Apple’s patent rival claims the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen function is unreliable
Apple is currently embroiled in a patent dispute with health tech company Masimo over the blood oxygen sensor in its latest Apple Watches β and now Masimo CEO Joe Kiani has stated that Apple’s sensor is unreliable and that consumers are “better off without it”.
The comments, made to Bloomberg TV (through 9to5Mac), come in the wake of Apple disabling blood oxygen monitoring on the Apple Watch 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2, allowing these devices to remain on sale while the legal issues are resolved.
βApple pretends to be a reliable, medical-grade pulse oximeter, even though it isn’t,β Kiani says. Bloomberg TV. βI really believe that consumers are better off without it.β
Unsurprisingly, Kiani says the technology Masimo produces is superior. The CEO also said that he hasn’t spoken to Apple about settling the patent dispute, so it seems like this particular story still has a long way to go.
Accuracy of the sensor
Kiani’s criticism centers on the fact that the Apple Watch sensor for measuring blood oxygen levels, known as a pulse oximeter, does not take continuous measurements. Instead, only occasional measurements are needed, which Kiani says limits its usefulness in detecting problems like sleep apnea.
For its part, Apple says that periodic measurements and manual sampling are fine for what the sensor is supposed to do β and that checks against high-quality reference data are more important to ensure accuracy than logging measurements around the clock.
Please note that Masimo’s pulse oximeter technology has been approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, meaning it officially qualifies as a medical grade device in terms of data quality.
Apple doesn’t have that approval, but claims its watches are still useful in terms of health monitoring. As 9to5Mac points out, a academic study has found that the sensor in the Apple Watch can “reliably” detect reduced oxygen saturation in the blood and is “sufficiently advanced” to comply with medical technology.