Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-heart-apple/apple-watch-detects-irregular-heart-beat-in-large-u-s-study-idUSKCN1QX0EI

by onetimemanytime • 7 years ago

310 231 7 years ago

reuters.com

ChuckMcM• 7 years ago

Pretty cool. Although its early days yet. I still worry about back doors that would allow the watch to be used as a lie detector surreptitiously.

Despegar2• 7 years ago

Aren't lie detectors junk science?

varjag• 7 years ago

In the same way statistical spam filters are junk† science. They suffer from false positives/negatives issues, but they perform a lot better than coin toss.

† Granted spam filters literally deal with junk..

germinalphrase• 7 years ago

Only if you think their purpose is to detect lies.

raincom• 7 years ago

It is not 'junk' as long as Federal Agencies use it!!

joshvm2• 7 years ago

They're based on the idea that if you're made to tell a lie, your body will react in some way (sweating, faster heartbeat etc) compared to a baseline measurement. There is a whole field of psychology around lying and additionally agents are ostensibly trained to detect visual cues that someone is telling a lie.

The premise isn't exactly junk - hardware lie detectors are basically trying to identify a fight or flight reaction, which some people will exhibit when lying. Have you ever been confronted with a fact (did you eat that cookie?), lied, and felt a rush or a feeling of panic? That's what lie detectors try to detect.

The problem is it's possible to fool a polygraph and it's prone to bias. For example some people get nervous when asked a question, even if innocent. It's theatre in some sense, and it shouldn't be assumed as 100% accurate, but there are plenty of people who will break out into a cold sweat when you ask them a question they don't want to answer truthfully.

staticassertion2• 7 years ago

I'm more concerned with the data being sold/ leaked and it impacting insurance premiums.

threeseed5• 7 years ago

When has Apple ever sold or leaked data to third parties ?

ERD0L• 7 years ago

Meanwhile WearOS is a joke both in hardware and software

pensatoio• 7 years ago

I understand qualms with the software, but what about the hardware is a joke?

MBCook3• 7 years ago

The Qualcomm chips used are a few years old because there isn’t enough demand for Qualcomm to make faster ones.

So it’s WAY behind the chip in Apple watches in terms of performance.

Even if wear OS was better (never used it myself) it couldn’t compete.

maxhille• 7 years ago

I am pretty happy with mine (Fossil Sport). Lasts about 2 days on a charge while the display is always on, has all the sensors and most important, I can run my own software on it.

hannob• 7 years ago

It should be noted though that this study does not say that an Apple Watch will overall provide medical benefits. It also doesn't follow automatically from the fact that it detects things with a certain reliability.

The interactions of early detection and medical benefits and downsides are complicated and it will require a lot more science to figure out whether a device like an Apple Watch can provide benefit.

Despegar2• 7 years ago

It also doesn't follow automatically from the fact that it detects things with a certain reliability.

There's more information on this here:

https://www.apple.com/healthcare/site/docs/Apple_Watch_Arrhy...

jacquesm• 7 years ago

Like with any medical test: if you do more tests you will find more incidence.

The same thing happened with various forms of cancer screening. If we were to test everybody for everything very few people would be found to be 100% and a lot of unnecessary procedures would be the result.

Given the obesity problem this result should not be a surprising finding anyway.

eriktrautman• 7 years ago

Are you advocating that we shouldn't bother testing instead? I'd imagine that many people would be quite interested in knowing the ways they're not 100% that might actually kill them... like cancer.

ColanR• 7 years ago

It's a question of false positives and false negatives. Most medical tests have a decent percentage of both.

Screening test results may appear to be abnormal even though no cancer is present. A false-positive test result (one that shows there is cancer when there really isn't) can cause anxiety and is usually followed by more tests (such as biopsy), which also have risks. [1]

[1] https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colorectal-s...

EliRivers• 7 years ago

If you simply go looking, you'll find a lot of abnormalities associated with various conditions that turn out to be false positives and, for that person, fairly normal.

Here's a piece on the subject; http://www.journalgazette.net/features/20180604/anomalies-in...

pfranz• 7 years ago

Nothing specific to this article, but this comes up often in medicine. Sure, you can pay to run more tests, find some things earlier (along with some false positives), but the outcomes and treatment aren't any different than if you waited for more obvious symptoms and could take a more accurate test.

arrrg• 7 years ago

Just imagine all the stress and suffering caused by the misdiagnosis and unnecessary visits to the doctor and unnecessary tests and imagine that on a grand scale (to say nothing of wasted resources).

