Masimo CEO believes Apple Watch users are better off without a pulse oximeter - it's "useless"

This week Apple started selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 smart watches in the US without the blood oxygen measurement feature. All because of patent disputes with medical company Masimo and a ban from the US government. Of course, Masimo has not left this news unnoticed and has already commented on it.

Details

Masimo CEO Joe Kiani said that Apple Watch users would be better off without the blood oxygen measurement feature because it is "unreliable."

Apple is masquerading what they are offering to consumers as a reliable, medical pulse oximeter, even though it is not. I really feel wholeheartedly that consumers are better off without it

According to the Masimo CEO, pulse oximetry is useless if the measurements are not taken continuously.

Apple responded by saying that the feature is reliable and can save lives. Incidentally, research backs up Apple's words, not Masimo's. In 2021, researchers at the University of São Paulo compared the performance of the Apple Watch with two pulse oximeters available on the market. They concluded that although the Apple Watch sometimes showed higher SpO2 values, the results were still quite accurate and similar. And a year later, the journal SAGE Digital Health published a study that compared the pulse oximeter in the Apple Watch to the Masimo Radical-7. The results of these devices were very similar.

Source: Bloomberg