thewayne | Entries tagged with apple watch

At this time I can't find a clean link, just this Slashdot summary. I expect more information will be forthcoming.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection determined that the redesigned Apple Watch models do not violate AliveCor's electrocardiogram patents, allowing them to be imported. This decision comes before a consolidated hearing at the Federal Circuit Court regarding the same patents.

From the decision:
We find that Apple Inc. ("Apple") has met its burden to show that certain redesigned wearable devices ("articles at issue") do not infringe one or more of claims 12, 13, and 19-23 of U.S. Patent No. 10,638,941 ("the '941 Patent") and claims 1, 3, 5, 8-10, 12, 15, and 16 of U.S. Patent No. 10,595,731 ("the '731 Patent). Thus, CBP's position is that the articles at issue are not subject to the limited exclusion order that the U.S. International Trade Commission ("Commission" or "ITC") issued in Investigation No. 337-TA-1266 ("the underlying investigation" or "the 1266 investigation"), pursuant to Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, 19 U.S.C. 1337 ("Section 337").

Apparently CBP is the agency that rules in disputes in front of the U.S. ITC.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/07/13/0455202/apple-watch-is-cleared-by-the-cbp-of-infringing-on-the-ecg-patent

This is a big move. Apple has modified the software and 'algorithms' in the Apple Watch 9 and Ultra 2 in ways that they say removes anything that poses a conflict with Masimo's patents, which is the core of the import ban problem. The modifications have been submitted in an appeal to the ITC to allow Apple to resume importation of the watches to the USA.

And if the appeal fails? Apple says their next step is to remove SpO2 monitoring from their Watches in the U.S. market!

This could have quite an extreme effect. I think it would really hammer Watch sales, and also bolster sales of fitness/sports watches from competitors like Fitbit (owned by Google) and Garmin. Exercise enthusiasts want SpO2 information! I specifically bought my wife an Apple Watch two years ago because her medical condition warrants monitoring that data point.

Now, on top of that, if the appeal fails, Apple will withdraw REPAIRS of older model Watches that currently have SpO2 monitoring which violates the Masimo patents! It's unclear exactly what this means: if my wife's watch needs a new battery, will Apple remove the SpO2 sensor if we send it in? That seems to me it would be ripe for a law suit if that were not the point of the repair.

Apple really needs to be slapped upside the head for what they've done, the proper thing to do would be to pay a licensing fee to Masimo and just put all this behind them. I really would like to know why this hasn't been done. There's tons of licenses and patents behind major tech devices like phones and smart watches, this is not an uncommon thing to do. So why won't Apple bend their neck a little bit and get it done? They've wasted a huge amount of time and money to avoid doing it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-14/apple-to-shutter-121-person-san-diego-ai-team-in-reorganization

A Federal appeals court blocked the import ban of Apple Watches on December 27 following an appeal by Apple to the court and to the ITC, allowing Apple to temporarily resume sales of the Watches on its web site until at least January 10 when presumably the ITC might be able to hear Apple's appeal. President Biden did not act on the appeal on his desk before his deadline, allowing the ban to go into effect.

What happens now is anyone's guess. I think Apple was pretty blatant in stealing the tech for monitoring blood oxygen and should be punished, whether it rates a ban or a whomping huge fine, I don't know.

https://www.engadget.com/the-apple-watch-import-ban-is-paused--for-now-183332952.html

Apparently the ban on sales only applies to sales directly from Apple, the watches will still be available from retailers like Target and Best Buy.

Apple has lost an appeal with the ITC to be able to continue sales while their appeal of the decision is in process. This could be overridden by President Biden who has 60 days to override the trade ban, that window closes next week.

Meanwhile, Apple is modifying the algorithm that calculates blood oxygen concentration and hopes to submit the modified algorithm to the ITC and get the ban cancelled. BUT the algorithm is only one of two points in contention: Misen alleged that Apple stole both software AND hardware tech, and the change will not satisfy both issues, I think this is going to be a non-starter.

https://www.engadget.com/apple-is-reportedly-scrambling-to-update-apple-watch-software-to-avoid-a-potential-ban-202710009.html

This article is about the pause motion. It says that the outside-Apple retail channels will only be selling until their supplies dry up, which makes sense since this is an import ban: can't move the watches from China if they can't legally cross the border. The Watch SE sales will continue since it doesn't contain a blood oxygen sensor. I suppose at this point Apple doesn't have any older models left in stock except maybe on the online Apple Store as refurbs. I don't know if those would be prohibited. Apparently Biden's veto window ends on the 25th.

https://www.engadget.com/itc-denies-motion-to-pause-us-apple-watch-ban-until-appeal-is-over-041608763.html

As of the end of September, they will no longer receive OS updates. They can no longer be repaired: no parts, no support, no nuthin'. They are gold-plated worthless paperweights, truly monuments to conspicuous blingy consumption.