I’m not saying that to automatically disqualify and increase in the availability of testing – but it does have to be implemented with the proper care and caution.

astura5• 7 years ago

It's complicated... Not all instances of cancer are harmful, more men die with prostate cancer then die because of of it and thyroid cancer is found as an incidental in ~30% of autopsies. More detection can cause more harm than good, as what happened in South Korea with thyroid cancer screening, a huge increase in detection and treatment without any decrease in survival rates.

Here's a good overview:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screeni...

Info about thyroid cancer over diagnosis:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/09/5275692...

eeeeeeeeeeeee4• 7 years ago

Ok, so what? Shouldn’t we be cheering the fact that a consumer device can potentially detect this without ever requiring a much costlier visit to the ER or doctors office?

My Apple Watch was a few hundred bucks. My latest ER visit for tachycardia (idle heart rate over 100) came to over $3000, with health insurance. And all they did was tests.

yakshaving_jgt3• 7 years ago

I can't fathom how anyone would pay this.

For less than three grand, you could fly to Europe for a weekend, stay in a five star hotel, and have all the tests done while you're there.

ReidZB• 7 years ago

The magic here is that this is baked into an otherwise useful, relatively cheap non-medical device. That device (and this test) are also entirely self-service, and the cost for both is borne by the consumer, effectively elective.

Also: The heart beat monitoring features account for some portion of the Apple Watch's price, surely, but I suspect for most people this feels like a "free" benefit.

im3w1l• 7 years ago

Like with any medical test: if you do more tests you will find more incidence.

I've heard this line parroted a lot but a robust Bayesian analysis should mitigate this.

Like by setting appropriate thresholds you should be able to either

* do the same amount of interventions with more of them being helpful

* maintain the rate of helpfulness but doing more procedurees.

or even a mix of the two. Testing all the things all the time on all the people would be a boon if we just did it correctly.

robertlf• 7 years ago

I stopped reading at "funded by Apple Inc."

gatherhunterer• 7 years ago

Most medical studies are not publicly funded[1]. You just dismissed the majority of medical research done in the U.S. in at least the last ten years. There are potential problems with private funding compromising studies but without any specific complaint this is just a baseless dismissal.

1. https://hub.jhu.edu/2015/12/15/industry-funded-clinical-tria...

MBCook3• 7 years ago

Plus, this study had 400k people in it. This isn’t exactly a small “well we tried it on 20 people” study, it’s much higher quality.

briandear• 7 years ago

Do you think Apple and Stanford have a reason to falsify their results? Is it a sane, credible reason, based on actual history of those organizations falsifying medical research? Or, is it just an opposition related to malfunctioning tin-foil headgear? Is Stanford not a credible enough institution?

saagarjha6• 7 years ago

Do you think Apple and Stanford have a reason to falsify their results?

Of course they do. It's just that if they did, there would likely be huge consequences for them, which makes one hope that they didn't do so in this case.

Zanni• 7 years ago

If I'm reading this right, the Apple Watch was actually more accurate in detecting arterial fibrilation episodes than the ECG patch they used for initial confirmation. The Apple Watch identified 2,000 people. The patch confirmed 33% of those, but then another 51% were confirmed by some undisclosed method.

tedivm3• 7 years ago

That's not an accurate interpretation. Atrial fibrillation episodes are not constant- they come and go, and different people will have them at different frequencies. It's possible that people had an episode while wearing the watch but haven't had any episodes while wearing the ECG.

ECGs are also less comfortable to wear than watches, so it's possible the people they sent them to didn't wear them as often (it's even possible that they didn't wear them at all).

alsetmusic• 7 years ago

A proper study would probably compare the amount of hours of data.

SlowRobotAhead• 7 years ago

All good arguments for the watch it seems. I was a little eye roll at the ECG feature Apple added, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.

rootusrootus8• 7 years ago

They mention ECG patch, so it might not have been too bad. Those are good for longer studies than a typical Holter monitor, and they are waterproof so you can shower with them. I agree that a real Holter monitor is a bit of a pain in the ass and probably would affect compliance rate.

aboutruby2• 7 years ago

I saw a few posts on Reddit about how the Apple Watch basically saved people's life:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/a40qm5/heading_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/9zrdq5/how_an_a...

