{"id":14264,"date":"2022-09-10T10:56:03","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T10:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/10\/in-apples-world-youll-die-without-its-watch\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T10:56:05","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T10:56:05","slug":"in-apples-world-youll-die-without-its-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/10\/in-apples-world-youll-die-without-its-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"In Apple\u2019s world, you\u2019ll die without its watch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/9\/9\/23344306\/apple-watch-series-8-emergency-health-heart-monitor\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/9\/9\/23344306\/apple-watch-series-8-emergency-health-heart-monitor<\/a><br \/>\n<code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<div readability=\"126.17859565807\">\n<p id=\"09BmjQ\">Wednesday\u2019s Apple event opened with a warning. The video montage at the start of the event highlighted times when people in emergency situations had their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ux6zXguiqxM\">lives saved by the Apple Watch<\/a>. They used it to call 911 and make phone calls. It flagged dangerous heart conditions. Without the watch, they might not have made it out alive. The implication being: without a watch, <em>you<\/em> might not make it out alive. <\/p>\n<p id=\"jLVUrN\">Apple has been inching toward that sort of messaging from the very beginning. At the first launch in 2014, Tim Cook called the Apple Watch a health device. In 2018, when Apple introduced the feature that could detect irregular heart rate, Cook called the watch lifesaving. Now, instead of pitching the watch as something that could save a life, it\u2019s framed as something people can\u2019t live without.<\/p>\n<p id=\"eJBNio\">The anecdotes used to back that messaging up in the videos \u2014 the people whose watches alerted them to heart problems or helped get them out of trouble \u2014 are worth paying attention to. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/mobile\/apple-watch-lifesaving-health-features-read-5-peoples-stories\/\">Real people<\/a> get help from Apple Watches during emergencies. But Apple is grouping active safety features \u2014 like crash detection or the ability to make emergency calls from the wrist \u2014 in with passive health monitoring features. And there still isn\u2019t clear evidence that the health features on Apple watches can keep people healthier overall. <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"ND3Mz2\"><q>there still isn\u2019t clear evidence that the health features on Apple watches can keep people healthier overall<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"xVTOr5\">Take the heart rhythm feature, for example. It flags when people have abnormal heart rhythms that could indicate atrial fibrillation, a condition that increases risk of stroke or heart failure. It\u2019s pretty good at doing that. But catching atrial fibrillation or another type of abnormal heart rhythm isn\u2019t the same thing as preventing, say, a stroke. Most people who get a cardiac alert from their Apple Watch don\u2019t end up getting diagnosed with a cardiac condition, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/10\/1\/21496813\/apple-watch-heart-monitor-ekg-false-positive\">one study from 2020<\/a>. But screening the alerts can take up time and resources in the healthcare system, and the process can be anxiety-provoking for patients. And even if people <em>do<\/em> have a real, abnormal heart rhythm, there often isn\u2019t much doctors can do about it, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/2\/22958156\/apple-watch-heart-rhythm-detection-benefit\">different study<\/a> from this past March. <\/p>\n<p id=\"TIO9V1\">\u201cIt can cause anxiety for people who it identifies, and if there\u2019s no treatment, then you\u2019re maybe not bringing much benefit,\u201d study author Josh Pevnick, co-director in the division of informatics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/2\/22958156\/apple-watch-heart-rhythm-detection-benefit\">told <em>The Verge<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"ZIRvJ0\">Apple also can\u2019t say if any of the other health-related features on the Apple Watch can actively improve someone\u2019s health. The watch has a feature that can detect blood oxygen levels, but that monitor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/21438576\/blood-oxygen-apple-watch-series-6-reliability\">isn\u2019t cleared<\/a> by the Food and Drug Administration as a medical device. Apple can\u2019t make any claims that it can keep people safer. That doesn\u2019t mean someone who wears a watch can\u2019t use it to try and keep track of their oxygen levels if they contract COVID-19, for example. But if they do, it\u2019s not likely to be a lifesaver: <em>The Verge\u2019s<\/em> review found that