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Over the weekend, Apple informed some users who signed up to its Apple Watch Heart Study that their contributions were complete.
An app notification thanked them for their participation and asked them to complete an exit-survey about the study, which first launched in November 2017.
The study in collaboration with Stanford Medicine was offered to anyone in the United States who was 22 years older with an iPhone 5s or later and an Apple Watch Series 1 or later. Atrial fibrillation, a common form of heart arrhythmia that is covered in the study, can indicate serious medical conditions like heart failure and stroke.
Participants were instructed to download and install the Apple Heart Study app and wear their Apple Watch. When an irregular heart beat is detected, a consultation with a Study Telehealth provider from American Well is offered, with some people asked to wear an ePatch monitor for up to seven days for further investigation.
Apple closed the study to new participants at the beginning of last month. In a prior announcement, Apple said the study would not end until January 1, 2019, but it looks as though the participants who received the notifications over the weekend all enrolled early, suggesting that data collection is winding down over stages as the end date approaches.
Rumors have suggested that 2018 Apple Watch Series 4 models will include enhanced heart rate detection features that could improve the smartwatch's ability to detect diseases linked to higher heart rates and abnormal heart rhythms, but what form the enhanced heart rate features will take remains unclear.
Design wise, the Apple Watch Series 4 looks similar to the Series 3 models, but the display will be bigger, allowing more space for watch faces and complications, as confirmed last week in an image leaked by Apple.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)I am just saying that it sucks all smartwatches only show current heart rate and never analyze heart rhythm and I wish Apple finally added this so it becomes a standard.
The reason they don't is because they need data first. It's surprising, but the medical field really doesn't have a lot of data on "normal" because the data was really hard, if not impossible, to get. What are people's normal heart rate? What if you're really big? Really small? They have no idea, for the most part.I'll bet it's unclear how accurate the sensors are, because to do that you have to compare your data against a known standard, and there isn't one. Do you really want to walk around with a nurse all day calibrating your sensor against a manually-measured value?
And even though the data from all these sensors is an amazing trove of data, but even you still need to correlate it.
The good thing is Apple and its partners are starting to do that.
Whew! I thought you meant it *ended* early for them.
Yeah I'm talking to you from down below.[doublepost=1535997832][/doublepost]
Not sure the heart sensor works all that well for people with heart murmur. I was jogging at 165 then all of a sudden it reported 85. I think not.
It does that for lots of people especially when you are moving around. When it does that the lower number is usually about half of the actual rate I have found.