I'm sure there is a lot more.

(Also all the people losing weight)

fargo• 7 years ago

Sorry for the stupid question, what do you mean by people losing weight?

aboutruby2• 7 years ago

Here are two examples:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/8nk4vr/apple_wa...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/8pm0qr/my_apple...

p1esk• 7 years ago

It tracks your calories, exercize time, and number of hours you’ve been active (walked for at least a minute).

threeseed5• 7 years ago

Apple added gamification elements to the Apple Watch.

“Closing the rings” which means completing 100% of the move, stand and exercise targets adds a competitive element to fitness which has worked well for many users.

Eric_WVGG2• 7 years ago

Here's a good one from a well-known tech journalist, from the very first Watch. http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/06/16/apple-watch-my-most-pe...

mehrdadn5• 7 years ago

I wish there was a heartbeat-measuring watch with the battery life of a dumb watch. My watch goes like 5 years (I've lost count honestly) on its original battery. I'd love to have something watching out for my health but I just can't see myself moving to a smartwatch that needs recharging every 18 hours when I don't even need the smartness crap...

paxswill• 7 years ago

Purely anecdotal, but my Series 3 goes about two days on a full charge. I can usually get away with just charging it in the morning while I shower and get ready, and otherwise just wearing all the time. Workouts deplete the battery more, mostly because I’m usually using the GPS in addition to the more frequent heart rate monitoring.

thisacctforreal• 7 years ago

A fitbit might be a good match, my girlfriend's Alta HR lasts a handful of days between charges.

I bought it for her primarily for the hypnograms.

crdb• 7 years ago

My Amazfit Bip ($99) is supposed to have 45 days and lasts about 30 days on minute heart rate monitoring intervals (based on a month and a half of trying it).

I wanted something a bit smaller, to fit under the shirt cuff, so got the Mi Band 3 ($50) which lasts about 10 days (probably 20 days if you don't allow it to display notifications and set a higher HR interval).

The Mi app is pretty bad, which forces you to buy an extra app (for me, Notify & Fitness, for Google Fit sync).

brandonb4• 7 years ago

You might like the Withings Steel HR, which has a traditional mechanical watchface, a heart rate sensor, and about 25 days of battery life: https://www.withings.com/us/en/steel-hr/36rgw/shop?screen=de...

Some Garmin and Fitbit models have good battery life — often about a week.

nhooyr• 7 years ago

get a wireless charger and put it on your nightstand, problem solved.

ezconnect• 7 years ago

I bought a 9 usd band that travks heartbeat every minute that last for a week or more before recharging

ndnxhs• 7 years ago

My pebble watch lasts 10 days. Its kind of an awkward length though because things that I charge nightly I do all at once but I often forget to change my watch. Thankfully it falls back to dumb time only mode for a day before turning off

martin_bech• 7 years ago

My apple watch 4th edition, gets about 3 days on a charge, and charges quite fast. Its very easy to manage.

kylekyle• 7 years ago

I've done a fair amount of research and am still pretty conflicted. I really only care about having a smart watch for the gym. I definitely need music and heart rate tracking but I would also like some app support for workout tracking. Most recently I've started using http://fitbod.me. My main goal is to not carry my phone around at the gym and not be any more connected (read: distracted) than I currently am with my phone.

The Garmin Forerunner 645 Music covers what I need short of the app support. The Nike Apple Watch Series 3 looks very tempting but I really don't like the aesthetic and I feel like it's just perpetuating the problem of being too online all the time. Though it's a far more feature rich device for less than the 645.

