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How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

empirical.health

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Re: How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

#31

Post by jrockway »

tptacek wrote: post #17
zwily wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still don't have the regular oxygen monitor mode back yet because of a patent dispute. That might be part of it.

That's only in the US, right? (My flimsy understanding is that blood oxygen measurement is how at-home sleep studies work?)

At-home sleep studies measure heart rate (maybe ekg, some probe is on your skin), blood oxygen, sound, and the direction of gravity relative to your testing device (to classify results by "back", "side", "prone", etc.)

I did one of these and it was the worst night of sleep I ever had. It's somewhat invasive. Meanwhile, I sleep with my watch every night with no problems.

Re: How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

#33

Post by jerlam »

GaggiX wrote: post #18

The new Apple Watch 10 has an 18-hour battery life, so if you use it while you sleep, you won't have much left. I have no idea how some people can charge their smartwatch 1 or more times a day.

I used to charge my watch every time I took a shower, which was every morning. Never had to think about battery life or charging the watch "out of band". But then again, it wasn't an Apple Watch.

Re: How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

#34

Post by pdpi »

swatcoder wrote: post #7
cromka wrote: post #2

Considering they use accelerometer for it, nothing really stops them from adding this feature to all Apple Watches, potentially even the Series 1, right? Reserving it to Series 10 and 9 really exposes their lack of hardware innovation. I mean, we were talking about them measuring glucose levels for years and this is what we get as a new flagship feature?

They absolutely could be segmenting features by generation even if they could introduce them into earlier products and it's pretty normal across the industry to do so, but "well, it seems to use the accelerometer" provides no evidence of that on its own. Without knowing more details about the implementation, it may rely on combining data from other sensors as well, it may need a certain frequency/resolution from a se…

> , it might place too much demand on compute or power to maintain prior products' expected behavior, etc

Love it or hate it, this mentality of "the feature is technically possible but we won't enable it because we're not happy with the compromises it demands" is, by design, exactly the sort of logic that Apple is known for.

Re: How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

#35

Post by diebeforei485 »

cromka wrote: post #2

Considering they use accelerometer for it, nothing really stops them from adding this feature to all Apple Watches, potentially even the Series 1, right? Reserving it to Series 10 and 9 really exposes their lack of hardware innovation. I mean, we were talking about them measuring glucose levels for years and this is what we get as a new flagship feature?

Probably requires the newer generation accelerometer.

There are also other issues like power consumption overnight. Older watches have smaller batteries and slow charging. People will update the software, use the new features, and complain that Apple software updates are killing the battery (waking up to low battery plus slow charing means not being able to charge up before leaving for work). This has the effect of Apple only backporting new features if they don't consume too much battery.

Re: How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

#36

Post by tlb »

lysace wrote: post #8

The gatekeeping in the CPAP field is so insane. 1. Yes, we should regulate manufacturers intensely. 2. No, we shouldn't regulate to whom companies should be allowed to sell them. The defaults are good enough for most. Provide an easy to use control for max pressure and people will figure it out. Perhaps a knob? I claim: During the past decade, the risk of being maltreated by a personally set-up CPAP unit has been far…

That should have been done from day 1. Now, however, there are 1000s of doctors who make fat stacks prescribing CPAP machines, and they'll fight tooth and nail to not lose their whole business.

Re: How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

#37

Post by xyzAbc_ »

GaggiX wrote: post #18

The new Apple Watch 10 has an 18-hour battery life, so if you use it while you sleep, you won't have much left. I have no idea how some people can charge their smartwatch 1 or more times a day.

It is a non-issue for me with the Apple Watch 9. It's charged super quick e.g. if the battery is low after waking up you can plug it in do your morning routine and pick it up. Vice versa in the evening before going to sleep.

Also did some bike packing this year and charging it with a power bank was also not an issue. At one point my power bank was empty and my apple watch ran out of power as well - this has been the only time I whined for more battery life.

Re: How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

#38

Post by cromka »

a_vanderbilt wrote: post #20
cromka wrote: post #2

Considering they use accelerometer for it, nothing really stops them from adding this feature to all Apple Watches, potentially even the Series 1, right? Reserving it to Series 10 and 9 really exposes their lack of hardware innovation. I mean, we were talking about them measuring glucose levels for years and this is what we get as a new flagship feature?

Sure it probably comes down to sensor specs, but the same question can be asked about Apple Ingtelligence and the new iPhones. If the model is in a private cloud, why is it restricted to newer iPhones? Surely the preprocessing isn't so intensive that only the latest iPhones can do it. It's artificial segmentation in the interest of driving (historically weakening) sales.

Yeah, I thought the same when they announced it. All in all, I feel that artificial segmentation is more frequent than ever and this can't be good indicator for their future growth, can it?

Re: How on-the-wrist sleep apnea detection works

#40

Post by phickey »

lysace wrote: post #8

The gatekeeping in the CPAP field is so insane. 1. Yes, we should regulate manufacturers intensely. 2. No, we shouldn't regulate to whom companies should be allowed to sell them. The defaults are good enough for most. Provide an easy to use control for max pressure and people will figure it out. Perhaps a knob? I claim: During the past decade, the risk of being maltreated by a personally set-up CPAP unit has been far…

They don't advertise themselves as such, for obvious reasons, but there is at least one online CPAP dealer in the US that will sell to you without prescription verification. (Why should I wait 3 months for an appointment, drive an hour round trip, and $50 copay, to renew my rx so I can buy more masks, which wear out after a year or two?)
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