And owned by Beyonce and Karl Lagerfeld, Karl apparently never set his up.

$10-20,000 will buy a heck of a nice real mechanical watch that will keep accurate time and will hold its value, if not appreciate. And can continue to be serviced 50+ years from now. I have a friend in Mexico who can rebuild French carriage clocks that are two hundred years old! An Apple Watch that's eight years old? Sadly, now rubbish.

Still, slightly better than that Google watch with the all-glass face that has no parts available for it.

Shortly after the gold Edition was released, a Ceramic and then a Titanium version released. And they'll hit the same end of life wall since they have old electronics in them. It's a sad and inevitable state of affairs creating more ewaste. No idea how recyclable these things are, I wonder how thick the gold plating that a $17,000 watch has. I'm pretty sure gold has increased in value in eight years: strip out the battery and electronics, melt it down, filter out the other metals and you might be able to recover a few thousand bucks.

I have no idea if Apple is still doing these special Edition Watches, I don't keep an eye on their product line that closely.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/the-10000-plus-golden-apple-watch-is-now-obsolete-according-to-apple/

This is very cool. Assuming it's sufficiently accurate, this will be a heck of a game-changer for diabetics. And accuracy is pretty important for this! My Apple Watch does a three-lead ECG to check for AFib, measures my pulse, and SpO2. The pulse and SpO2 results are very comparable to my BP machine's reading and a finger pulse oxymeter with both devices measuring pulse rate. Of course, the accuracy of home medical equipment vs the equipment in a medical practice is always subject to debate.

Temperature is expected to be added at some point. People would like to see BP measured by the watch, but that's very difficult as normally that's measured by a vein being listened to collapsing and re-opening.

https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-no-prick-blood-glucose-monitor-200137031.html

There's a company out there, Masimo, VERY well known in the medical field as it's the leading maker of pulse oximetry sensors for hospitals and professionals.

A decade ago, Apple had a big meeting with Masimo over their SpO2 tech. And later hired ten Masimo engineers, including their Chief Medical Officer. Masimo has had a long-standing battle against Apple for infringing their patents in the Apple Watch Series 6 and later.

And Apple just lost.

Masimo is seeking an import ban, which would utterly gut Apple's Watch sales until they either license Masimo's patents or invent their own tech from scratch. I think a cross-licensing deal is the most likely outcome.

There's one very significant difference between the two company's engineering. The Masimo line uses an LED and receptor to send light through your finger or earlobe to measure your blood oxygen, apparently based on blood color. Apple's is able to read it from a single point of contact, but apparently stole Masimo's intellectual property to develop that.

https://9to5mac.com/2023/01/11/apple-watch-patent-infringement/

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/01/12/225234/apple-watch-patent-infringement-confirmed-as-masimo-seeks-import-ban

I own a Watch 5, so it could be related to mine being on the older side, and I know my battery is a little bit weaker, but it is sucking my battery dry! I pulled it off the charger around 7:30 this morning, and now, less than 12 hours later, I'm getting a warning that it's at under 10% battery charge!

Normally when I get home from work, 9 or 10 hours later, I'm sitting at 50-60% charge! So someone really screwed the pooch on this one. I haven't changed any settings, I'm not doing anything unusual, so I don't know what's up. I don't have time to take a look at any forums right now, but I would avoid the current update. Maybe the next will offer some relief.

Boy, do I have a tale to tell!

Either the OS has something wrong or my battery decided to die a couple of weeks after my Apple Care expired.

I updated to 8.5 on Monday or Tuesday. My normal routine is to sleep with my watch so the vibrating alarm can wake me without disturbing Russet. Get up, put my watch on the charger for a top off. Get home from work, top off watch, exercise, go to bed.

Normally when I get home, the watch is around 50-70% charge. Today I get home, it is DEAD. Bone-cold ded. And I noticed no warning from it. So I charge it up to 100%. Five hours later, I'm getting ready for bed and I decide to top it off. I guess it's probably down around 80% at worse, based on experience.

It was at 41%.

Now, I have not done anything remotely unusual with my watch tonight. Taken no calls through it - it's not a cellular model, I haven't even done any exercise tonight.

(that's one cool thing about it: if it's in Bluetooth range of the phone, and you don't have your phone on you and you receive a call, you can answer calls on your watch! I've done it a couple of times)

So either my battery has completely failed, like I said about two weeks out of my extended warranty, or 8.5 has a serious bug!

I normally run two alarms, my get up in the morning and my get ready to leave work. I ran a 10 minute timer during the day, haven't used the stop watch in a while. Those, exercise, the EKG, and sometimes the pulse monitor are about I use it for.

Thus far, a cursory Google search doesn't show anyone posting about this being a bug with this Watch OS edition yet.

So something weird is going on. I'm going to be leaving for Phoenix Thursday morning for a couple of days, I might be able to squeeze in an Apple Store visit. I've got something else to talk to them about.