I'm thinking I'll sit back and wait for broader app support.

camelNotation• 7 years ago

You should look at brands like Garmin and Polar, then. Samsung and Apple put these bright, colorful OLED panels on their smartwatches and drain the batteries too fast. Garmin in particular does a good job of building smartwatches with almost all the features of a Galaxy Watch or Apple Watch, but with a lot more battery life because they aren't wasting so much energy on the bright, pretty screen. Instead, they focus on lower energy LCD panels with backlights. The reason they do this is largely because they are fitness and sports focused and you don't want your watch dying on a two day hike and leaving you stranded, but in day-to-day activity I love having that extra battery life. It makes the drawbacks of a less vibrant screen totally worth it. I still get all my emails, texts, calls, music, etc. except I also get sleep tracking (because I'm not taking it off every time to charge) and less stress.

eldenbishop• 7 years ago

The Suunto 9 GPS watch claims up to 120 hours between charges depending on how you configure the GPS. It's mostly marketed to ultra-runners and hikers who need that kind of battery life.

astrostl• 7 years ago

Thank you for posting these! This inspired me to take the time to run an ECG, and enable auto-ECGs with notifications.

melling• 7 years ago

In the future everyone will wear a smartwatch. My thesis was health and safety.

https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo...

MereInterest• 7 years ago

When tech companies are subject to the same level of data protection as health care providers, complete with with HIPAA penalties for failure, then I might trust them with medical data.

toomuchtodo• 7 years ago

Would HIPAA not apply to tech companies when handling health data?

cpuguy83• 7 years ago

There are problems with HIPPA for sure. In fact I trust my doctor's patient portal less than most things I log into.

threeseed5• 7 years ago

No they won’t.

The market for luxury watches is growing every year and despite the arrival of different technologies e.g. Quartz, Digital they are still around. I actually think this will be an emerging market as people start to revolt against technology being everywhere.

And for me smart watches are on whole detrimental to a person’s health since they raise stress levels through constant notifications.

taurath• 7 years ago

I’ve turned off all notifications on my watch other than texts and phone calls - it’s nice to be able to walk outside without my phone, but still can call someone if we lose each other.

nine_k• 7 years ago

It's funny how a complex and intricate technology of mechanical watches ceases to be seen as technology in 300 years.

mr_toad3• 7 years ago

Hopefully in the future they’ll be slimmer, cheaper, and last more than a day without recharging.

ddebernardy• 7 years ago

If there are any MDs around, I'd be curious to know if there's some kind of data-driven baseline about there being a regular heart beat to begin with, or if there being one is an underlying assumption that's taken for granted.

(Either way, kudos to Apple for contributing to health science.)

thornjm• 7 years ago

Med Student here so I know just about nothing...

We’ve monitored hearts for a long time. It is common for a heart to skip a beat or maybe double a beat occasionally (a stethoscope on your own heart for 30 mins would demonstrate that).

I don’t think Atrial Fibrillation is ever a normal sign.

sisu20192• 7 years ago

I really like the humble attitude. When I was studying CS I was like "let me through, I know everything" (I don't). Good for you and thanks for the info.

plg• 7 years ago

When ECG in Canada?

deanclatworthy• 7 years ago

Seems Apple is having problems getting the ECG feature approved outside the US. I've heard nothing for a few months from the EU about this passing over this side of the pond.

MBCook3• 7 years ago

If they’re going to announce more countries I would expect it at WWDC.

gambiting• 7 years ago

Yeah. My wife is actually looking to buy one(here in UK) but when we discovered in an Apple Store that it doesn't have ECG support we decided to hold off for now. Maybe at some point once it's enabled.

buboard• 7 years ago

i would like this in a watch that doesnt need charging every week. i dont care for touchscreens and games.

kelnage• 7 years ago

You may be interested in a Garmin smartwatch then. They are primarily designed for exercise, so have very good optical-based wrist heart rate sensors, and are designed to minimise battery usage - I can easily get a week and more out of mine (a Garmin Fenix 5), even whilst making heavy use of its GPS and other functionality.

elektor• 7 years ago

I use an Amazfit BiP which does steps+ heart rate + sleep and lasts a month on battery. Would highly recommend to you.

rimliu• 7 years ago

Withings are about to introduce something with this capability.

threeseed5• 7 years ago

It really depends on if you sleep with your watch or not.

If you don’t then battery life is really irrelevant because you can rest your watch on a pad and have it charge just like if it were a normal watch.

saagarjha6• 7 years ago

Although, this can matter if you are separated from a place to charge your watch, or somehow forget to charge it.

dbg314154• 7 years ago

Yeah, it's good at spotting issues... but man, health monitoring creeps me out.

