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Comment by colesantiago | Hacker News Reader

Looks like nothing has been announced that is groundbreaking here.

It seems it was rumoured that the Apple Watch Series 10 would have blood pressure monitoring but instead removed the blood oxygen detection from US models in the fine print:

"The ability to measure blood oxygen is no longer available on Apple Watch units sold by Apple in the United States beginning January 18, 2024."

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In another article I read last week, Apple just couldn't get passive blood pressure to work well enough. The tech isn't there yet, but I can't wait until it's standard.

Whoop (another wearable) has been doing closed consumer testing on optical blood pressure. Probably trying to figure it out for the Whoop 5.0, but if it Apple couldn't figure it out this year, I don't think anyone will. Maybe next Christmas.

The blood oxygen detection is disabled to comply with a patent ruling.

I think it's interesting that the new sleep apnea detection uses the accelerometer for detection, instead of blood oxygen levels.

maybe i'll buy one on my upcoming trip to europe then...

Apple Watches (even Series 9) sold by Apple resellers in the US (Amazon etc) still came with blood oxygen detection, even after firmware updates.

Only those that shipped before this year. They were getting hard to find even last may.

Oh is that true? I was under the impression that retailers still were selling the series 9 with it enabled to this day

I presume they can use over-the-air updates to disable the feature when the device is activated?

My watch’s logs always have some OTA stuff.

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