Guidance / Documentation on iOS 18.6.1 Blood Oxygen Saturation

Question

Created 2w

Replies 2

Boosts 0

Participants 2

Are there any HealthKit related changes to be aware of in the new update that enables SPO2 / Blood Oxygen Saturation measurements on certain Apple Watch models within the US?

I’m aware of processing happening on the phone…. But beyond that:

Does this mean values are then saved to Apple Health?
Do these models still take background SPO2 measurements in the same way as other models do?
Are these values then visible in third party iOS apps as normal through HealthKit?
Do these values sync back to the paired Apple Watch HealthKit store for third party apps to access on the Watch?

For reference I have an iOS and WatchOS app that, amongst other features, provides the ability to see your SPO2 values in the Watch app, complications and in the iOS app.

Boost

Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

2w

I haven't had a chance to check yet, but I believe that the oxygen saturation data will be written to the Health store of the iPhone, and be synchronized to the paired Apple Watch if the sampling time is appropriate (watchOS only keeps a subset of the most recent Health data, roughly one week), because I don't see any reason that the data should be processed differently. Apps should be able to access the data using HealthKit APIs (.oxygenSaturation). If you see otherwise, please share here.

I'm unclear the measurement approach part. Hopefully folks who know the detail can jump in.

Best,
——
Ziqiao Chen
 Worldwide Developer Relations.

0

Answer 2

simonfromhelix OP

1w

Hi Ziqiao,

Thank you for the response on this.

All your first paragraph points sound good. Unfortunately I too don't have an affected device so short of importing one, I'm not sure on the exact behaviour.

As for the measurements, yes any further details you can provide would be good including if the background measurements are still taken in the same way on these models and if data can be automatically synced back to iPhone and therefore the HealthKit database when the iPhone is available.

Thank you

0