I don't want to live in a world where insurance companies and employers force us to hand over this data.

Just feels really creepy to me. Like way over the line.

hellofunk2• 7 years ago

I don't want to live in a world where insurance companies or employers have any need or incentive to have this data. Like most developed nations outside the U.S. for example.

adventured• 7 years ago

Universal healthcare systems merely change the point of information demand based on who is responsible for the cost, from private companies to governments.

The notion that the authoritarian-creep and spy-on-everyone mentality that continues rapidly spreading in most developed nations, won't apply to this type of healthcare data, is obviously false. There is no entity that wants to track people more than governments (and in all possible regards), it's not even remotely close. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the US, France, UK, Australia, South Korea, Japan or Germany.

dbg314154• 7 years ago

I'm from the US, but I live in a country with "national health care" and... look it sucks. You know what I miss? 1990s era health care for tech workers in the US. When you went in and everything was covered for a $20 co-pay.

You want a specific medication, or a non-generic medication in Australia? Too bad. It's not that it costs more, you just can't get it. Things like Wellbutrin are as illegal as crack. And if you do something like tell your doctor that you tried a bunch of medications and Vyvanse is what works best... they'll literally treat you like someone trying to score opiates. They don't like it when you have an opinion on medications, and you get all sorts of lectures about how bad drug advertising is. It's a very dated, "I'm the doctor, you have to do what I say..." mentality.

And the wait times... "Oh, did you need back surgery? Because you're under 65 and you are over weight, that means you're now bottom on the list... and you'll have to wait for 1-2 years to have this done." A co-worker of mine here is a larger woman, but she just paid out of pocket rather than go on a 2-year wait list. Oh, and the recovery room... there were like 4 people crammed in one room sharing one bathroom. Doctors came in and were talking about care and medical details, in front of total strangers and her visiting guests. No privacy at all. The government would absolutely use health / fitness data to prioritize care... it's not that everyone gets unlimited treatment, they still have budgets.

What else? Remember those classes in college where you couldn't understand the professor because he had such a thick accent? Yeah, that's pretty much every doctor here now. You go to the ER and you need stitches, you end up waiting for a few hours and when you're finally seen the doctor is like, "Why weren't you escalated faster?" "I couldn't understand what your triage nurse was saying, she doesn't speak English... and I haven't got a clue if she understood me... she just told me to sit and wait..." My friend needed 14 stitches and waited over 3 hours in the ER holding a bloody towel on her hand. Only got someone to do something when she started dripping blood on the floor after it had soaked through the towel.

Anyway I know health care sucks in the US, and I do want to get to a point where governments pick up the bill... but holy hell, if the choices at present are what we have in the US or what they have in Australia... man, they both really suck. If you're someone with a job, and with any money, the US model works slightly better.

threeseed5• 7 years ago

You just invented this situation in your head.

No one is handing over health data to insurance companies or employers.

inetknght• 7 years ago

Yet.

dbg314154• 7 years ago

* Swiss Insurance Company Will Charge Higher Premiums For Lazy People | Popular Science || https://www.popsci.com/swiss-insurance-company-will-charge-h...

lez• 7 years ago

Apple Watch is technically capable of detecting your heart rate. NSA is capable of enforcing Apple to feed this data to them, real time if needed. Never wear an Apple Watch during lying to powerful people, your heart rate will give you away.

dave842• 7 years ago

That would be overkill considering they can extract your heart rate in real time from a video.

xtagon• 7 years ago

How is this possible? Honest question, I've never heard of this before.

brandonb4• 7 years ago

I work at a related company (Cardiogram), and there's a surprising amount of signal locked in the humble heart rate sensor -- we've run multiple studies with UCSF showing accurate detection of sleep apnea, high blood pressure, and even diabetes using off-the-shelf heart rate sensors and a deep neural network, DeepHeart: https://blog.cardiogr.am/screening-with-wearables-what-do-th...

If you're an engineer or payer relations expert and you'd like to help build the future of healthcare, definitely drop us a line! hello@cardiogr.am. We're especially looking for Javascript engineers, Android engineers, and salespeople with payer experience.

vowelless• 7 years ago

Link doesn't work.

brandonb4• 7 years ago

Weird - I was able to reproduce an error in loading https://blog.cardiogr.am/screening-with-wearables-what-do-th... by refreshing. I'll investigate, but for now, try refreshing the page.

bhl• 7 years ago

Do you know of an open dataset to experiment on?

sdrothrock2• 7 years ago

The link isn't working for me (in Japan, if that helps) after the renewal, still.

