Smart watches/Blood Oxygen

[DuckieLady]

Does anyone else know how accurate these watches are?

My heart rate is always that high - I blame stress and caffeine. My doctor said it's normal because I'm "small." Like a hummingbird.

But there is a big drop for blood oxygen and I don't know why. I'm just wondering if it does that automatically if it gets loose.

I don't know anyone I can ask.

 

[Lambano]

Does anyone else know how accurate these watches are?

Okay; now you got me curious.

I've checked the pulse reading of my Apple Smart watch with my blood pressure cuff, and it's accurate to within a beat-per-minute or two. Call it 2% accuracy, which is pretty good. I asked my primary care physician and cardiologist about the EKG feature, and they said "don't bother; no respectable cardiologist would ever take that seriously". That's fine. I got it to detect atrial fibrillation. The AFib detector is hit or miss, but I can use the pulse variation measurement to manually confirm if the ol' ticker is misbehaving.

Since you got me curious (and because my wife and I talked about upgrading our Apple watches as mutual Christmas presents last year), I found this article about the Apple Watch 6:

Commercial smartwatch with pulse oximeter detects short-time hypoxemia as well as standard medical-grade device: Validation study

it says the Apple Watch 6 oximeter is accurate to 6-8%, which the authors say is close enough for jazz.

 

[DuckieLady]

Okay; now you got me curious.

I've checked the pulse reading of my Apple Smart watch with my blood pressure cuff, and it's accurate to within a beat-per-minute or two. Call it 2% accuracy, which is pretty good. I asked my primary care physician and cardiologist about the EKG feature, and they said "don't bother; no respectable cardiologist would ever take that seriously". That's fine. I got it to detect atrial fibrillation. The AFib detector is hit or miss, but I can use the pulse variation measurement to manually confirm if the ol' ticker is misbehaving.

Since you got me curious (and because my wife and I talked about upgrading our Apple watches as mutual Christmas presents last year), I found this article about the Apple Watch 6:

Commercial smartwatch with pulse oximeter detects short-time hypoxemia as well as standard medical-grade device: Validation study

it says the Apple Watch 6 oximeter is accurate to 6-8%, which the authors say is close enough for jazz.

That's kind of cool. I might need to upgrade mine at some point.

I'll be honest. My watch was only about $15. I got lucky with this one lasting two years somehow.

I might need to look it up and see what the fancy ones do.

It has helped me monitor want is causing me the most stress.

I feel like it should be lower today because I'm wearing ear plugs. I have children.

 

[Rockerduck]

I use a Galaxy smart watch, Its accurate. I wear it all the time. I get text messages and phone calls, I can talk like Dick Tracy, and I don't need my phone in my pocket all the time. BP, oxygen, ecg all that is accurate. You can get a Samsung ring instead, if a watch bothers you. The ring is more accurate.