Apple Watch 7 In-Depth Scientific SpO2 Test (Oxygen Saturation Review)

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Intro: In a previous video I showed that the Apple Watch Series 6 appears to be a great oxygen saturation tracker. However, what about the new Apple Watch Series 7? That is what we will explore in this video. First, I will briefly introduce what SpO2 or oxygen saturation is, and why you might want to measure it. After that we will look at the performance of the Apple Watch 7 at ground level, followed by two tests I did in a low oxygen environment. We will close things off by comparing the performance of the Apple Watch Series 6 to that of the Series 7, which surprisingly showed quite different results.

What is oxygen saturation? And, why would you want to measure it? In really simple terms it is the percentage of red blood cells in the bloodstream that contain oxygen. And, in general, this percentage should not be too low. Hemoglobin is essential for transferring oxygen from the lungs to all your organs and tissues. The cells in those organs use that oxygen when they generate energy, which is why oxygen is vital for humans. As a byproduct your cells produce carbon dioxide, also called CO2, which hemoglobin transports back to the lungs. Given the importance of oxygen, you generally do not want your oxygen saturation to be too low, however, certain medical conditions will cause a low oxygen saturation. This is the reason why more and more smartwatches include an oxygen saturation sensor, because it can help detect or track those diseases. Examples of these medical conditions include: (1) sleep apnea, where you can basically stop breathing for 30 seconds or more during sleep. (2) lung diseases like COPD, where people have breathing difficulties, and (3) respiratory infections such as COVID-19. In all these cases your blood oxygen saturation can potentially drop to anywhere from the low 90% to 60%. As I mentioned before, normal ranges on the other hand are generally between 95 and 100%.

Conclusion: So, does this mean that the Apple Watch 6 is better at detecting your SpO2 levels than the Apple Watch 7? Well, I’m not sure. They should have the exact same sensor, so in principle they should not behave differently. It could potentially be that some of the internals on the new Apple Watch 7 got changed or shifted around, somehow causing interference. Apple could also have changed something in the firmware. Or, it could also be that there is some variation from unit to unit in production quality when it comes to the sensors. However, my sample size is rather small, and it could also be that the Apple Watch 6 just happened to do well on that particular flight, and the Apple Watch series 7 by chance did worse during the flight I tested it on. However, there are a few things we can say with more certainty based on my data. First of all, the Apple Watch series 7 does not seem to easily detect false positive low values on me. So, if I do get a low value, I should not dismiss it out of hand. However, we also saw that it does not always detect a low value when it is supposed to detect it.

Timestamps:
00:00 General Intro
00:54 Why Measure SpO2?
02:51 Test 1: SpO2 At Ground Level
04:45 Test 2: SpO2 In Low Oxygen Environment
07:26 Test 3: Apple Watch 7 -vs- Apple Watch 6
08:42 What Do These Results Mean?

Видео Apple Watch 7 In-Depth Scientific SpO2 Test (Oxygen Saturation Review) канала The Quantified Scientist