I couldn't find a copy of the page in Google's cache or in the wayback archives.

I'm curious since I don't know anything about Cardiogram at all; is DeepHeart a part of Cardiogram? That is, are all of those detection capabilities part of your app if I have an Apple Watch?

sdrothrock2• 7 years ago

I'm past the edit time limit, but I went to look up the app and downloaded it -- apparently the domain issue is also blocking new signups. :/

atomical• 7 years ago

Do you have to do another study each time you release new firmware?

sweetheart• 7 years ago

I’ve tried sending an email to the address you posted here, but the email is failing to send to that address. Very interested in talking about engineering opportunities though!

joe-stanton• 7 years ago

Heads up, your DNS is still broken! Will try emailing you a little later...

imglorp• 7 years ago

Payer relations?

Does this mean insurance companies are interested in this heart rate data stream, and are making inferences from it? Are they already collecting it? Do any of these wearables provide this data to these companies without the user's express permission?

Is this a good thing?

peterbraden• 7 years ago

Some feedback - your website is very lacking in information about what your app actually does, what devices it works with etc. The blue "personal healthcare assistant" looks like a link but isn't.

I'm curious about your service, but without knowing if it's compatible with my smartwatch etc, I wouldn't go as far as downloading the app.

Waterluvian• 7 years ago

I can see a future where my doctor gives me a wristband to wear for a month then return as a part of each annual checkup.

Though maybe it gets even better than that and we just all start wearing watches again.

I want that feature but I'm not a watch wearer.

GuiA2• 7 years ago

The future is your insurance company making you wear a smart watch 24/7 if you don’t want to pay a huge premium. I predict it’s going to be a huge quagmire over the next decade or so.

chii2• 7 years ago

It would be a huge invasion of privacy for an insurance company to do this - and not only privacy, but the fact that insurance companies can discriminate based on this data means that the healthy don't end up subsidising the unhealthy (which is the whole point of insurance). SO premiums go up regardless, and only the insurance company win in this scenario.

Right now, the right choice is to combat this problem before it becomes a real problem. Before it sets root as cultrually acceptable to hand over your biometrics data to private companies without the right payment and compensation.

jacksproit• 7 years ago

It'll probably be more like auto insurance companies where they offer a voluntary tracking program and if you're better than average you get a discount

akg_67• 7 years ago

Insurance companies are already doing this. My friend gets $5 discount on his monthly premium for wearing a garmin wristband.

saagarjha6• 7 years ago

The real issue is how this is implemented. Will they just require that you wear the watch (and act on the data when it shows you have an issue), or share all the health data collected with the insurer?

PakG13• 7 years ago

It's already happening. Some insurers are giving lower rates to people who wear this stuff and allows the insurer to see the data for better pricing premiums for each individual. I also had purchased stock in a small cap company that makes tech to allow telemedicine to be possible.

tokyodude• 7 years ago

I can see a future where Apple charges your doctor 30% of her fees for access to the heart data in their walled garden

zzzeek2• 7 years ago

this is kind of a trivial question but is the apple watch HR monitor known to be better than that of FitBit? I got a Charge 3 for Christmas and I barely even wear it anymore, as it would say things like "95 bpm" when I'm working out and I'm clearly at around 135 bpm. you can say things like "oh wear it higher / lower / tighter" whatever but if it's that prone to being 40 bpm off the mark, what use is it.

dareiff2• 7 years ago

One-off comment, but the new band has really improved HR detection for me. I went from the rubber strap (with holes every centimeter or so) to the adjustable velcro strap and it's night & day. It went from being 100% useless on runs to _actually_ keeping accurate detection the entire run.

julien_c2• 7 years ago

What do you mean by the velcro strap? Is it the "Sport loop" (https://store.storeimages.cdn-apple.com/4982/as-images.apple...)?

tibbon• 7 years ago

My cardiologist has looked at it when I'm hooked up to a full 12-lead EKG and has noted how pretty solid the measurements seem to be. If it's on a slightly looser setting, sometimes it initially catches only half the tempo for a second, but then locks in. This is on an Apple Watch 4.

jrnichols• 7 years ago

my Apple Watch series 2 is quite accurate. I've hooked myself up to a cardiac monitor (I'm a paramedic, and sometimes do this as an equipment test anyway) and it was spot on.

appleiigs• 7 years ago

In my experience, FitBit Charge HR 2 was useless. Same issue with you where it would 40 bpm off or provide no reading at all.

