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Comment by post_break | Hacker News Reader

They both use the same crappy way of reading heart rate through a camera so it can't be that drastic of a difference. My samsung watch tracks flights of stairs, heart bpm through out the day, nags about water just like the Apple watch, etc. Even has a samsung health app that lets you do a video call to an actual doctor who can send scripts for sickness.

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Crappy? I was seeing a physical therapist for a while, he'd strap a heart monitor around my chest and have me doing exercise. When I got my Watch, I’d sometimes compare the figures — they were never more than two BPM off.

Maybe that's not precise enough for doctors, but "crappy"?

The accuracy of an optical HRM varies a lot based on the person. Skin tone, muscle, bodyfat, and band tightness all play a part. Apple's implementation is one of the better ones, but they all have problems to some degree. Although I haven't used the new watch, the fact that they're advertising this functionality tells me that they're very confident they've worked out these issues.

Crappy might have been a bit too rough, I know that it varied a lot based on how dirty it got under the watch. Like when working out the readings went out the window compared to my chest strap. The ECG on the new watch seems like the best way to do it. And I'd add yes, if it's not precise enough for doctors, then it shouldn't be touted as something my health insurance foots the bill for.

>if it's not precise enough for doctors, then it shouldn't be touted as something my health insurance foots the bill for.

That isn't true. There are level of information. The information I need to decide if I need to see a doctor or not is much lower quality that the information my doctor needs to make a diagnosis.

Health insurance should foot the bill if ultimately the data is good enough to get people to the doctor when the problem is small and easy to treat. If a 100 dollar device for everybody allows them to turn a few $200,000 dollar procedures into $10,000 treatments that will be a big win and they will. (note that the above two may or may not be related)

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