If you were wondering whether the sophisticated heart-rate monitor in the Apple Watch does actually generate more accurate results, the answer appears to be a pretty resounding ‘yes.’ Software engineer and SonoPlot founder Brad Larson extracted the raw data from his Apple Watch and compared it to that generated by a dedicated heart-rate monitor. The results can be seen above.
The comparison device, a Mio Alpha, has itself been shown to have 99% accuracy when compared to the gold standard of chest strap monitors.
A teardown of the Apple Watch revealed that it contains a pulse oximeter, suggesting that future updates or models may be able to measure the oxygen content of our blood, useful data for both health and fitness measures. A separate chip analysis reveals plenty of scope for both performance and energy efficiency gains in future models.
Via iClarified