Apple Watch 3 was pretty bad too. It would give inaccurate often enough that I couldn't use it for training in a heart rate zone. For example, I'd be walking for warm up and it would give a reading of 160 at the beginning, then back down to 110, then 10 mins later back to 160. I can't imagine the Apple Watch being a medical device with lives depending on it.

Garmin 935 has been great. It has the most accurate HR and GPS readings.

zzzeek2• 7 years ago

this is the thing I wonder if the mechanism by which wrist-based HR monitors work (seems to be optical) is just not effective for some people, for some physiological reason.

Ensorceled• 7 years ago

My Apple 3 is dead on unless I'm very sweaty or wearing it loosely (it only needs to be snug). Confirmed with my BP monitor and my Garmin's chest strap (before I retired that system).

I'm a runner so it gets a bit upset when my resting heart rate gets below 50 but other than that ...

mr_toad3• 7 years ago

I haven’t had this experience. I can push my heart rate up to about 165 running uphill. Considering my age, that’s pretty close to what my maximum HR should be. Conversely, I can get it down to about 45 when sitting very still. Much lower and I’d be unconscious.

It’s possible yours was just faulty. Fitbit aren’t known for their quality control.

idDriven4• 7 years ago

Public Service Announcement: You can just check your pulse manually for free. AFIB will be irregularly irregular.

As as comparing cancer to AFIB it's definitely not accurate to compare the two directly. A very common cause of AFIB in people younger than 60 for example is 'holiday heart' short-term AFIB related to binge drinking, it is generally self-resolving and transitory, and generally does not require treatment especially if asymptomatic. Cancer to my knowledge generally does not self-resolve.

danieltillett• 7 years ago

Actually most cancers do self-resolve in that your immune system kills them before they get large. This is one of the reasons being on immune suppression drugs leads to a significantly higher risk of developing cancer that gets large enough to be detected.

idDriven4• 7 years ago

Yeah I should change the wording above to established cancer, thanks.

saagarjha6• 7 years ago

Public Service Announcement: You can just check your pulse manually for free.

Not continuously throughout the day, you can't.

idDriven4• 7 years ago

60 Beats Per Minute feels a lot different than 100 BPM, which feels different than 140+ BPM. Once you get a feeling for how different BPM's feel to you if you have an abnormal elevation, like rapid heart rate at rest that would be an indication to manually check your pulse.

I'm just trying to say if you want to buy one that's cool but the premise that's it some kind of must-have life-saving accessory is questionable to me for the majority of people.

beachy• 7 years ago

I have AF and once you're aware of it it's pretty easy to tell when your heart's "gone out". Quick check of pulse confirms it as you say.

The trouble is really when you're first getting to grips with it. That's the scary time.

Everyone's AF is somewhat different though I imagine.

idDriven4• 7 years ago

Thanks, apparently this has been one of my less popular comments. I saw quite a few people in the comments before i posted asking if their charge/apple/whatever monitor was accurate and it's likely better to manually check heart rate to see if it's accurate, as opposed to going off random internet data on whether a device is trustworthy.

Monitors tend to be potentially less accurate than manual apical pulse when there is an arrhythmia present, the gold standard for any cardiac is auscultation, aka stethoscope, for a full minute by trained professional.

Medicine is really complex is the short version. Also Sinus Arrythmia is not uncommon.

goombastic• 7 years ago

Waiting for insurance providers to deny payments basis this data next.

redsavagefiero• 7 years ago

A lot of people are overlooking the ultimate consumers of this data or being the usual SV shills. This data and all PHI/PII can be resold to insurance packaged in slightly different ways. Have fun with your 20th century issues in the 21st.

gleenn• 7 years ago

While I think your fear is an important one to keep in mind, Apple doesn't share your data without your consent, and the data is encrypted.

https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

ip26• 7 years ago

It's always seemed to me like accurate risk profiling is a positive thing. We don't mind that smokers pay higher rates, for example. After all their projected medical costs are more than double. Otherwise, nonsmokers would be forced to subsidize the choices of smokers.

