? > This update was enabled by a recent U.S. Customs ruling.
- ezfe 1y agoThat this is okay?
- anonu 1y agohttps://rulings.cbp.gov/ruling/H335304 https://rulings.cbp.gov/ruling/H335304 maybe this - from January 2025 It appears the patent is for "User-Worn Device for Noninvasively Measuring a Physiological Parameter of a User". So Apple is simply moving the logic to a non user-worn device - like a phone - to get around the problem. (this is my quick read / conjecture) Here is the original patent https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en
- freehorse 1y agoYeah, prob because one cannot patent an algorithm itself, but only a specific implementation. The patent was about a wearable device so i guess the workaround was to do the computations in a non-wearable device.
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoYou 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.
- rblatz 1y agoiPhone can control Apple TVs, and is able to detect which device you are nearest to and auto select it (if you have multiple) Also all my TVs also have apps that function as a remote control. Interestingly enough my main TV an LG has a remote that controls the tv using RF. I don’t even know if it would work with an IR blaster.
- bookofjoe 1y agoApple Watch can also control Apple TVs.
- radicaldreamer 1y agoThe point of this is that for people who would never get a pulse oximeter getting this "for free" and automatically enabled on their Apple Watches and realizing they have a medical issue well before symptoms become severe or catastrophic.
- mococa 1y agoTo 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.
- kylehotchkiss 1y agoI 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.
- appease7727 1y agoThat's precisely what patents are for in the modern era
- bigyabai 1y agoBecause Apple consciously violated the patent? When you think about it, Apple is lucky the judge didn't demand a hardware recall. They got off pretty easy, and if Apple wanted to be petty, then they could enable the hardware as an API only, and let users do the rest. Here in America this is part of our culture: your health gimmeck features are precisely meaningless to the court if the prosecution can prove wreckless harm on Apple's behalf.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago"Rent seeking" is original intent of patents, correct? The theory being that this incentivizes invention.
- crazygringo 1y agoPatents are literally for rent-seeking. They are explicitly not to maximize the number of people who can benefit from a product in the short term, but precisely to limit it so the inventor can make more money. The idea being that in the long run the inventions it incentivizes outweigh the people who are limited from benefiting in the short term. Judges aren't in the position to weigh societal benefits in each individual patent case. Your framing implies that cost-benefit tradeoff. But that's not how it works. The only question is whether a product infringes or not.
- alistairSH 1y agoDid 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+).
- jerlam 1y agoApple only disabled the pulse ox sensor on watches they sold, distributed, or replaced after the ruling. I don't think Apple disabled a working pulse ox sensor on anyone's watch other than repairs.
- ShakataGaNai 1y agoAnd only in the USA, as far as I understood. You could but the same watch in Canada and the pulseox worked.
- bookofjoe 1y agoDon't get me started about my Kindle books....
- jajuuka 1y agoCorrect. The sensor was the same in the Series 10 and Ultra 2 because in territories outside the US it worked just fine. Similar to how Samsung offer blood pressure readings in certain countries but in others the function is blocked at the software level.
- Havoc 1y agoBeen holding off buying a watch till glucose monitoring hits. Much like fusion that is continuously imminent though
- SirMaster 1y agoI'm waiting for blood pressure.
- ShakataGaNai 1y agoThat would be amazing, but it seems like that tech is still a ways off. At least to have any sort of useful accuracy. The wrist "temp" is a great example of "interesting but useless".
- bookofjoe 1y agoRumors have it that some form of BP monitoring will appear in next month's updated watches.
- gf000 1y agoI would bet on nuclear fusion existing first..
- bilsbie 1y agoI wish they could monitor blood insulin.
- hinkley 1y agoWhich will be absolutely useless for anyone serious and even plebs like me since who runs with a 250-500g phone strapped into spandex? I use a watch and wireless headphones. The iphone stays at home.
- bookofjoe 1y agoLet's be clear: the return of this function requires an iPhone; the original version did not.
- varenc 1y agoThe Apple Watch already requires an iPhone for setup.
- bkirz 1y agoRight, but only for setup. The previous implementation would work if you went on a walk without your phone.
- jajuuka 1y agoI don't see why that's a problem. They can still record the data on the watch and then when it reconnects to the phone it can send over the data for the analysis. Same as how they store metrics on the watch until it reconnects to a phone to send to the Health app.
- bookofjoe 1y agoIt's a problem because it requires your phone. Consider places where phones are not permitted: your Apple watch gets a pass. So O2 sat is available in real time wherever you are if you have previous versions of the watch, which is not the case for the current version.
- jajuuka 1y agoI think you misunderstood what I said. I am saying I don't see how that's not a fixable problem. How often do you need constant O2 readings? What places are phones not permitted but Apple Watches are? Seems like a highly niche problem to me. Obviously not as good as the original, but you should still get a constant histogram once reconnected.
- cogogo 1y agoI 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?
- dwaite 1y agoThere was an import ban on Apple Watches that had the feature, and the import ban was lifted by disabling the feature on imported watches. There wasn't a requirement that it be disabled on watches that had already been imported, or on watches that weren't being imported to the US.
- ethansinjin 1y agoIf you have a watch that was imported into the US before the restriction went into effect, you never lost the (original, watch-only) Blood Oxygen functionality and this update doesn't affect you. Up to mid-2024, Costco was selling 2 separate SKUs of Apple Watch Ultra 2: watches with the blood oxygen feature and watches imported after the cutoff which were missing the feature. A limitation of this workaround is that it only works on recent watches. If you are in the unfortunate position of getting a Series 6, 7, 8 watch replaced by Apple, they'll give you a replacement with the feature missing, and this update doesn't "fix" it..
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- temporallobe 1y agoBTW the O2 monitoring is inaccurate and unreliable compared to a proper pulse oximeter.
- gf000 1y agoAFAIK most pulse oximeters themselves are plenty inaccurate (these "stick-on-your-finger" kinds), as they all work by the same mechanism.
- temporallobe 1y agoMy Apple watch always rates my O2 2-3% lower than my finger unit, likely due to my hairy wrist.
- gf000 1y agoWell, then you can be reasonably sure that the actual value is somewhere in-between, possibly closer to the finger unit though.
- NavinF 1y agoThe ones that send light through your finger and measure it on the other side are much more accurate than the ones that bounce light off your wrist like the Apple Watch. That said, they both work. This is easy to verify by holding your breath.
- mrheosuper 1y agoInteresting 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.
- gf000 1y agoAFAIK this is a legal loophole to avoid a patent. It used to work on the watch itself, but was disabled in the US due to said patent.
- jacquesm 1y agoA 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.
- netfortius 1y agoWhat's different in Samsung's approach, that kept them out of this dispute? Why didn't Apple follow Samsung's solution, if not patent restricted?
- southernplaces7 1y agoWhy were they removed in the first place?