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`Apple Watch Series 6: Why Apple added a sensor to tell how much oxygen is in your blood as its big new feature – and what it …
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`(Apple)
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`APPLE WATCH SERIES 6: WHY APPLE ADDED A
`SENSOR TO TELL HOW MUCH OXYGEN IS IN YOUR
`BLOOD AS ITS BIG NEW FEATURE – AND WHAT IT
`MEANS
`
`New updates come alongside improvements to how wearable can measure fitness
`
`Andrew Griffin ·
`
`Wednesday 07 October 2020 18:31
`
`·
`
`Comments
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`https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-watch-series-6-blood-oxygen-pulse-oximetry-red-light-heart-rate-vo2-max-b513807.… 1/12
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`MASIMO 2063
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`3/21/22, 12:03 PM
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`Apple Watch Series 6: Why Apple added a sensor to tell how much oxygen is in your blood as its big new feature – and what it …
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`The new Apple Watch's biggest feature is not, for the most part, visible to anyone
`who is wearing it. Every so often, in the dark, your wrist might glow red, reflecting a
`light shining out of the Watch that is measuring your blood.
`
`The Watch uses that glow to measure the amount of oxygen in your blood. And,
`Apple hopes, that measurement could provide entirely new ways of understanding
`your own wellbeing.
`
`https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-watch-series-6-blood-oxygen-pulse-oximetry-red-light-heart-rate-vo2-max-b513807.… 2/12
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`MASIMO 2063
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`

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`3/21/22, 12:03 PM
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`Apple Watch Series 6: Why Apple added a sensor to tell how much oxygen is in your blood as its big new feature – and what it …
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`That red glow comes from LEDs on the back of the watch, which shine out, through
`your skin and into the blood. A sensor made up of photodiodes, in the same panel,
`can measure the amount of light that's reflected back – the brighter the blood, the
`more oxygen it is carrying – feeding those measurements into algorithms that
`provide an estimate of blood oxygen.
`
`When you head to Apple's page for its new Watch, it's not the speed of the
`processors or the brightness of the screen that it tries to sell you on. Instead, there's
`that same red glow, and the promise that "the future of health is on your wrist".
`
`Apple hasn't always talked about its Watch this way. When it first arrived, in 2015, it
`wasn't necessarily particularly health-focused at all.
`
`Recommended
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`New Apple Watch and iPads go on sale – with mandatory face masks and touchless temperature
`checks
`
`Early marketing focused on three main features: its function as a way of telling the
`time, its various communication features, and its role as a "comprehensive health
`and fitness device". But that was weighted much more towards fitness than it was
`health, and the heart rate monitor that was included on its back was put there
`primarily as a way of ensuring that it could get an effective measurement of calories,
`rather than offering any view of the heart itself.
`
`Over time, that changed. With the introduction of the Series 4 in 2018, Apple added
`the ability to collect an electrocardiogram or ECG, a graph showing the precise
`workings of a person's heart. It received clearance from the US Food and Drug
`Administration – the first time a smartwatch had done so – and Apple stressed that
`while many people might never require the feature, it could be vital for those who
`do.
`
`https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-watch-series-6-blood-oxygen-pulse-oximetry-red-light-heart-rate-vo2-max-b513807.… 3/12
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`3/21/22, 12:03 PM
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`Apple Watch Series 6: Why Apple added a sensor to tell how much oxygen is in your blood as its big new feature – and what it …
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`Over time, Apple highlighted some of those: its keynotes began to feature messages
`from people who had been alerted by the heart rate monitor to unusual readings,
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`whose Watches had detected a fall and allowed them to call for help, whose ECGs
`had shown irregularities. Those features – largely living in the background, and
`focused on people's wellbeing – became a key part of Apple's presentations.
`Measurements of the speed of a processor or battery life being displaced by
`measurements of heart rate and cardiovascular health.
`
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`3/21/22, 12:04 PM
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`Apple Watch Series 6: Why Apple added a sensor to tell how much oxygen is in your blood as its big new feature – and what it …
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`Tim Cook said in 2019 that – when people look back from an imagined future at the
`work his company did – he believed Apple's greatest contribution to mankind would
`be "about health". It was a bold claim for a company that prides itself on
`fundamentally having changed the way people communicate with the iPhone, and
`other advances, but if nothing else it was an indication of where Mr Cook's priorities
`are.
`
`The new Series 6 is surely the most clear example of that yet. While the Watch does
`have other advances and new features that are of the kind you would normally
`expect from a technology company – a faster processor, a brighter screen – it's the
`blood oxygen sensor that dominated the introduction, and which is the new feature
`that Apple has spent the most time talking about.
`
`It's a change that has happened gradually over the now relatively long life of the
`Apple Watch. But the company is aware of its particularly topical nature at the
`
`https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-watch-series-6-blood-oxygen-pulse-oximetry-red-light-heart-rate-vo2-max-b513807.… 5/12
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`Apple Watch Series 6: Why Apple added a sensor to tell how much oxygen is in your blood as its big new feature – and what it …
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`moment, as the entire world grapples with a health crisis unprecedented in living
`memory.