Things like congenital issues should be protected (not a choice), but if someone leads an unhealthy lifestyle and actuaries can work out a good expected cost, why not? Is that so different from a risky driver?

hatsunearu2• 7 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sv3Kuurhw

Super underrated channel (British humor, anyone)--shows how the Apple Watch's ECG feature can be actually bad for overall health.

edit: though the amount of positive outcomes (the reddit thread) makes me reassess this...

lucb1e• 7 years ago

Edit: reading further in the thread, this comment said it better than I did (though they aren't speaking about the video, it makes the same argument): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19409734

It should be noted though that this study does not say that an Apple Watch will overall provide medical benefits. It also doesn't follow automatically from the fact that it detects things with a certain reliability. The interactions of early detection and medical benefits and downsides are complicated and it will require a lot more science to figure out whether a device like an Apple Watch can provide benefit.

The only thing I would add is the last thing I mentioned in this comment, namely that you might consider buying one for a higher risk person like your grandpa rather than yourself.

--- (original comment) ---

Watched the whole thing, basically the argument is that overdiagnosis leads to people worrying (increasing stress) when the doctor says "based on this I can't give you drugs since the drugs aren't completely harmless", or the doc might recommend follow up tests that give ambiguous results and escalate (in the example) to an operation to test a certain thing where the patient has a 1 in 3k chance of dying from the procedure itself. Additionally, experiments where they strap a bunch of such devices to healthy patients (basically what apple's watch does as well, especially the young and modern people will buy it) and while it lead to more diagnoses, it didn't decrease the chance of stroke or heart attacks in that group.

I don't think any of this is a significant reason not to buy it. I'm not going to buy one for various reasons, but this isn't one of them. It is good to be aware of the arguments, though: it might lead to someone buying one for their grandma rather than healthy and young(ish) self.

hatsunearu2• 7 years ago

I'd definitely buy this for my gramps or something like that, and I'd buy it myself if I had an iPhone, just because I like smartwatches.

But what I am concerned about is that this kind of stuff is a Pandora's box that can cause some undeserved panic...

eecc• 7 years ago

I don’t understand, even Reuters is giving random numbers:

A third of those whose watches detected an irregular pulse were confirmed to have atrial fibrillation using the ECG technology, researchers said.

Some 84 percent of the irregular pulse notifications were later confirmed to have been AF episodes, data showed.

What is it then, 1/3 or 4/5?

Dylan168074• 7 years ago

The ECG only confirmed 1/3, so they tried better tests and got it to 5/6.

xaduha• 7 years ago

Related https://cardio-cloud.ru

Dongle+app supports Android and iOS.

No prices on En page though, but the official price for the Russian market is 3500 RUB ~ $54

jplayer01• 7 years ago

I just want this kind of thing to finally hit consumer devices. I've been reading about this stuff for years now, and it's really great stuff, but it's all limited to the people who get to be in these studies.

baxtr• 7 years ago

So the Watch is no consumer device?

DennisAleynikov2• 7 years ago

It's an iPhone accessory, not really a consumer product. It can't be used outside of the apple ecosystem without involving an iphone in the process and that stops it from being a widely adopted wearable product. Apple's marketshare is dropping with every yeah and they sell only roughly double the previous smartwatch incumbent, samsung despite apple having a generally more affluent userbase.

I hope this tech reaches more people with less restrictive hardware options.

known• 7 years ago

Does it display systolic and diastolic numbers?

JasonADrury• 7 years ago

If anyone is interested, I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to break into the medical space from a consumer perspective. We are now ready to move to the next step and I’m looking for co-founder positions to fill important roles. Check out https://www.kb4e.com Would love to hear from you if our mission resonates with anyone.

tuxguy• 7 years ago

Some insightful analysis here : https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1106956668439617537.html

xtrimsky1234• 7 years ago

I have a watch with also an irregular heart beat detection (Garmin). It sometimes detects irregular heart rates when I play video games. Usually in a very intense scenario such as a top 3 in a battle royale game.

Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

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