Apple wants the Apple Watch to be able to measure a user’s oxygen saturation

Apple wants the Apple Watch to be able to measure a user’s oxygen saturation. The company has been granted a patent (number US 11717197 B2) for a “physiological monitoring system for measuring oxygen saturation.”

About the patent

In the patent Apple notes that the use of technology in the medical profession and the general population to monitor a user’s heart rate or other types of biometric information has increased with advances in sensing technology. In some examples, sensing devices may be capable of measuring the heart rate of a person while they are exerting themselves in a physical activity such as running, and may alert the person if the heart rate varies outside of a desired range.

In some cases, sensing devices may be used for pulse oximetry, which may be an effective and quick way to monitor heart and lung function of a person. These pulse oximetry devices may be capable of evaluating the color of blood as the amount of oxygen carried by the hemoglobin may affect the color of blood. Apple wants the Apple Watch to serve as, among many other things, a pulse oximetry device to measure the oxygenation of the user’s blood.

Summary of the patent

Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “A wearable device is described. The wearable device includes a housing having a back cover, and an optical mask on first portions of the back cover. The back cover includes a set of windows, with a first subset of windows in the set of windows being defined by an absence of the optical mask on second portions of the back cover, and a second subset of windows in the set of windows being inset in a set of openings in the back cover. An optical barrier surrounds each window in the second subset of windows. A set of light emitters is configured to emit light through at least some of the windows in the set of windows. A set of light detectors is configured to receive light through at least some of the windows in the set of windows.”