At least three new studies opened for enrollment through their Research app. You may need to update the app first, I was able to enroll in the hearing study and also the heart health study. The women's health study is also available for enrollment. Why I cannot delete that from my list, I don't know.

I'm glad I did as my age bracket in the hearing study is pretty low!

It took me maybe ten minutes to buzz through all the questions required, no big deal.

One problem that I did run in to was the app defaults your birth date to today, and it seemed like it wouldn't let me change it from March to December. The issue was I didn't change to an earlier year and it wouldn't let me move the month to a future date.

So now I'm in two more studies in addition to what I'm in at National Institutes of Health! The studies just collect passive data, and theoretically may pop up questions every once in a while. The women's study does ask for data regarding characteristics of your period, that one is more active.

And they probably want you to wear your Watch as much as possible. A friend of mine pretty much only wears his when he leaves the house. To each their own.

Apple never confirms rumors prior to the product launch event, but it is rumored that the Watch 7, which will be revealed (I think) in September or October and usually released a month later, will have the ability to record real-time glucose information! This will be a major thing for diabetics and pre-diabetics! And if you're not one of those two, you can still record and log the information and see if you have a trend developing or not.

Apple has been introducing medical monitoring sensors progressively with their watches. The article mentions that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, says 'we have all these sensors for our cars, and our bodies are far more important.' I completely agree! I personally have little need for a pulse monitor because I'm not an exercise junkie, then I read that article about smart watches detecting COVID early. Now I love the idea!

The Apple Watch 4 had a pulse monitor, the 5 introduced a three-lead ECG, the 6 an SpO2 sensor. The Apple Watch 7 will not be the first smart watch to feature glucose monitoring, apparently Samsung did that with their Watch 4. Still, lots of people prefer the Apple environment, so this opens up that tech for them.

The Apple Watches only work with Apple iPhones and you must have one to configure it and log medical data (you might be able to use an iPad to do that), I don't know if the Samsung watches will work with iPhones or if they require Android phones.

I was reading the comments on the Slashdot thread about this, and some people think it is reading glucose in the interstitial tissue, not directly in blood vessels. This makes sense, as blood vessel positioning is not only variable from person to person, but you might change where you wear your watch during the day, or it might shift a little. Thus an interstitial measurement might make more sense for a little more consistency in measurement. This makes the question of how fast reacting is that measurement compared to blood levels from an event like taking Glucophage is downing a soda or something. I'm not diabetic, I've never studied the disease, I really don't know. Ask me questions about hypogammaglobulinemia, and I can speak with some limited authority.

Still, from what I've read about the accuracy of some of the real-time monitors, it can't be any worse! And if it greatly reduces the number of needle sticks, it will definitely be a blessing.

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/25/apple-watch-series-7-blood-glucose-monitoring/

Crossposts: https://thewayne.livejournal.com/1223483.html

It has to be a smart watch of fitness tracer that has a pulse monitor that also tracks heart rate variability (HRV), such as the Apple Watch 4-6. Some Fitbits and Garmins do this.

Here's the deal. You like to think your heart beats very regularly, the old phrase "his heart beat like a Swiss watch." It doesn't. The pause between each heart beat is slightly variable, hense HRV. HRV is measured in milliseconds and it varies throughout your day. At night it falls into a circadian pattern.

Now for the weird stuff. If you catch COVID, your HRV becomes LESS VARIABLE. Up to something like eight days before you become symptomatic, this is detectable!

They ran a small research program at Mount Sinai Hospital and several other hospitals, the Mount Sinai's program enrolled some 260 people who worked there who had an iPhone 6 or better, and an Apple Watch 4 or better. They loaded a program made in-house called Warrior, the people wore their watches for at least 8 hours a day, and tried to take daily surveys for how they felt. If they started feeling sick, they got a nasal swab PCR test, and if that was positive, they pulled the heart rate data for them and analyzed it. And started finding the data that I mentioned in the previous paragraph!

Now, the Apple Watch, and I assume the others, measure your pulse through shining an LED through your skin and it bounces through and is picked up by a photo diode that measures the result. That's how the pulse oxymeters that they slip on your finger in the doctor's office work. My watch will alert me if my pulse gets too high and stays there for an extended period. As far as I know, Apple isn't doing anything to notify you if your HRV becomes less variable, but the potential is there. They could be waiting for the papers to be peer reviewed or for the FDA to give approval or something. It's just like the fact that my Apple Watch 5 can do a three-lead ECG, it can't detect if I'm having a heart attack.

I don't know about how smart watch tracking works on non-Apple devices since I don't know them, but I can look at my HRV and see how it changes over a week or month. If you look at a year's worth of data, the averages smooth out too far to see any appreciable deviation.

Still, pretty nifty and another way to detect COVID!

There's a link in the CBS article to the Mount Sinai Warrior Watch study. It's not difficult to follow if you skip the more dense paragraphs.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-symptoms-smart-watch/