What's Apple doing differently?

Simon

I enjoy getting bio data from my watch, like spO2, heart rate, HRV, etc. But currently, I think, all watches except the Apple watch series, fail to deliver proper data.

What I mean is that none of the sensors in Suunto, Garmin, Coros watches and others (except Apple) are able to provide even remotely accurate data. The data is so unreliable that I would even prefer to not having any of these sensors on board. Particularly spO2 is a big joke! They are toys, just taking up space, weighing some grams and eating up some of the battery.

To the Suunto engineers: Find out what Apple is doing differently and make it happen in the next Suunto series Or is maybe a question of saving energy and boosting battery life - because Apple is obviously not good is this regard… yet.

el2thek

@Simon one thing Apple is doing different is throwing a lot more money at it. Which is easy if you have a lot of it.

minimark069

@Simon Apple also like to limit access to their API’s so that they have an advantage over the competition. They want you to be within their infrastructure if you wat to get all of the data. I use shorcuts on my phone to manually populate VO2 and blood oxygen. although I have seen that Apple health now gives access to Suunto App to set cardio fitness.

EzioAuditore

@Simon I do not think it is so much sensor per se rather than having huge user database to be able to train their algorithms. And they are always publishing feature after they have thoroughly tested it (fine tuned the algos?) not just for the sake of having it (see Garmin). Of course they also know to drop the ball from time to time
It might also have to do with HW but not too much (it is easier to get better price from the providers if you are ordering for 10 mil watches vs. 1 mil for example) so they can have more expensive sensors and pay for them same as the cheaper one other brands are paying.

zhang965

the difficulty is to interpreter the RAW values, the sensors will not give you a certain value for a mesure.

Apple has more users, so they can make better algorithm to interpreter the RAW values.

specially if you are already in a small percentage of users (for example I have a big reserved heart rate), you will get less change to get good value for you (with other brand watches).

Apple has more possibility to undersatand and learn it with their data.

suzzlo

@minimark069 this is Apple doing Apple… no diferencies in their strategy here