The Apple watch has a hidden feature in its repertoire, sporting a hidden oximeter that the Cupertino team decided to keep disabled so far.
The iFixit team found a very interesting feature in the Apple Watch after disassembling it: a small pulse meter that could also double as oximeter, as to calculate the ammount of oxygen in the users’ blood.
The iFixit team are infamous around the web for opening up pretty much any gadget they come across and show its insides for the entire Internet to see. The Apple Watch is no exception, so here’s what they did to it. And, amongst all the stuff they found, the most interesting is this oximeter, used to measure the oxigen in blood. Along with the pulse meter, these two features would be pretty useful as to monitor the users’ health and fitness.
According to the iFixit team, Apple didn’t bring this detail up when promoting the model because of the FDA’s normatives (the Food and Drugs Administration of the USA) – otherwise, it would make no sense to put something so expensive inside a gadget and then not use it nor even announce it.
Another motive could be that the FDA’s authorization is still pending, and that all it’s required is a software update to activate it. Regardless, now that this detail has come to light, it’s expected that the Cupertino team will come forward and explain why this oximeter is there, and why is it not being used.
The disassembling at iFixit also brought attention to the high complexity of the gadget, which is why they recommend only experts to open it and tinker with it. The biggest difficulty came when they had to remove the base board of the watch, as all the components were soldered. While each one of those can be replaced on their own, breaking this board pretty much renders the whole watch useless. Now you know: don’t mess with it.
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