In a quick tidbit of sports tech news, Apple has announced that Apple Watch’s that were purchased in the US without the SpO2 (blood oxygen) feature will now get that feature enabled via software update later today.
As a brief reminder of this long and winding drama, Apple got sued by Masimo for patent infringement. Apple lost some court battles, won others, but ultimately lost the ability to sell Apple Watch units in the US with the feature enabled (from January 17th, 2024). Existing owners who bought before that, could keep the feature, and the company could continue selling units outside the US without issue. This impacted Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 units only. It did not matter where you used the Apple Watch, but specifically the place/origin of purchase (just US units were impacted).
Thus, either you never had the Blood Oxygen feature, or, perhaps you did have it on a previous Apple Watch, and then lost it when you upgraded to new hardware.
In any case, Apple says that they’ve redesigned the software components, and a recent ruling by US CBP (which is the US agency that enacted the ban), allows them to enable this:
“Users with these models in the U.S. who currently do not have the Blood Oxygen feature will have access to the redesigned Blood Oxygen feature by updating their paired iPhone to iOS 18.6.1, and their Apple Watch to watchOS 11.6.1. Following this update, sensor data from the Blood Oxygen app on Apple Watch will be measured and calculated on the paired iPhone, and results can be viewed in the Respiratory section of the Health app. This update was enabled by a recent U.S. Customs ruling.”
In addition, for users who are on the WatchOS 26 bandwagon, this update won’t cover you. Apple hasn’t specified when the feature will join the WatchOS26 train, but obviously, that’ll probably happen sooner rather than later.
It’s worthwhile noting though that with the ‘redesigned’ feature to comply with legal bits, users won’t be able to see the value directly on their wrist, but instead, software will do the processing and it’ll be available on your phone. In other words, the watch will collect the sensor data, and then the phone will display said sensor data to the user. Welcome to the wonderful world of patent nuance.
It’s funny, I was just thinking about this the other day, in relation to what I presume would be new watches in the September timeframe per their annual update cycle. Undoubtedly, there are some people this has impacted, though, I suspect that it changed the purchasing trajectory of very few individuals. I think in part because out of all of the health metrics that modern smartwatches have, I’d argue for most people, this is one of the less important features.
Does it have value? Certainly, when used correctly (specifically around band fit, and when the measurements are taken). But for the most part, many wearables gather this data overnight, and while that can have trending value if the accuracy is good, oftentimes how people wear watches can drive accuracy issues in this realm.
In terms of Apple’s use of this feature, they elevated its visibility when they introduced the Vitals app as part of WatchOS 11 last year. It was part of one of the five metrics they covered within that feature, including:
– Heart Rate
– Respiratory Rate
– Wrist Temperature
– Blood Oxygen
– Sleep Duration
How this looks for US users with respect to Blood Oxygen showing up in the vitals feature, we’ll have to see later today.
In any case, if you were in the camp of purchasing a US-based Apple Watch since that date, you’ve got yourself a new feature today.
With that, thanks for reading!
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Great! I hope this is the case for new purchases. I have been thinking of upgrading my Ultra 1 but did not want to lose blood ox.