it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/21496141\/apple-watch-series-6-review-blood-oxygen-monitor-watchos-7\">wasn\u2019t very reliable<\/a>, and the wrist tends to be a difficult<strong> <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/21438576\/blood-oxygen-apple-watch-series-6-reliability\">spot<\/a> to get accurate blood oxygen readings. <\/p>\n<p id=\"OXtiyY\">Low oxygen readings also shouldn\u2019t be the trigger people use to take a health problem seriously. \u201cNobody should be waiting for their pulse-ox to go down before calling their doctor,\u201d Albert Rizzo, the chief medical officer for the American Lung Association, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2020\/09\/23\/apple-watch-oximeter\/\">told <em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Te8cNF\">The newest health sensor on the Apple Watch Series 8 is a temperature monitor that will initially be used to estimate when someone ovulated. It could also<strong> <\/strong>be helpful in establishing a wearer\u2019s individual temperature baseline \u2014 everyone\u2019s temperature is \u201cnormal\u201d in a different range, says Jennifer Radin, an epidemiologist with the digital medicine division at Scripps Research Translational Institute. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have also been checking to see if signals on wearables can detect when people might be getting sick. Temperature data could make any future <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/6\/15\/22535204\/apple-watch-fitbit-oura-wearables-illness-prediction\">illness detection<\/a> via the watch more accurate, she says. <\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"0RLFCC\"><q>Temperature data could make any future illness detection via the watch more accurate<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"7bHBIx\">But like the blood oxygen monitor, this isn\u2019t an FDA-cleared medical device, so Apple can\u2019t make any claims about its ability to detect or diagnose a medical condition. Also, like the blood oxygen monitor, it might struggle with accuracy, Radin says. The wrist is a tricky spot to take a temperature, as Fitbit users have seen. (Certain Fitbit models, like the Fitbit Sense and Fitbit Charge 4, have temperature sensors). Radin, for example, says that the Fitbit read a colder body temperature when she was in colder rooms \u2014 even though outside temperature doesn\u2019t have major impacts on body temperature.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Ca4E80\">Then there\u2019s the fact that the benefits of this tech may be unequally distributed.<strong> <\/strong>Health features on wearables are typically <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/sleep\/article\/43\/10\/zsaa159\/5902283\">less accurate<\/a> on people with darker skin. Research shows that the light sensors used to do things like track heart rate on the Apple Watch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/1\/21\/22893133\/apple-fitbit-heart-rate-sensor-skin-tone-obesity\">don\u2019t work as well<\/a> on darker skin tones. Fingertip blood oxygen monitors are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/5\/31\/23148251\/blood-oxygen-racial-bias-covid-treatment-pulse-oximeter\">less accurate<\/a> on darker skin, and oxygen monitors built into smartwatches work in the same way. So even if these features save lives, white people would be more likely to benefit from them than people of color. <\/p>\n<p id=\"B7mSM7\">It may be a good marketing tactic to make people think that they need to spend hundreds of dollars on an Apple Watch to keep themselves safe. The fear-mongering presentation made it seem as if the Apple Watch is the only thing standing between people and disaster. It\u2019s no longer being presented as a fitness device, or a curiosity, or a way to learn a bit more about yourself. No, now, it\u2019s a necessary thing to have. That\u2019s a high bar \u2014 and it\u2019s not one it\u2019s met yet. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/9\/9\/23344306\/apple-watch-series-8-emergency-health-heart-monitor\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/9\/9\/23344306\/apple-watch-series-8-emergency-health-heart-monitor<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Wednesday\u2019s Apple event opened with a warning. The video montage at the start of the event highlighted times when people in emergency situations had their lives saved by the Apple Watch. They used it to call 911 and make phone calls. It flagged dangerous heart conditions. Without the watch, they might not have made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In Apple\u2019s world, you\u2019ll die without its watch - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/09\/10\/in-apples-world-youll-die-without-its-watch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Apple\u2019s world, you\u2019ll die without its watch - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source: Wednesday\u2019s Apple event opened with a warning. 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