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`"We’re living in a time with a constant reminder that there's nothing more important
`than your health," says Jeff Williams, Apple's chief operating officer. "At Apple, our
`health journey happened organically. It happened as we pulled on threads at
`different points.
`
`"We have an opportunity and a huge responsibility as a matter of fact to help people
`and empower them with more information about their health.”
`
`Other companies have added blood oxygen sensors before: Garmin, for instance, has
`incorporated it in many of its high-end watches and uses it to inform indications of
`whether its wearer has adjusted to changes in altitude and how much that might
`affect their exercise.
`
`But the metric has never enjoyed quite such a mainstream presence, being promoted
`by the biggest company in the world on the biggest watch in the world.
`
`For now, the uses of the blood oxygen sensor are somewhat limited. There's not all
`that much a person can do about the amount of oxygen in their blood, and so it is
`better described as a measure of a person's wellbeing than a target to improve like
`some of the other metrics that come out of the watch.
`
`"Blood oxygen saturation reflects both the environment you’re in - whether you’re at
`high altitude for example - and how well your body is able to take oxygen in and
`deliver it through the blood," says Williams. "It is a powerful signal about you and
`your wellbeing."
`
`But pulse oximetry is an investment for the future. As a measure of how well the
`blood is doing its job, it could be a key metric for predicting, sensing and living with
`a variety of medical issues.
`
`Those people who buy the new Apple Watch are participating in work that is
`heading towards that. During the reveal of the watch, Sumbul Desai, Apple's vice
`president of health, announced that the company was not only integrating the blood
`oxygen sensor but launching three new studies to understand how it might be used.
`
`https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-watch-series-6-blood-oxygen-pulse-oximetry-red-light-heart-rate-vo2-max-b513807.… 6/12
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`Apple Watch Series 6: Why Apple added a sensor to tell how much oxygen is in your blood as its big new feature – and what it …
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`"It is meant for fitness and wellness purposes," says Desai. "We're doing research to
`learn more. And backing what we can do with science is really important which is
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`why we take the approach of research and want to go on this journey together with
`both our users and the medical community.”
`
`That research includes an asthma study working with University of California,
`Irvine, and Anthem and another looking at the relationship between metrics
`including blood oxygen and heart failure, working with the University Health
`Network and the University of Toronto. But perhaps most exciting for the future –
` and certainly most topical – is a study working with the Seattle Flu Study and the
`University of Washington School of Medicine to see whether heart rate and blood
`oxygen can be used to spot respiratory conditions including flu and covid-19.
`
`There have already been indications that pulse oximetry could be used to spot such
`diseases, and a range of technology companies are working to understand whether
`their blood oxygen sensors might have any role in the fight against covid-19. But
`again Apple's scope – of its products, the number of its users and its ambitions –
` could rapidly accelerate that research, meaning that the sensor that is used for
`wellness today could one day become even more, precisely as a result of you buying
`and wearing it.
`
`Blood oxygen isn't the only new feature that aims to bring what has historically been
`a specialised and medicalised measurement onto the watch. With new updates,
`Apple has added the ability to measure VO2 max in a lower range, which it says will
`be useful for those people who are using their watch to bring their fitness up from a
`lower level.
`
`VO2 max is a fairly specialised metric: in its strictest sense, it measures the
`maximum amount of oxygen that a person is able to take in. But it has also been used
`a test of a person's cardiovascular fitness, and it's that more general indication of
`health that the Apple Watch aims to recreate.
`
`Historically, the VO2 max test was a fairly gruelling endeavour: a participant straps
`on a mask that monitors their breathing while they undertake intense exercise such a
`running or moving on an exercise bike. The Apple Watch has been able to recreate
`
`https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-watch-series-6-blood-oxygen-pulse-oximetry-red-light-heart-rate-vo2-max-b513807.… 7/12
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`Apple Watch Series 6: Why Apple added a sensor to tell how much oxygen is in your blood as its big new feature – and what it …
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`that by watching its wearer's heart rate as they exercise, inferring their fitness by
`measuring how much a given activity requires of their cardiovascular system.
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`"The thing that's really powerful about VO2 Max is that you traditionally have to go
`into a clinic," says Desai. "It's a really uncomfortable test to do. Now to be able to
`measure that with watch will be really powerful.”
`
`Now the Watch will be able to expand that metric, giving it to even more people.
`And the utility of the readings is that – perhaps unlike blood oxygen – people can
`very much do something about this, since improving their fitness will improve the
`measurement, and what they do will be reflected in that reading over time.
`
`"Apple did a huge body of work to measure lower VO2 max range," says Williams.
`"Now it’s easily available, I see a future where this is a much more common and
`meaningful metric of health. And the great news about this one is that you can
`actually take action and improve it. It’s not just a signal that you’re in a low range,
`you can change the trajectory of.”
`
`More about: Apple Watch Series 5 Apple Watch Apple
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