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In Depth Product Reviews
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
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Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
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The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
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Great! I hope this is the case for new purchases. I have been thinking of upgrading my Ultra 1 but did not want to lose blood ox.
Ray, in the first sentence it should be Watches, not “Watch’s”…
seems like you are using the apple watch a lot these days? would you say you use it more than your fenix 8? seems like ultra is your daily.
I doubt this will be successful in avoiding another lawsuit with Masimo. I bet this workaround also gets banned. Masimo will end up playing patent Whack-a-Mole with Apple until they settle.
In the only actual court case, Masimo was unable to convince a jury that Apple was infringing – 6 of 7 jurors voted against Masimo. Masimo’s import ban was based on a ruling by the International Trade Commission (not a court), a part of CPB, and so their ruling that it did not infringe makes it unlikely that Masimo can/will try to do anything about it. In addition, Apple is currently appealing the ITC ruling to an actual court and has a good chance of winning there.
The patent expires in 2028 and it is more likely that Apple will just wait it out then pay Masimo for a license.
They are already suing the CBP. Whether they have a good case or not, I don’t know. But honestly, it seems a bit of a coincidence that Apple makes massive investments in the US and suddenly they fibd a way to allow this…
Like you mentioned, I wonder if SpO2 will be used in the Vitals app on the watch, that frankly is the most useful way the Apple Watch uses the metric outside the US, so without it being used there the newly restored SpO2 feature still has little value except in the event of truly bad illness where you can self check your SpO2 I suppose.
Patent nuance indeed! That said, hopefully, it will give them leverage with Masimo to allow for on-watch display of result. Blood oxygen has become more important since COVID, so I suspect that through heightened awareness and senior buying the Watch, this feature will be a good one that will enable some additional sales volume.
Thanks for the update. I just updated my Apple Watch 10!
Blood oxygen is useful but usually you can tell you are getting sick with the other metrics (eg. Breathing rate and Reaying HR), you don’t need the OX2.
Still it can be useful if you are going to altitude, but usually you also start to feel bad when it’s affecting you. So all in all good to have, but it’s omission it’s mostly a matter of not checking that mark when considering a new watch purchase.
#CheckBoxMarketing
Hi! Making decisions based on SpO2 Values going to altitude can be a bit tricky, as it requires some basic understanding of human physiology and technology. In my opinion no device that does not show the plethysmography for cross referencing is not reliable. Many factors, such as local perfusion due to temperature etc. heavily influence the signal and can lead to erroneous results. And just knowing your SPO2 does not give you the really relevant number which is oxygen content. For an approximation of this value you also have to know at least your hemoglobin levels. And last but not least the oxygen content in the blood can still be nominally on while the patient already experiences altitude sickness. I absolutely agree that it is a great technology but apple‘s interpretation is not really useful in critical circumstances. Cheers!
Hey Ray! It’s a bit off topic, but at least related: the HR values Vitals gives, is different from the RHR in the Health app, sometimes by almost 10 beats (Vitals usually lower). Apps like Athlytic, Autosleep and HealthFit all give slightly different numbers too. Furthermore, I remember from when I switched from Garmin to Apple, that Garmin gave (usually 4-5 beats) lower RHR. It all seems to be related to used timeframe, filtering, etc. I find a lot of speculation in the inter web about how and what exactly, but no solid explanation.
Could you shed some light on the differences? And is there an ‘industry standard’ that is preferable? Which AW/iOS app comes closest to that? Thanks!!!
Oh, there’s one thing I forgot to mention. It also seems that Vitals, Health and the different 3rd party apps give different trends (elevated on certain days or not). I haven’t figured out a pattern in that. But it makes me wonder which is more reliable in that respect, giving better feedback about fatigue, etc. Just picking one and use that, assuming consistency will be good enough only works if it indeed picks up trends correctly.
Hi Ray,
I love your content – thank you so much for always delivering on high quality reviews.
I was just wondering whether the Whoop 5.0 review will ever be released? I remember that you promised it a while ago but I couldn’t see anything ever since?
Thank you!!
Yeah, it’s in the queue. The queue keeps getting overridden. :-/